Learning how to sketch people

Learning how to sketch people is easier than you think. You can learn to become much better at sketching people quite quickly. One of the secrets of sketching is that any object can be broken down into its smaller parts.

It's not the person that's hard to sketch, it's the likeness of the person that's hard to get. Sketching a random person who doesn't look like anybody is pretty easy, but getting your sketch to really look like the person you want it to, is a bit harder. If the person's eyes are too close together, or if the mouth is too large, the sketch will not look like the right person. You're going to have to measure proportions to get it just right.

It has a lot to do with learning to see people differently, and analyzing them to figure out how to sketch them. You don't need lessons, you just need to imitate what you see. Learning to sketch is mostly about learning to understand how your visual system works.

One of the most convenient ways to learn to sketch people is by looking at other sketches online, and trying to imitate them. You can even try tracing them. But it can be annoying when you have put in a lot of effort into becoming a better artist and it hasn't helped much. If you’re only concerned with sketching "well" you may feel so inadequate that you won’t do it at all (this happened to me). Sketch anybody and everybody, and don't give up even if 90% of your sketches come out all wrong. Practice makes perfect - you'll get there eventually.

Some books about learning to sketch people:
How to draw people
How to draw faces
Draw real people
How to Draw People: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners with 10 Projects (How to Draw)
How to Draw People (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
How to Draw Lifelike Portraits from Photographs
(I haven't read these, so I don't know if they're any good. Do some research first.)

Some sites about learning to sketch people:

http://www.learn-to-draw.com/drawing-people/
http://tearain.tripod.com/hp/draw/draw.html
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/how-to-draw-people.htm
http://www.dragoart.com/