Well, this style is cartoonish... >_>
I never bother myself with "heads of measurement". As long as it looks appropriate, it works for me. Maybe I subconsciously dislike long legs, I don't know. I'll try more realistic proportions once I can draw more realistic pictures.
Also, maybe he's half dwarf. What? You never know. 
I frequently have trouble with making the legs too short and the torsos too long on my characters. Part of it has to do with the fact that I drew Redwally otters for much of my youth, and that's how those things are built. X)
With humans, the heads measurement thing can feel kinda clinical, and I'm with you if you don't want to bother with that. But there's an easier way to do a quick check on your proportions, especially as far as leg length is concerned. When you draw your character, measure it and find its halfway point. (If he/she's all curled up, do your best.) The halfway mark should be somewhere around the groin area, as the legs make up about half a person's height on their own. This can vary a little, obviously (ladies are often given longer legs) but it should still be roughly half.
Dividing those halves in half again gives you another rough landmark - for the top half, it should fall at about chest height. For the bottom half, the knee. Divide everything again and suddenly you have the eight-head measurement system laid out for you. I generally don't make my heads that small because I work cartoony too, but those basic landmarks (chest, groin, knees) are a nice quick check to make sure things aren't getting too disproportionate. And then you can tweak them around for the needs of individual characters.
Wacky, exaggerated proportions are awesome, of course, but those characters generally have to be pretty cartoony to avoid uncanny valley when you do that... if they're human. The guy you drew is actually fine proportionally, on his top half. But his midpoint is actually at his waist instead of his crotch. The legs just need to be lengthened, both lower and upper. It's only because he has otherwise realistic proportions and musculature that makes the legs stand out as awkward.
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Topic: +The Engravers Guild+ (Read 397897 times)