This is something I've been struggling with for a while. I can't draw groups of large people. I have this tendency to get too anal-retentive about crowd scenes, and I always end up wanting to create unique (if not necessarily interesting) character designs for even the useless people in the crowd. Not only that, but I tend to get tired after drawing three or four people.
This is one of those things I wish had been covered in "How to Draw Manga" type books- the problem with those is that they'll tell you all about how to draw characters and action, but never give you the slightest clue about drawing lots of people, or scenery, or plant life, etc. etc.

So, does anyone know a good, relatively quick way to draw a lot of random people?

It depends on your level of realism. A stick figure comic can just draw circles. the higher level of art you have, the longer it will take. You can try drawing a solid shapes, the entire group of people as one form and color them dark so certain people not in the crowd stand out.

I duunno. Each to his own

Use the concept of depth perception to your advantage. As things go further back they naturally lose details and the edges become less refined. So when people in a crowd become far enough away you can get away with putting in little to no details on them.

Iba's got it right, I think. Also, if you want to skimp out on details on people in the foreground, have them turned the other day - it's much easier/faster to draw the back of someone's head than it is to labour over the getting the eyes right on a character who is never going to turn up again.

You can still make the background people cool, just do this:
make the outlines simple and disconnected at times.
never add details inside of the body, not really detailed at least.
Avoid drawing the face.
They get less detailed far away.


Also use a real life reference pic for it- goes faster, looks better, etc. (key word-'real life'


BTW-you can learn 150x more by just looking at a professionals manga rather than those terrible how-to books everyone hates.

Well hope i helped-

Well, try drawing skinny people instead?

Teeheehee. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. Don't have much advice to offer you, I stink at crowd scenes.

I tend to approach crowd scenes in the laziest way I could come up with that doesn't look terrible: I ink it. The crowd becomes a big black space with a few people close to the foreground actually drawn in. Usually the same few people, actually. Generic "guy in suit" and "woman in suit".

Examples:

http://rentathugcomics.com/frankbaron/?p=58
http://rentathugcomics.com/frankbaron/?p=59

I agree with all these tips.
My own, use the 'camera' angle to your advantage... for example the correct angle means you can express lots of people just by drawing those in front (another tip, do a few fat people in the front row) and then just the tops of heads going back as far as you want.
A low angle can even mean not having to do the heads, just a few outlines of legs instead.

Have a look how Uderzo draws forest scenes in Asterix comics, you can apply this trick well for crowds as well as trees.

A good way to look at this is through an example. I found this picture through google:



Now, I'll add lines to differentiate the detail:



Under the red line: This is where you will draw the most detail. These people will be either your main characters, or characters that represent the kind of crowd you're drawing (angry mob time).
Between green line and red line: You will have some detail, but less than the main focus.
Between the purple line and green line: You will have almost no detail whatsoever. The most detail you may need are outlines of people. You can also shade this part with a very light grey.
Over the purple line: Here, you can put even more faint outlines of people. If you would like, you can shade this part with a grey.

There are different ways of doing this, depending on style. The people that have already given advice said basically everything that you need to know. Good luck.

Edit: Also, if you are having a hard time finding ideas for the appearances of other people, just design 5 different people, and either repeat them in completely different stances, or change them just a little bit. You can have your own generic group of people. That's what I always see in manga. There seems to be the same guy walking around.

So far, all my crowd scenes have shown the front rank in detail and everyone behind as a shadowy horde where you cant really pick much out. You get in the impression of the crowd, without having to waste time picking out literally hundreds of folk.

http://www.geocities.com/mmwtutorials/Capullo/

17 and 18 specifically but all of this is a must-read.
you're welcome.

I was thinking that he should have a car accident, or try nude juggling while singing opera... That can help you draw large groups of people

For crowds, people in the background can become practically a single block of color. Pick a color suited to the scene... say you're outdoors at night going to a party... people in the background could be purple with some lighter highlights. People in the foreground could have detail, but you could also just blur them and get away with less detail. In fact, I suggest blurring them anyway, as cameras don't focus everywhere at once and you don't want to draw your reader's attention to things that aren't important.

Just draw the 'shapes' of the people and if you're coloring, make them one color with highlights. You want the illusion of people, not actually people.

And if you simply MUST draw everyone, just make them cameos so you can get publicity! WOO.

I have a tendency to do too many details for my NPCs as well, but that's my style...

But yeah. Draw the shape of them, fill it in with one dark color and just dot in a couple highlights or something or the other way around. Unless the crowd is important, you really don't need to draw any detail onto them, they just need to have the shape of people.