Wooden Gifts Guide: Drawing Realistic Human Figures & Clothes

In this post, we’re continuing our guide on how to draw when making human-shaped wooden gifts. Last time, we already sketched out the figure’s outer outline, but the front view isn’t fully complete yet, and we still need to add details like folds in the clothes and pants. So today, let’s learn how to draw the internal outlines of the figurine!

Drawing clothing details on a human-shaped wooden gift

First, using the centerline as a guide, the collar starts from the back of the neck and folds over toward the bottom right.

The armpit is roughly aligned with the center, and it’s covered by a fold in the clothing. We can see that the jacket is turned outward, and the inner shirt should be visible.

From the front, the right arm leans slightly to the side. Once we draw the arm, the hand becomes easy to place.

We noticed that the bottom of the hand lines up with the bottom edge of the jacket, so it’s a good idea to make the hand stand out a bit when you draw it. That way, when it’s time to carve, you won’t get confused about where it begins and ends.

Drawing pants details on a human-shaped wooden gift

Next, we again use the pubic bone as a reference point. The figurine’s hips are right below that, so let’s make a small mark there. Then the legs extend out just slightly in an open stance.

We can see the character is wearing straight-leg pants, and the cuffs are fairly narrow. The left leg is the same, though it looks a bit wider because the hand is in the pocket—but both legs are the same thickness.

Looking at the bottom, the pants are cuffed, showing a bit of the ankle, and then the shoes. We usually leave about 1 cm of space for the shoes. So if you measure 1 cm up from the bottom, that’s where the pant cuffs should go. The ankle, of course, is narrower than the pant legs, and the lowest part is the heel.

Why are we drawing the foot like this? Looking at it from the bottom up, this is more or less what the foot looks like.

When someone is standing naturally, their toes tend to point slightly outward. If we extend that outward angle, you’ll see it looks just like this:

From the front view, if you want to make the feet look like real human feet, you can’t just follow a flat 2D sketch.

And with that, the general layout of the figure is complete—pretty simple, right? When it’s time to start cutting, you’ll trim away all the wood outside of the outline.

Remember how we mentioned earlier that the figure’s left arm is turned outward? Right now, the wood block doesn’t have enough room on the left side to fit that outward arm—but that’s okay. Once you cut away the extra wood, you can just glue on a small piece of wood on the left arm area and redraw the guidelines.