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E.J Sue’s “Mechaforce” is one of the few “How to Draw” books I would point newbies looking to get into drawing robots to. It emphasizes knowing the basics (Very difficult to draw a robot properly if you can’t use perspective) and fundamental shapes and even arm techniques, and gives a neat insight into how mechanical forms work in art. 

These are just a few of the examples from the anatomy section of the book. It’s currently on sale on Amazon and worth checking out, though I will note it is not a “be all end all” resource, thankfully you can fill in your knowledge gaps elsewhere. 

Head Advice #1: Everybody’s head is the same size.

Okay, not really, but basically. There’s a reason you don’t have to know your head circumference to find a sunhat. We all have pretty similar head sizes, especially from the visual distance we usually draw characters.

The only exception to this is babies or children under 10. Those guys definitely have smaller heads! (But did you know our skulls are already over 90% their full adult size by the age of 5?)

Different style choices demand different proportions, but in general, it’s good advice to pick a head size, and stick with it!

Head Advice #2: You can use head size to indicate a character’s size.

Big characters don’t look like average sized people scaled up. And you can’t just scale down to get a small person!

You can make a character look very big and tall or very very small — even if they are standing alone in a vast white nothingness — just by how how they are proportioned! The most important proportion (in my humble opinion) is their head size. Look me in the eyes and tell me you can’t tell which of these characters are big and which are small.

Head Advice #3: Don’t go shrinking anyone’s head.

The most common head sins I see happen when an artist is trying to indicate (body) size difference in a couple, and use their heads to do it. The result is an image that looks something like this:

If you don’t want your lovers to look like they belong in different animated tv shows, don’t go shrinking anyone’s head! Use their bodies (hands and feet and bellies and muscles) to show off their size differences.

I was drawing this spicy little tiefling today, and thought I might use her to demonstrate what I mean. Here is the original sketch. I wanted her to look like she’s a little on the shorter end… maybe 5’3” or 5’4”. She’s a powerful business woman and doesn’t need to be tall to get it done.

Watch what happens when I shrink her head by the smallest amount. Immediately it goes from

“oh, feisty little thing”

to

“Mommy? Sorry. Mommy?”

I only changed her shoulders to be a little slimmer, and shrunk her head. That’s all. And now she looks 6 feet tall. To increase the effect, you can also shrink hands and feet a little (although I didn’t here).

Now watch me make her 4 feet tall with the opposite moves. Bigger head, wider limbs and body, bigger hands and feet.

Keep in mind that the reason we can just resize heads here is because she is alone in a vast white nothingness. What we are really doing is altering her proportions. If she were with other characters or in a scene, her head size shouldn’t change, it would be everything else that does.

Maybe this helps? Art skill is 98% practice, so just try stuff! That’s all I’m ever doing over here, so 🤷🏼‍♀️