If you have ever struggled with drawing a picture of two people hugging, it's very understandable. Sometimes it can be hard enough just to get the right positioning for one figure, let alone two. In addition, you have to make sure the two figures you are drawing compliment each other in a positive way for the overall picture.

Another thing about hugs is they don't all look alike. Depending on what kind of a hug you are trying to draw, you may have to tweak your approach.

In this post, I want to show you four different ways to draw two people hugging. No matter which pose you use, the best advice I can give you is to sketch out the general shapes of the two figures to get their positioning right with each other.

In the examples below, you will see these basic sketched figures rather than completed drawings, because once you get the shape of the figures sketched right, you can always go back and add details to develop the faces, arms, hands, and clothing. I drew these with a soft 4B pencil so they would appear darker for you, but since these figure sketches will serve as guidelines for your final drawing, it's best you draw them with a harder graphite pencil for a lighter effect.

Each method has three basic components for each figure: an oval shape for the head, a rectangular shape with rounded corners for the torso, and the rough outline of the arms and hands.
<h3>Method 1: Hugging from Behind the Back</h3>
<a href="http://www.letsdrawpeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/how-to-draw-people-hugging-from-behind-the-back.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1565" src="http://www.letsdrawpeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/how-to-draw-people-hugging-from-behind-the-back-225x300.jpg" alt="how to draw people hugging from behind the back" width="225" height="300" /></a>If you are drawing a picture of one person hugging another from behind the back, you are obviously going to have some overlap to deal with, so some of your basic shapes will be missing or hidden. In this example, you can start by drawing the head, body, and arms of the person in front. The torso of the person behind is hidden, so you don't need to draw it. It is still important to get the right placement of the head and arms of the person in the back. You can see more overlap with the arms from behind coming to hug the person in the front. Once you get the right placement of the major shapes, just erase any guidelines that will be behind another body part (for example, the guidelines behind the forearms).
<h3> Method 2: Hugging Side by Side</h3>
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