I have a fat character I want to draw but she ends up looking weird no matter how hard I try... :< Do you know any tutorials on how to draw larger people?
I can totally understand your frustration. Weāre taught to draw thin bodies a lot more often and thoroughly than weāre taught to draw fat ones, so learning how to draw larger bodies can definitely be a struggle, even for fat artists. But Iāve rustled up some links that should hopefully prove useful to you and other artists dealing with the same problem.
Hereās a pretty good one that covers different fat body variations and includes larger fat girls: āTutorial - Curves on Girlsā
Once you get past the part about abs this oneās got some really good information and reference on how to draw how fat looks realistically: āUnderstanding Anatomy VIIā (that whole tutorial series looks to be helpful on drawing anatomy, so I recommend checking the other parts out too)
This one doesnāt cover larger fats, but it does have some good stuff about distributions of fat on the body and variations on fatness: āVarying Your Body Typesā
Hereās a short, not-terribly-thorough one (thatās got some complaints in it on unrealistic depictions of fatness in fat-fetishistic art, just fyi), but which makes good points on incorporating gravity into depictions of fatness so the fat doesnāt look like balloons: āHow To Draw Fat Womenā
This oneās a short tutorial (that has minor problematic language) about how to draw waists thatās inclusive of smaller fat bodies. āFemale Waist Tutorialā
A short tutorial about drawing hips, inclusive of smaller fat hips. Not a lot to it, but helpful to glance over. āFemale Hip Tutorialā
āDrawing Fat on the Body is a video tutorial that covers some helpful advice on how to draw fat bodies building off of prior knowledge of drawing thin bodies. Doesnāt cover different types of fat bodies/fat distribution and has some other imperfections, but a decent beginner starting point. ā (contains some mild problematic language)
āHow to Draw Fat Bodiesā Hereās a short post with some good general tips to keep in mind when attempting to draw fat people.
Another short, general guide on drawing fat bodies, with some good example of different fat body types. āGuide to Drawing Fat Bodiesā
A short guide with tips on drawing fat athletes/strong fat characters.
A basic tutorial on adding fat onto the general torso area of the body.
(One of the sadder parts of finding these was sifting through different tutorials and finding ones that were teaching how to draw really inaccurate or over-simplified fat anatomy, or included really fatphobic language or commentary in the tutorial =.=)
This post links to a handful of helpful galleries of photo reference of fat women posing: āRe: Fat and Chubby Women Photo Referencesā
Hereās a Site which contains lots of pictures of different women searchable by height, age, weight, etc. that looks really helpful: āMy Body Gallery.comā
A site with a lot of great full-body pictures of people organized by their height and weight (referential to the bs BMI system, but still great art reference) āCockeyed: Height / Weightā
Otherwise, if you want to search for fat reference on tumblr, Iād suggest looking through tags and blogs that often contain selfies/photos of fat people, since when youāre trying to learn how fat actually looks, nothing is more accurate reference for it than the real thing.
HOWEVER, you must be respectful in your use of these tags or blogs for reference!!!! As in DO NOT draw people straight out of any photos you find and post your work unless you get permission from the subjects youāve drawn and/or their photographers. If you do draw random people you see in the tag, then treat your drawings as practice/study and confine whatever you make to your sketchbook for your own eyes.
But I do wholly advocate looking at all sorts of images of fat people and really paying attention to all the different ways their fat manifests itself and looks, and then practicing drawing figures inspired by what youāve observed.
(please note that some of these tags and blogs listed below may contain nudity/nsfw content:)
Tags containing fat selfies/photography: #fatshion, #fatspo, #fatspiration
Blogs containing fat selfies/photography: The Adipositivity Project,Ā Fat Selfiesteem, Fat Grrrrl Selfies, Chubby Fatshion, Fuck Yeah Chubby Fashion, Chubby Bunnies, Chubby Guy Swag, Big Guy Flyy, Gorgeous Plus Lolita
Blogs containing art of fat or at least ānot thinā people: Fat People Art, Fat Art
(If you see your blog linked to above and would rather it not be pointed to as a place to find reference of fat bodies, just let me know and Iāll take it off right away.)
Anyways, hope this helps! And if you know of, find, or make any more tutorials, references sources, etc., please do message me with the links to be added onto this post!!!Ā Iāll update this as I find/receive more stuff to add.
(Updated: 5/31/15 with 8 new additions to the fat drawing tutorial and fat reference photo sections)