Drawing people: Five illustrators with the human touch

As many an artist will tell you, illustrating people is one of the hardest skills to learn. Although it seems to come naturally to some – inherent talent, you could say – the reality is that it's an ability learned through practice, patience and observation until, eventually… perfection!

Or not, as the case may be. Because the curious thing about drawing people is that the harder you try to make your figurative drawing realistic, the more people scrutinise the image. Your audience consists of human beings, after all. People know what their bodies, hands, faces, and limbs look like and can just tell when something isn't right.

So, it's a curious fact of being an illustrator that when you take your figurative drawing in a more expressive, exaggerated, and unrealistic direction, new opportunities open up to you. Art directors don't necessarily want perfection; they want illustrations of people that communicate, resonate, command attention, and mean something to the viewer.

The artists we're looking at here have that rare ability. The people they draw aren't anatomically correct down to molecular level, but they're rendered with a human touch, and that's one of the things that makes these illustrators stand out. The other is that they can consistently deliver their individual drawing styles to their clients. Each artist has a one-of-a-kind aesthetic, and yet each can create work in that look time and again.

Let's check out their work and learn more about their creative approaches to drawing people.

Yvette Earl

Based in the North of England, Yvette Earl is loved by many clients for her architectural drawings, but for us, the way she illustrates people is really eye-catching. Drawing in Procreate and then upping the colour dynamics in Photoshop, she's winning work from fashion and lifestyle clients such as Union Clothing, Carhartt, and Goodhood.

"Drawing people took a lot of practice, and I'm still learning and developing this skill. I spent much time drawing people in different poses and creating outfits for them. I love the fashion aspect of it. I work from photo references; this includes photographing myself sometimes if I'm looking for a particularly tricky pose," says Yvette.

Tatyana Alanis

Originally from California but now working out of Forth Worth, Texas, Tatyana Alanis is a rising star in American illustration who also goes by the name French 75 Studios. Already, she has household names such as Google, Walmart and the LA Times on her client list. The way she draws people is one of the reasons behind her growing success – simple, soft and nostalgic. There's enough realism there in terms of proportions to indicate she's worked hard developing this skill – along with reading plenty of Golden Age comic books and watching cartoons.

"When I had the opportunity to work with the Dallas Stars, they invited me to a few games so I could take pictures of the crowd and ambience. They wanted me to understand ice hockey and be a part of the community that they have in Dallas. From there, I started sketching out a large, excited crowd that I felt encapsulated the Stars fanbase. I went through a round of revisions, and then we went to print. Most local projects I've worked on go like this," says Tatyana.

Kyle Platts

Like Yvette, Kyle Platts is based in the North of England, and like Alyana, he has a deep appreciation of comic book art. However, departing from a realistic approach, he creates characters in his own unique style that resembles early cartoons and newspaper comic strips, giving them a contemporary twist. Pulling a few lines here and there, he deftly creates their expressions and adds to the feeling by suggesting how they'll move through their posture.

"I enjoy the physical comedy in character design and making the tone of the character match whatever absurd situation I put them in. More recently, I've been spending a lot of time animating my characters, and that's where it gets tricky. Now I also have to consider how they move, which has added a whole new dimension to characters and their personalities," says Kyle.

Alxndra Cook

Sometimes, it's the detail you include in an image that makes it charming, but often, what an artist leaves out makes the work memorable. Alxndra Cook is an English illustrator who draws figuratively to realistic proportions but dares to go very minimal with facial features. A simple dot or row of eyelashes will often do for the eyes, and this unique approach is putting her name on awards shortlists.

"When I started my illustration practice, I primarily drew simple, cute, stylised characters based on animals or inanimate objects. After getting my first iPad and receiving requests from a new client, I felt inspired to develop my style and began practising drawing with the aim of drawing more realistic people, but I wanted to retain the simplicity of my original style. Over time, my style evolved to become more detailed, and I dropped the fun little characters, working on a style to attract an older demographic but preserving the simplicity in my work with a focus on my form and line," says Alxndra.

Ryan Gillett

Brighton-based illustrator Ryan Gillett draws like an old-school cartoonist – each line is like a gesture committed to paper, and in just a few strokes, a human form comes together that we can quickly relate to. It all seems so effortless, but the reality is anything but. Even in a 'loose' style like this, getting people right can be tricky. However, it's a trick Ryan has mastered as he hops between sketchbooks, Procreate and Photoshop, illustrating for clients from Wolff Olins and The Guardian through to skateboard companies.

"It's not like I sit on a park bench drawing people as they go by, but I do believe that when a drawing is complete, you can tell if something is off. Whether it's a leg that is too long or a hand is on the wrong arm, it's just a case of try and try again. There's a lot of trial and error.

"If I am unfortunate enough to find myself in the illustrators' wormhole, I can end up drawing a couple of hundred of the same image until it's exactly how I want it to be," says Ryan.