A skeleton is the bones in the body that hold us together, in art a skeleton is what holds the drawing together. I will draw two different types of skeleton the first is the manikin skeleton, a wooden-like structure where we break down the body into parts. This skeleton is a teacher's favorite because it clearly illustrates the proportions of a person.
You can skip this step if you want to. Just scroll down until you see the @. To draw the manikin you need to know how to draw its shapes and joints. The joints are the shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, and ankles. All the joints are represented with a circle. The hip and shoulder joints are the biggest and the joints get gradually smaller until you hit the hands or feet. Try drawing an arm and a leg in this style. The shapes in between are just ovals that also get gradually thinner and they head toward the extremities.

@ Now that you understand the basics we'll start on a whole person. Start with a blank sheet of paper and draw an eight inch (about 20cm) line down the side, estimate if you have to.
This is how tall you person will be, this way we all will have the same sizes to work with. Now I want to look at this manikin and try to draw it.

Proportions always surprise younger artists. The legs are just as long as you upper body and head put together, and you arms are so long that the tips of your fingers reach halfway to your knees! Cool huh?
You can use a pen and draw a real person over top of this. But what if you didn't have a handy manikin to draw from and were using a picture? Yes this is good, let's do this.
When you want a figure to move, reach, or jump can you still draw it? The easiest way to learn is too look off a picture of a person. Art is 72% sight and having a source will always help. I want us all to use the same picture so I found one for us. Draw the same 'wooden' shapes as before.

No matter what the pose is, there is always a simple way to block it out. Remember to ignore clothing and try to find the figure under it. Then you can trash the original photo and make all the changes you want. Maybe she's a he. I did that to my friend Mike, I drew him into a fearie, at lest it won a ribbon in the art show. I didn't have any skin tone pencils with more or I would finish the drawing. Try changing it around a little your self.