TRSE: How To Draw Tutorials:
Nudity as a Drawing Tool

    Nudity can be quite a touchy subject, but if anyone really want to become more advanced at drawing the anatomically correct Animanga characters in many different poses including the martial arts poses, they may have to overcome any issues they have with nudity and use it as a drawing tool. In spite of any cultural/religious disputes out there, there SEEMS to be a difference between natural nudity and pornography ("hentai/ecchi"). I will talk about the nudity and how it's portrayed and used as a drawing too, but I can't encourage nor discourage anyone to draw nude people. It's their own decisions on what they wan to draw.
    Natural nudity is an example of changing clothing, taking clothing off to take a bath/shower, sunbathing (tan saloons), and  skin dipping. The girls in bikini and boys in trunks or those thin thingies are considered semi-nude which only specific parts have been covered. The great examples are aboriginal ("primitive") people of hot & sunny areas of Australia, Amazon Basin, Pacific Islands and Africa where they walk around half-naked (sometimes fully naked) as if there're nothing wrong with that. Of course, we have many toddlers running around naked because they're too innocent to realize that they should be wearing some clothing. Oh yeah, think of Adam and Eve of Bible's Genesis where they were just happy with themselves before they were exiled and we have the Aphrodite(Venus), the Ancient Greek Goddess of Love commonly depected as a nude woman.
   Pornography (ugh!) is any material (as books or photographs) that depicts erotic behavior, and is intended to cause sexual excitement as quoted from the Webster's Dictionary. The good examples would be all of those dirty porn magazines or videos where the people (female or male) expose/show off their private parts or engage in erotic behaviors ON PURPOSE. Even pictures of clothed people can be considered pornographic especially when they're engaged in erotic behaviors. "Hentai" and "Ecchi" are the Japanese terms meaning "perverted" that has been somewhat corrupted to apply to any Animanga-based pornographic materials (very common in Japan!). Some people tend to consider "Ecchi" as a tamer/cleaner version of nudity while hentai was applied to dirty versions, but "Hentai and "Ecchi" are the same regardless.
 
        When we look at all of the things out there like flowers, mountains, rivers, buildings etc. and we often say that they're pretty. The same thing can be said for the human bodies that many artists attempt to portray as beautiful objects not sex objects. That's why we have so many nude paintings and stone sculptures coming from the artists of Ancient Greeks (like famous Aphrodite of Milo statue to the left), Romans, Renaissance, ancient Hindu India, Ancient Kingdoms of Egypt and many other cultures where they were portrayed as beautiful objects or for information/mythogical purposes. I have seen many examples and I thought them to be pretty and well done especially when they're behaving naturally. The cultures and religions tend to be a big influence on the artworks and what is considered natural nudity or pornography. For example, in some strict Islamic countries, a bare female face can be considered pornographic while the bare female breasts are bit common sight in some European beaches are bit common sight, therefore, not considered pornographic. That would explain why nude artworks are common in Europe while virtually absent among strict Islamic nations.
    The nudity can be also used for humor purposes as in case of classic Japanese comedy Lupin III manga (despite Lupin III's typical lustful advances).

Very funny scene of Lupin III escaping from the police after sharing a hot springs with a female spy.

    In some cases, the nudity can be used to represent innocence or purity and the best examples are Usagi Tsukino becoming the nude angel, her purest form at the end of BSSailorMoonStars and innocent Chi of Chobits waking up wearing nothing but bandages who have not yet learned that she's supposed to be wearing some clothing. See the examples scanned from the first volume of Chobits.
    Android-like Chi wakes up and she's completely innocent as if she was a newborn, resulting in a very humorous shot of Hideki's reaction toward naked Chi. He was not used to having a cute girl like Chi and it was very fortunate for Chi that Hideki has a very good heart in spite of his porn collection. In fact, when Hideki gave her the "Chi" name, Chi happily jumped and hugged him just like a happy toddler hugging a father or a brother. Nothing pornographic in my opinion. ^_^

    I can't encourage nor discourage nudity drawing as well as the fact that it's possible to draw any clothed characters without going thru the nude phases, but if they could get used to nudity and be familiar with the basics of human anatomy, they would actually be able to use the nudity as a drawing tool to help them draw the anatomically correct people/characters in various poses including combat poses. Naruto, Rouruni Kenshin, Ghost in Shell and Alita the Battle Angel (very advanced!) Animangas are good examples of many combat poses. Such tool had been used for GIF-Dolling, fashion designing and even designing of video games & computer animated movies. Look at the Doll GIFS before for examples.

Add some clothes
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    Many people especially fashion designers, KISS Doll ("Digital Paper Dolls") Makers and "GIF-Dollers" find it fun to build the bases (nude characters) to be used for creating different characters in different clothing. Adding "extra details" to the bases are optional, but they tend to provide more precise arrangement of the clothing. You can go thru the Links leading to Doll Websites to see more examples.
    Drawing the nude figures can make it easier to draw any people especially those wearing swimsuits, superhero(combat) uniforms, and tight clothing as well as being mindful of how the positioning of the arms and legs affect the layout of the clothing. For example, drawing the legs connected to the hips before adding a skirt would make the legs really look like they're properly connected to the body. Let's take a look at the examples how I draw the nude people before adding the clothing to them.

    After drawing the nude bodies first, it becomes easy to add the clothing like bikini to Cinna (girl in the middle), and shirt & trunk to Bismun (man to the right) and even a dress to Larima (girl on the left). Notice how Larima's long skirt is shaped by the posing of her legs as she sits on a boulder. It's possible to draw the clothed people without going thru the nude phases. For example, I have developed time-saving techniques to "mass-draw"(tons of pictures) the Sailor Senshi in my BSSailorMoon fanfic mangas without having to go thru the nude phases unless when necessary beside the fact that I tend to add the skirts after drawing the hips and legs first. ^_^;
    By learning to get used to the basic nudity without "scorning" it as pornography which is applied only to arousing sexual behaviors, anyone would be able to become familiar with the natural human anatomy in order to efficiently draw any anatomically correct people especially those wearing swimsuits, tight clothing, or drawing the clothing in respect to their limbs and body poses like martial arts.