Bits and Bobs- Anatomy Continued

If you have any specific questions, or would like to see me solve any specific 'problems', please leave a comment, and I can accomodate.

When I'm breaking down anatomy for characters, this is usually how I begin.  These days, an adult will average seven heads tall.   When I say 'seven heads tall', I mean that if you were to stack seven of the character's headlengths end to end, you would end up with the height of the character.  For tall, lanky characters, I may have seven and a half or even eight head heights.  Children's bodies have fewer headlengths in proportion to their body, so you may get 6-3 heads, depending on the age.

In general, adult female characters have hips as wide as their shoulders, whereas male characters have shoulders that are much wider than their hips.  Guys tend to be more angular than girls, who have soft curves as opposed to sharp angles.  You can express this in the arms, elbows, legs, hands, knees, feet, and ankles.  Male neck muscles tend to ride up higher on the neck than female neck muscles, and they have more pronounced shoulder muscles.

Children are pretty androgynous in regards to basic body shape until they hit puberty.

 I think that people with cartoony styles should particularly pay attention to facial construction.  There's a lot of drawing through and pre drawing before I even solidify any features.

 Cartoony faces can have a lot of squash and stretch- this really helps exaggerate the expressions and makes them fun.  A cartoony face with little squash or stretch tends to become static and boring, a poor caricature of life.

 Your characters should have distinctive features and be recognizeable even without their bodies or hair.  When I'm exploring a character or an emotion, I may zoom in on specific traits- the eyes, the way the eyebrows interact with the eyes, the mouth, or the nose, to better understand what I'm trying to convey.