How To Draw A Warrior Fighting

Ok, so I did a hub earlier on drawing a sword warrior, now I will show you a warrior in an action pose, using the sword!

As usual I'm staring with construction. I almost always start with the head -especially when putting a figure in an action pose. The angle and tilt of the head will have a lot to do with how the torso and limbs will go. When you draw a lot of human figures, you will get a feel for the figure's balance. And sometimes you will put them off balance (my warrior here is slightly off balance -he's sort of leaning back a little).

I put a bit more into the construction than my other hubs on drawing a basic figure, because this is closer to how I normally work -I usually blend construction and rough detail lines into one. It all depends on the mood I'm in and what I'm drawing. This sketch has a bit more detail in the armour so I started on that when I did the initial construction.

Now an easy way to draw chain-mail armour is just a straight cross-hatch, but don't continue the lines from one part of the outfit all the way to the other. Do it in small sections so you can change the angle of the lines to follow the contours of the body. It also makes it look heavier when it changes direction in sections.

The plate-mail armour, I left almost all white so it contrasts against the chain-mail. I just used a bit of block-shading here and there to give it a slightly metallic look (probably could have done a bit better on that actually)

Make sure when you are drawing, to "draw through". The example in this picture is the sword handle in the warrior's hand. When you first draw that, you draw right through his hand to make sure that you line up on the other side and to make sure that it's straight! Then you just rub it out later.

Near the end, and I'm darkening lines, erasing more construction lines and adding some darker shading -like under the armpits and under some parts of his armour and helmet. I sneaked in a little trick in this last stage too. If you look at picture 2 you will notice that his torso looks a bit narrow in proportion to the rest of his figure -that's because it is! So I widened it by drawing a wider armour line and then just started the block shading from there.

Well, there's your warrior fighting. Hope he wins!