Drawing two characters in one scene...?

[Zehna]

I want to draw two females together, one holding the other... but no matter how I start the flow of the picture just isn't right. =/ I want them to be intimate, their skin touching, etc. But for some reason it's hard for me to draw two people together.

I was wondering if anyone could give me some tips? Do you start with stick figures to get the flow, then gesture or...? I'm also working digitally but I can sketch traditionally too. Is there a difference for anyone?

[nuts]

for me its easier to draw oldschool ways if I want to show intime moments ore figures that belong to each other xD trie it

[t i m]

Well the best piece of advice I can give you if you just can't seem to get the anatomy right is to ...take a picture.

Grab a friend, set the camera's self timer and pick them up. Take a couple of shots and pick the one that best represents "the look" you were going for. Use it as a reference in PS as your drawing your piece. It will help you exponetially I'm sure. Also if you really want to be accurate you could go as far as to dress in items similiar to your character in the portraits.

In terms of drawing the characters from the reference, definetly start with the structure first break the image down into big shapes and how those shapes relate to one another in terms of proportion distance size etc. Think of it like sculpting, you can't go in and work on the details until you have the form down pat. Also when I work in PS I will sketch in a light color, very quick, loose, so my character doesn't get to static. Once I start seeing the pose that's "right" I will go in with a darker color on a new layer and trace over the lines that are good. Here is an example of what I'm talking about:

[arttorney]

It might help if you keep the figures transparent until you have firmed up your lines satisfactorily. By that I mean that, for example, the guy behind the other guy in t i m's drawing would have action lines that show through the front guy. This would be until you have figured out to your satisfaction exactly where his various parts emerge out into the visible regions from behind the front guy and how long those emergent parts should be.

If you are drawing your women as two whole women rather than as one woman (plus some miscellaneous visible parts of the other woman) it will help you to avoid the problem that the person behind has arms and legs that don't seem to be in the right place, or they seem too big or small. Once you have their correct outlines figured out you can erase the parts that would be covered up by the front person.

[Zehna]

Thank you everyone! :D Yes the picture thing would surely help I suppose. The only problem is finding another female friend, since most of my friends are guys. I would suppose I could take two pictures of myself though and change it as needed.

Though, I'm not quite sure what "oldschool" ways, Nuts I believe it was, is talking about, the sketching and transparent bodies thing surely helps. Thank you all very much! :D