Leg Drawing Reference For Character Design

Leg Anatomy Guide

Whether you shoot from the hip or start at the top of the toes, a decent understanding of human anatomy can go a long way toward drawing effective legs in character design. Taking advantage of understanding mechanics, and leveraging things such as leg pose references and leg muscle references, can facilitate your character design process. Much like our previous coverage on arm anatomy drawing, let’s work our way through the structure of a leg, and get just enough anatomy to aid us down the line.

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Hip Joint

The hip joint is where the leg connects to the torso. Understanding how the body connects here is vital to drawing convincing leg references. Mechanically speaking, the leg connects to the torso at the hip through a ball and socket joint. Specifically, the head of the femur slots into a rounded groove in the hip (or pelvis) that gives the leg plenty of potential motion, though even that can have its limits. This ball and socket design’s flexibility is limited by the need to provide balance and support for the entire upper body.

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Much of the time, the range of motion of the hip joint is fairly large, with the most obvious limitation being the leg only being able to rotate back so far because of the presence of the butt muscles. The leg can move more forward than backward in most cases, and depending on flexibility, can travel a decent distance horizontally. Your character concept will dictate the relative flexibility of the leg and joint.

When taking into account the potential range of motion of the hip joint, a character’s center of balance can change fairly dramatically based on the motion of the leg. We’ll need to cover the center of balance in character design art another time, but remember that the leg that bears the weight determines the center of balance.

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Thigh

The thigh, also known as the upper leg, is a collection of thick muscles around a central bone known as the femur. The femur is one of the largest bones in the body and the accumulation of muscle around it helps to bear the weight of the human body. A thin upper leg in character design can carry all sorts of indications about a character’s strength, as leg muscles develop fairly easily from simple walking.

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As for the muscle groups that make up the thighs, there are many, but for drawing character anatomy, there are a few to consider: hamstrings, quadriceps, and adductors. The gluteus, everyone’s favorite muscle group, is a special case of its own, extending from the back of the hip to the top of the thigh.

The Hamstrings

The hamstrings are three muscles on the back of the thigh that help the knees to bend. As leg muscle references for drawings go, you only need to detail two to get the effect of muscle definition. Specifically, you want a triangular divot rising from the back of the knee with two large muscles converging. That more or less covers the structure of the hamstrings.

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When drawing a leg from a side angle, the hamstrings stick out a bit but rarely stick out as much as the gluteal (butt) muscles. However, these can be emphasized for character design purposes as needed. Yes, the butt can be seen as a character design fundamental.

The Quadriceps

Looking at the front of the leg, the quadriceps are a series of four muscles that make up the thigh. When drawing them for leg anatomy, the main focus will be along the outside of the leg because the “vastus lateralis” tends to be the muscle most emphasized when drawing a more defined leg. If the outer side of the leg has a bump or arch to it, that represents that specific muscle in the quadriceps.

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The Adductors

The adductors are the inner thigh muscles and lend a lot of shape to the upper leg. They also can be a bit of a shortcut for more feminine characteristics in a character design. In that case, if the adductors taper off toward the top of the thigh, just under the groin, you wind up with a gap which is generally coded as more feminine. For a more masculine leg design reference, reduce that potential gap.

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Knee Joint

When drawing the knee, you have two things to consider. The first is the patella or the knee cap. Generally, this is readily seen across any sort of leg design. So no matter the leg anatomy reference or character design you are looking at, the patella is usually visible. It can also be represented as abstract or detailed which benefits the character design. A simple curved line does wonder, while a more squared-off shape can create more definition.

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On the back of the knee is a pit framed by tendons. Like the knee cap varying the detail can affect the detail of the knee drawing and indicate the bend and stress the joint is under. A simple line on the back of the leg could be enough for many character designs, or to show a leg at rest. Detailing the tendons and creating a triangular pit shape can represent more defined anatomy, either through body conditioning or the stress the leg is under.

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Calf

There are numerous elements of leg anatomy to consider with the lower leg, but in cartooning or character design, you’ll likely be most focused on the calf, of the large muscles on the anterior (back) of the leg. The lower leg benefits greatly from shape language in character design, and the sharpness or softness of a line can have incredible weight on how the leg is read in a design.

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For example, a harder, square shape regarding the calf muscle can imply something masculine or particularly conditioned. For example, if a character has a concept of “leg day” their lower legs will probably be a little harsher and more angular. On the other hand, rounded, softer shapes can imply femininity or a lack of muscle. Less volume in the calf can also imply a relative level of strength, through a simple, curved line that tapers down toward the ankle.

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Ankle Joint

Mechanically speaking, the ankle joint can be very complex, similar to, but distinct enough from, the hip joint. There are a lot of ways to approach drawing the ankle joint. However, the amount of detail is more or less set by the overall aesthetic of a character. With that said, two things can help when drawing an ankle.

First, detailing an ankle comes down to drawing a line or two. A simple curved line representing the ankle can be enough for most cases while adding a second adds more complexity for relatively little extra work. Why not just always draw an ankle with two lines, however? Well, sometimes dialing back detail results in more drawing consistency, and if you are ever working in sequential art, such as animation and comics, starting with less and going for more for emphasis adds a lot. A single line works 90% of the time. But that extra 10% can come in handy when emphasizing something, such as a leg in motion.

Second, the visible ankle joint on the inside of the ankle is a little higher up than the one on the outside of the leg. You’ll see that reflected in a lot of leg anatomy drawings. Also, don’t forget to take in the angle of the leg if you are working on a reference sheet.

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Foot

Ah, the feet. A challenge so infamous that one of the most popular comic artists of the 90s found ways not to draw them as often as he could. Not drawing feet is a pretty common tradition in comic art, and for good reason: the feet kind of suck to draw.

So much so that in the case of our article here, we’re going to draw very basic feet, but leave that rather complex subject to its own article. Here’s how to draw some feet when you’re in a hurry or plan to redraw them later.

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Drawing Male and Female Legs

In character design, leg anatomy traits can be made more feminine and masculine by simple techniques. Consider the tropes themselves beyond looking at male leg drawing references and comparing them to female legs. Typically in character design language, people read softer, curvier shapes as more feminine, whereas harder, more angular shapes are read as masculine. Throughout the article, we’ve mentioned some of these elements.

So how does this apply to drawing a leg? Further, what if your character isn’t so far on either end of the spectrum? You can easily mix and match elements to give your character some shape that reflects the design elements that you want to convey. Further, the legs alone aren’t doing all the work. Combining the shape and proportion of the legs that work with or against the rest of the body can result in bold character design.

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Leg Anatomy References

Finding references for legs to draw might appear a little sus if anyone combs through your search history, so we’re here to help with some examples. As we have in the past, we suggest looking to Posemaniacs as a resource. The realistic 3D anatomical models can be very helpful in understanding the underlying muscles and anatomy under the skin of the leg. Plus, the variety of poses means you can draw a leg at nearly every angle and range of motion.

Secondly, if you want to draw legs in a certain style, digging up references in the form of screenshots or production design documents can be worth your time. If you are aiming to draw from existing character designs, it makes sense to see how your favorite cartoons, anime, and video games handle the tricky task of designing legs. Just be sure not to copy, and if you are heavily inspired, be sure to credit the source.

Showing a Little Leg on CharacterHub

Are you feeling pretty confident in your leg drawings? Does your latest OC not skip leg day? Why not share the results of your hard work in character design by including their reference art in a character profile on CharacterHub?

CharacterHub is the ultimate character organizer, allowing you to share not only every important thing about your OC that you want people to know but also as many art references as you can draw. You can even do social posts to share your character design process.

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