The body Keep the basics in mind every time you reach for your pencil. First off, you need to know how each limb measures up to the rest of the body. The average human body length can be divided up into between

roughly 7 and 7 1/2 vertical sections. Each of these sections is based on the height of the person's head. We do not make this stuff up - grab a friend and measure their head. Here are a few examples of people, of all different heights and shapes.

You can see that each adult person can be roughly 'divided' into 7-7.5 regions based on the length of their head. Conversely, children will be more likely 4 or 5 heads tall depending on their age:

Pay attention to where the limbs and joints fall within our 'head scale'. You will notice that each person's elbows are parallel to their waists. Their hands reach somewhere between upper and mid-thigh. You can see the waist of each person falls somewhere in the 4th 'section', and the knees are somewhere around the 6th. Each person's shoulders are roughly 1 head-length wide, too.

All of this answers one of the oldest questions out there: why are artists always holding their pencils out at arms' length squinting when drawing a figure? Well, they're evaluating those proportions, and getting the balance and perspective of their model marking the pencil with their thumb.

By using their pencil as a 'ruler', the artist can mark out where each limb of the model falls compared to the rest of their body. It's a quick and easy technique that can be used to determine the proportion of the figure you are drawing.