How to Draw Soldiers
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Ok, let's start off with a side view of a modern soldier's helmet and camera gear. To begin, draw a circle in the middle of the image area. Bisect the circle with a straight line. Draw a semi-circle shape on the bottom of the image for the torso, and
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We're going to draw the basic shape of the helmet now. The shape is generally a half circle from the side, but there are a few extra curves that help it fit the shape of the human head. The helmet hangs a bit lower on the back of the head.
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Draw in a face of your choosing. I went with a masculine character, so I used strong shapes for the nose and chin. A section of padding hangs over the ear. Draw a strap connecting from here to below the chin.
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Add a few more straps to make sure this guy's helmet stays put on his head. Go ahead and draw in the eye, cheek and other facial details.
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Though the helmet is undoubtedly hard, it seems to be covered with fabric. That gives us some seams to draw. Keep in mind the round shape of the helmet when you draw these lines. The seams on the left will curve out to the left. The same goes for the
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Draw in the rest of the shoulder, thinking about wrinkles and seams that define the shape of the cloth. The clothing is heavily padded, so think of a pillow, almost. Draw in part of a backpack as well. You can add a buckle to the chin strap and a few
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Draw some pouches on the back of the helmet. There's also a box that sits on top of the helmet, held on by what looks like a velcro strap. This is either a battery pack, a digital relay device, or both.
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Now we'll outline the mounted camera. Begin with the parts that lock on to the front of the helmet. Draw the attachment point, and then outline the camera itself on top of that. This is basically a cylinder shape, but a little fancier. Unless you're
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Using reference, draw in the details of the camera, including textured bands and whatnot. Add screws and additional details to the mounting arm, and draw the eyepiece hanging below. This will be covering the soldier's right eye, so part of this will
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You can't have electronics mounted on your head without having some cords. There are cords running from the camera to the eye piece, to whatever relays the images back to base. There are cords running from the audio headset. There are cords everywher
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At this stage everything's drawn, but you have to go in and find all the overlapping lines that need to be cleaned up. The biggest offenders here are the microphone and power cords. If you're using a computer, zoom in and use the eraser to clean this
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The finished artwork.
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Now we're going to move on to the full body figure. For the underdrawing, start off with a pillow shape for the torso, and add the head and legs. Our soldier will be holding a gun, so indicate that with a triangular shape, and place the hands using c
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For the actual line art, it's best to draw "covering" items first. That means the helmet and gun. For a hand gun, you can probably draw the palm and lower fingers of the hand first. For a rifle, though, it's better to draw the gun itself and figure o
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...and that's exactly what you can do here. Also draw some straps on the helmet. These will outline the shape of the face, and from there you can draw the neck.
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This may seem like a big jump, but it's not as hard as it may look. Start by drawing the collar of the shirt/coat, and the cuffs around the wrists. From there, just use curves to outline the fabric on the arm. Remember the fabric on the inside of the
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Now you get to draw some fun pouches. Military characters tend to carry a lot of gear, so they need a place to store it. Sometimes the number of pouches becomes ridiculous, but that's just how it works. These pouches cover the entire stomach area, bu
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Here you can just draw the outline of the soldier's pants. They're extremely baggy, so use a lot of intersecting curves. Wrinkles will fan out from the crotch area, and will also form below the knee where the fabric bunches up on top of the boot.
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Speaking of which, it's now time to draw the boots. Start with the basic outline, and then add the details. Show wrinkles at the ankle, and draw seams on either side of where the laces will be.
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Now it's time for some serious wrinkles. The drawing is pretty simple overall, but these lines will really transform it. The best way to understand how to draw folds in clothing is to observe people wearing clothing. There are some books you can lear
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Working from the top of the drawing, let's add the mounted camera and all its cords. When something technological is this small in a drawing, you can simplify it a bit. You don't want to spend forever drawing every little detail if nobody's going to
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The finished line art. Check up at the top for the colored image.
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Just for fun, let's take a look at how US soldiers used to dress. Although a lot has changed, the basics are still pretty much the same. Start off with a basic underdrawing using the pillow torso and skeleton arms and legs. Then, (after getting some
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There's a ring of padding inside the helmet, and chin straps that outline the face. The shirt is basically just a standard men's shirt. The difference between this and the modern military wear is that these are much more form-fitting. I guess the poo
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Grab some reference and draw in the rifle hanging over the soldier's shoulder (tongue-twister). Follow that by drawing the chest pockets on his shirt. After that, it's time for wrinkles and seams again. I tried to give this guy an old, pre-modern car
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The final greyscale image. The actually uniform would have been olive drab, which is to say it was mostly green. Think of those little army men toys... they still make those, right? Anyway, I used an old photo texture from deviantART. Check out the l
