Stretch and Squash

The Parts of the figure must be put together in a manner that brings out their meaning. Likewise the parts of the figure must be put together in a manner that will portray or caricature the meaning of the pose.

-Walter Stanchfield

When one side of a form stretches, the other side side should squash...and vice versa. This really helps add life to your drawings, get a better feeling of weight and is an aid in avoiding symmetry. A drawing that is totally symmetrical (both sides are mirror images) is usually a flat, uninteresting drawing.  Avoid this and look for how gravity is acting on your design.

Soft mass can stretch out when it's affected by gravity and squash down when it comes into contact with a hard surface.

As people move from place to place and perform actions, their bodies, limbs, even their clothes and hair (and everything else) are affected by the forces exerted by the muscles working against gravity, wind and air resistance, and this is expressed by drawing the forms squashed down or stretched out. Also, bodies can squash or stretch if they're affected by external forces out of their control (like a person tripping and falling face first on the sidewalk...their face might very well squash into the hard pavement). Link

Woulter Tulp - Gravity

 Use Straights and Curves in areas of natural stretching and squashing to Design your forms and give them rhythm.

Rad Sechrist - http://radhowto.blogspot.com

 

No matter how cartoony or realistic you draw, you always design the shapes

go Here - working from big shape design to smaller shape design

I often organize my figures so that one side is always squashing and the other side is stretching - Mark Kennedy

 Avoid "lazy- Lines."  Each line should be saying something and have a purpose. A lazy Line is a line that doesnd describe anything like shape, texure, softness, hardness, stretch, squish, gravity etc.