Remy Lach · Loose Watercolor Course

August 28, 2026

Why do my watercolor figures look wrong?

Most watercolor figures look wrong for 3 reasons: the angles of the body are off, the arms and legs are painted as straight lines, and the figure itself is too hard to read from its outline alone. My fix is to paint angles instead of trying to paint a body. Draw a rough skeleton first, follow its angles with the outline, and choose figures you can understand in one blink.

I am no expert at all in figure painting. But these techniques are what allowed me to paint the figures in my own watercolors, and they fix the 3 mistakes most of my students make with figures.

What is a human figure made of?

To understand the 3 levers you can pull, you need to look at how a human body is built. A body consists of:

The first 2 mistakes come from the skeleton and the flesh. The third one comes from the choice of the figure itself. To show this, I'll use a live painting workshop I did with my students, dedicated to figures. I took a photo from one of my students, an everyday scene, and we painted those figures together.

Mistake 1: Why do the proportions of my figure feel off?

The first mistake I see is that the proportions of the body don't feel right. The arm is a little bit off compared to the body, same for the legs, and so on. This happens because people don't look closely at the angles of each arm, each leg, the chest and the head.

To solve this, I first create the skeleton of the body:

  1. The head. In my example, it's straight, a vertical angle.
  2. The shoulders. I just replicate the angle of the shoulders. It's not exactly a bone, but the idea is to make sure the angle of the shoulders is right.
  3. The chest. Here it's completely vertical. You will see that sometimes it's vertical, sometimes horizontal, sometimes diagonal.
  4. The arms and legs. Exactly the same thing. You don't need to make a full drawing, you just roughly make sure the angles are right.

Once the structure of the skeleton is in place, I paint the whole figure with the mop brush and simply follow the lines I drew. In the end, you get roughly the same feeling as the figure in the photo.

The skeleton also changes from one person to another. For the man in my scene, the shoulders are wide, quite squared, quite angular. For the woman just beside him, it's different: it's more round, more like a circle, and the shoulders fall a little bit more. Just by observing how her skeleton differs from the man's, you know how to paint her.

It's not only about the skeleton. I also painted the coat this way, and I didn't put a single pencil stroke there. It's just the mop brush. Because I have in mind "this is the angle, this is a little bit squared, this is a little bit round," I can just go with the flow. That's how you get watercolor figures painted in minutes, sometimes even in seconds, just by avoiding the mistake of trying to paint the body instead of painting angles.

How long should the head, chest and legs be?

The skeleton is about posture and proportion. Here is the rule I follow:

Sometimes it's a little bit more for the legs, because they are a little bit longer than the chest. But overall, if you follow this rule, you will be fine.

Mistake 2: Why do my figures look stiff, like robots?

The second mistake is about the outline, the flesh. People tend to think an arm is just straightforward, just a line. In the end, it's not. An arm is sometimes a little bit bent.

In my example, the arm first leans a little to the left, then bends even more lower down. Just by observing that, you will avoid 99% of the mistakes when it comes to figure painting in watercolor.

Observing the exact angles of the outline gives you a more convincing figure. It avoids that "robot effect" a human body gets when every limb is painted as a straight line.

Mistake 3: Why do some figures still not work?

Even if you master the first step with the skeleton and the second step with the flesh and the outline, some figures still won't work.

In another photo from one of my students, there is a woman playing a music instrument. If you just put her head, then the arms, then the dress and the legs, you won't be able to understand what's going on, because you won't be able to see the instrument she's playing. Sometimes people choose a subject, a figure, that is too difficult to understand just by its outline.

So my suggestion is not to choose that kind of subject, because that's another way of painting figures. Instead, train yourself first. Practice with figures seen from the side, for example. It's exactly the same process: this one is a little bit bent to the right, this one a little bit bent to the left. I draw the skeleton, then the flesh, the outline, following the angles I just drew.

How do you choose a figure that works in watercolor?

Select figures where the outline is self-sufficient. You don't need to detail everything inside the figure to make it readable. Pick a figure you can understand in one blink, without any detailed texture inside it: you understand in no time what's going on.

The result won't look exactly like the subject, and that's fine. The point is not to make a clone of a photo. The point is to make a watercolor figure that can stand out by itself.

FAQ

Do I need to draw the whole figure in pencil before painting?

No. I just roughly mark the angles of the skeleton, then paint with the mop brush following those lines. On the coat in my example, I didn't put a single pencil stroke.

What are the proportions of a figure in watercolor?

Take the head as 1 unit, then 3 units for the chest and 3 units for the legs. The legs can be a little bit longer than the chest.

What kind of figure should a beginner paint?

Choose a figure whose outline is readable on its own, one you understand in one blink without any detail inside. Figures seen from the side are good for practice.

If you want to finally create on your own, with a proven system instead of copying tutorials, this is exactly what you'll find here 👇

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