Skeleton drawings need not be overly complicated.
Although the human skeleton has more than 200 bones, rendering a convincing skeleton body doesn't require drawing all of them. Viewers of your finished work will recognize a skeleton after seeing only selected features. These include the thin lines of the skinless bones; the hoops of the rib cage; and the gaping holes for the eyes and nose. These features should be drawn on a plausible structure that includes supporting bones that are reasonably accurate in size and shape.
Instructions
1. Begin drawing the skeleton by drawing a large letter "T." The top of the "T" will represent the shoulders and should be at least 3 inches long. The stem of the "T" should curve slightly, and be noticeably longer than the top of the "T."
Draw the "T" fairly close to the top of your drawing paper, but leave enough room for the skull to be drawn later. Center the "T" to ensure there is enough room for the rest of the skeleton.
2. Draw ribs as a column of open ovals surrounding the spine. Place the lowest oval at the same level as the middle of the "T" stem.
3. Draw the hips as follows: At the base of the "T" stem, lightly draw a squat, three-dimensional bowl or bucket. Draw this bucket as two ovals, one above the other. The higher oval should be noticeably larger than the lower. Connect the two ovals with a pair of nearly vertical lines. Draw these lines on the outer left and right of the ovals.
4. Extend an upside-down "L" down from the left side of the hip, to form the thigh bone. Make the horizontal part of the "L" much shorter than the vertical segment. Surround the joint between the horizontal and vertical lines with a small circle for added realism. Ensure the vertical portion of the "L" bows slightly toward the front of the body.
5. Extend a corresponding bone on the right side of the hip. Make this bone a mirror image of the bone you drew in the previous step.
6. Extend two lines down from both the left and right thigh bones. These will form the tibia and fibula (the front and rear bones of the lower leg). Bow the lines slightly toward the rear of the body.
7. Draw the left and right feet. Begin by drawing a wide, upside-down "V," whose corner joins with bottom of the leg bones. Fill in the "V" with short line segments to represent the toe-bone structures.
8. Going back to the top, slightly extend the vertical part of the stem to form the neck.
9. Draw the skull as a ball whose bottom front has a box attached. Make the eye sockets as large, dark ovals, and make the mouth as two parallel, horizontal lines on the front face of the box. Draw several vertical segments from the top to the bottom line to depict teeth.
10. Draw a dark, upward-pointing triangle between the eye sockets and mouth, to show the nose cavity.
11. Extend lines down from the ends of the "T" crossbar to form the left and right upper arms. These should reach to two-thirds down the length of the stem of the "T."
12. Draw a pair of parallel lines down from both left and right upper arms, to form the forearm bones. Make these the same length as the upper arm bones.
13. Complete the skeleton by adding finger bones, drawn as short line segments emerging from the bottom of the forearm bones.
