How to Draw and Shade the Human Torso
This lesson has a premium version with extra content. Get it now!

Anatomy of the Human Body

Torso(163 Lessons )
Torso Drawing

How to Draw and Shade the Human Torso

314K
Mark as Completed

How to Draw and Shade the Human Torso

314K
Mark as Completed
Newest
Liu Bide
3mo
Martha Muniz
Hey there! Beautiful work so far, it seems like your torso studies have been paying off well :) When it comes to shading, I would recommend continuing to emphasize the core shadow, which you can do in this case by darkening it further. This can help add dimensionality and depth to the forms you are depicting, as well as bring in more contrast and readability. Hope this helps, and let me know if you have any questions!
Cernunnos
4mo
hi, this is my assignment on torso drawing :) - have a nice day - Carlo
Melanie Scearce
Amazing work!
Martin
5mo
Hey, my go on Tony's torzo..
Martin
5mo
Thank you friends, glad that you like it. Tried to learn as much as possible from the lesson, but also had moments when i forgot and just drawed, was fun..
Ash
5mo
Awesome job, Martin!
Phil
5mo
fantastic work!
Ezra
1yr
Torso full drawing! I’m not really satisfied with the shading but it’s difficult to pinpoint why. The arm muscles are also off but thats alright! I’ll learn more about them in the future lessons :) used graphite pencils of different hardness (B, 2B, 6B)
Marco Sordi
2023/12/27. Hi everybody!! Here's another diagram of the torso muscles. Thanks!
Marco Sordi
2023/12/24. Good morning everybody. Here’s another torso study. Thanks and have a good Xmas eve.
Shaun
1yr
Magnificent.
Marco Sordi
2023/12/21. Good morning everybody. Here’s a quick torso study I made today. Thanks and have a good day.
Child Granny
Here's my attempt. It doesn't feel done, but I feel like moving on for now. The gesture and face feel a bit off, as does the shading. I started out doing the blender stick smudging technique, but then watched the videos through and attempted the rest with the crosshatching technique Proko recommends. It was a great challenge, and I learned a lot! Thoughts and critiques welcome!
Valerio Capriati
Hi. I think they are all positioned correctly and are very detailed. my criticism is towards the pose, I think you could have curved the body slightly making it more interesting, so it seems very static to me and despite the beauty of all the muscles and fantastic facial details, I think it could be improved significantly with little effort
Sofi
1yr
Here´s my attempt! It was super tough but also super fun. Now I can tell I streched out his torso too much LOL. Feedback would be greatly appreciated!
Samuel Sanjaya
My process of this longer figure drawing. I attempted this before watching the demo. I wonder how proko can spread charcoal powder as smoothly as in the video, mine was hard to spread and seems to immediately stick into the paper. Any feedback/critiques will be greatly appreciated.
Myles Goethe
Peter Tinkler
This is my contribution to the human torso shading exercise. I decided to try my own source material, but I did watch the above video and found it extremely helpful. This is a charcoal sketch of a sculpture, Heracles and the Nemean Lion, from the Barber Institute in Birmingham (one of the local galleries near where I live). The main focus is the torso of course, but I admit I was drawn to the arm muscles as well. There's a bit of exaggeration and extra tonal work for drama and effect, and I did take a couple of liberties with the source material, which I hope is acceptable. I've included my general process, and my reference.
Steve Lenze
Hey Peter, This is a cool reference that has a lot of tonal variation that gives it a nice 3D feel. unfortunately this statement: "There's a bit of exaggeration and extra tonal work for drama and effect, and I did take a couple of liberties with the source material." Makes it impossible to critique. All the things I would say need attention is covered by that statement. I guess what you have to ask yourself is: what am I trying to achieve. To create an accurate drawing using the rules of light hitting an object, or, to do it the way I want. No judgement, either way is fine, it just makes it hard to critique. If you want some help understanding how light works and to achieve accuracy, let me know and I'll go over this with you :)
Sarvesh Gupta
Here's my attempt of the human torso. I'm still kinda new to shading so not that good at finishing yet. Might reattempt it later. Feedbacks are welcome
Steve Lenze
