Illustration Tutorial: How to Draw A Female Figure

Improve your digital illustration skills, and learn tips to design dynamic female characters in this free Photoshop tutorial

The illustration process for creating male and female characters is largely the same, until it comes time to refine the shoulders and the hips of your character. While the male body typically has broader shoulders and thinner hips, for the typical female body it’s the opposite.

Georgi Georgiev (@goshun) is an illustrator and visual artist from Bulgaria who works in the movie and game industry, designing magical characters and environments. In this Photoshop tutorial, Georgi shows us his technique for creating and refining a digital illustration of a female character, step-by-step.

Ready to get illustrating? Follow along with the video below and read on for more details.

1. Create the body proportions

Draw a circle and duplicate it seven and a half times, stacking each circle on top of one another. The top circle will be the head, and the torso takes up about two circles below it. The midsection can take up a single circle, with the legs comprising the remaining three and a half circles. Quickly sketch out the general body shape, as shown.

Add smaller circles in key places to serve as the joints for your character. The elbows should fall about where the torso ends, while the knees fall in the middle of the second circle of the leg section.

2. Define the female body

Refining the shoulders and hips of your character are the most important to distinguish it from a traditionally male body. The male body typically has broader shoulders and thinner hips, while for the typical female body, it’s the opposite.

3. Get creative with your character’s positioning

To make your character’s pose more dynamic, consider altering certain areas of your sketch to resemble real-life body positions.

For example, tilting the shoulder line to the left, while tilting the hip line to the left creates a more dynamic shape to base your character's body on.

4. Sketch out the body

Merge all of the existing layers, bringing the opacity down by about 60%. Create a new layer, and using the first layer as a guide, sketch out your character.

Now’s your chance to consider what your character will be doing in the illustration. How will their legs be positioned? Will they be holding anything? Where are they looking? Let your imagination lead the way!

5. Add details and refine

Once again, merge all of the new layers, bringing the opacity down by about 60 percent. Create a new layer, and using the second layer as a guide, sketch out the entire body structure of your character first. Then start to add details to the head like the nose, eyes, and hair.

When you have a structure you are happy with, merge all of the layers into one. Go to Filter > Liquify… (Shift+Ctrl+X). Experiment with the settings to add more realistic curves to your character.

Did you enjoy this tutorial? If you’d like to learn more about drawing unique digital paintings, check out Georgi Georgiev’s online course Character Digital Painting: Creating Magical Scenes.

Continue learning about character design and illustration

- Learn how to design video game characters, the basic principles of drawing people from imagination, and more by exploring all of Domestika's character design courses.

- Pick up tips for drawing human faces and gestures like walking in a realistic way in this free PDF guide with tips and examples for how to draw people.

- Discover essential drawing techniques to create unique, complex, and richly detailed characters with free tutorials for how to draw faces and expressions.