Hey Sarvesh, I can see your drawing is pretty good, the angles are good and the gesture feels pretty solid. The waist and ribcage area are a little small so always check your proportions. As far as your rendering is concerned, it is clear that you are confused by all the values presented in the reference. My solution to you is to ignore all the values you see by squinting until all you can see is two values- dark and light. Then, fill these values in and ignore all the rest. When you can do this successfully, then you can start adding middle values, dark accents and highlights. I did a quick demo to show you what I mean, hope it helps :)
Lars Trunin
Did it before looking at Stan’s demo. It’s a humbling experience — to learn how much you still have to learn. Also, I think I need to upgrade my paper. It was really fighting against the Conte pencil.
Ernesto Palma
That´s a great thing about practice, it shows you what you need to improve, so you can focus on that for the next practice and so on. If we already had all the skills developed and knowledge memorized, we wouldn´t be studying! lol I do like that you were willing to go all the way through even with difficulty, great effort bud!
necplusprocess
hello, just finished my torso drawing, any feedback appreciated
Steve Lenze
Hey necplusprocess, Nice job on your drawing. I went ahead and did a quick sketch to show you some of the things I noticed. I hope it's helpful :)
@helenkwok
2yr
25/7/2022 (1.5hr)
@kugeltisch
dayum, looks great
Bartłomiej Wójcik
Just finished
Romain Decotte
Hello :)! I have just finished drawing and shading the torso :)). I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process - thank you @Stan Prokopenko! I have attached my prep work - measurements, values and a thumbnail. I did it using a B charcoal pencil as I did not have an HB one. I find shading quite complex and challenging and still have plenty to learn. I would be most grateful if I could get some feedback @Jesper Axelsson. Onto the back muscles now :)! Happy Easter, Romain
Jesper Axelsson
Hi @Romain Decotte, nice drawing! Great job with structure and anatomy and following the process Stan suggested! - "I find shading quite complex and challenging and still have plenty to learn" I found shading to be hard too :) I didn't pay much attention to it the first few years. My goal was to learn how to draw Tarzan 🍌🦍, so all my focus went into gesture, structure and anatomy. It's only the last two years that I've been digging into shading. May I suggest something? If your goal is to be able to do work that involves shading and composition with light (basically any work except unrendered 2d animation maybe), I think I would actually recommend you to learn more about shading and composition, rather than learning more anatomy at the moment. This drawing and the work in your previous posts show that you already have a solid grip on gesture and form. If you can smack basic shading on top of that you'll be able to create awesome work, that I think will even surprise yourself. Right now, the shading weakens your drawings. I made the "mistake" of ignoring shading in the beginning. It was not a waste of time, I learned a lot of other stuff, but without knowledge of shading, I couldn't do much beyond line and wire frame drawings. Just learning the very basics of shading has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me. The course that really opened it up for me was Joseph Todorovitch's course From Painting to Canvas on NMA https://www.nma.art/courses/from-paper-to-canvas/ It showed me that when you know gesture and structure, shading is pretty easy; you map out shade and shadow, fill it in with an even tone, soften the form edges and keep edges of cast shadows sharp. I took Joseph's course during the winter and I'm currently practicing value studies, since I felt like that was my weakest point. If you want to dive deeper into shading (get answers on questions you might have, learn about values and how to invent light with even more control) Dorian Iten has a course called The Shading Course – Fundamentals of Realism, Light & Shadow (you can also find it on his website if a monthly membership suits you better https://www.theshadingcourse.com) Hope this helps :) Feel free to ask if you have any questions about my suggestion!
Mari
3yr
The Human Torso shading attempt.
@lekeisanartist
wow, it is very good
Thieum
3yr
Torso drawing attempts
Course in Parts
View course details
Give a gift
Give a gift card for art students to use on anything in the Proko store.
Or gift this course:
About instructor
Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
Help!
Browse the FAQs or our more detailed Documentation. If you still need help or to contact us for any reason, drop us a line and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!