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[Enrichment] ANATOMY
Iruka
Registered User, Moderator Mod Emeritus
Registered User, Moderator Mod Emeritus
ANATOMY
>>Enrichment Directory<<
That's Right This monthly enrichment is pretty damn general. Its anatomy time.
Anatomy is a pretty tough road for a lot of folks. You see really intensive muscle studies and you wonder if its worth it. You do really intensive muscle studies and you can't figure out how to retain and apply the knowledge. You think you've acquired and retained knowledge, and you turn right around and draw a shitty, malformed leg/hand/face/everything. We all need to sit down and study, and anatomy is one of the more complex subjects.
There are a bunch of different ways to study anatomy, and I think that's where people get caught up. Is it worth your time to study master sculptures, do long ass skeletal studies, hammer down you accuracy and proportions to perfection? Its not easy work, and for some people the tedium of it can be absolutely painful. I think there are some important things to remember when you are starting out
Studying from life doesn't mean you'll be stuck painting realism.
Doing still lives and anatomy studies doesn't need to 100% directly translate into the visual nature of your art. If you are planning to mostly draw cartoons, that's fine, but a master study here and there wont kill you. It is a mental exercise as much as it is a visual one. You will learn how to translate form in ways that you hadn't before, and you can apply that to anything you're heart desires. You must try to draw new things in new ways to push yourself forward.
On studying in general:
Occasionally you run into the novice artist who thinks either "This doesn't apply to me" "I COULD draw realistically if I WANTED to" or "I just don't have the time to study". These attitudes will always hold you back. I do think its important to set goals that fit with the career and and visual aesthetics that you desire for your art, but its important to not loose track what is technical study. Some parts of drawing are objective and purely technical pursuits, and they are essential for learning how to see. If you cannot accurately draw a square on a table, you cant accurately translate the crazy shit you see in your head. Anatomy can test your ability to translate movement, emotion, light, form and texture all at once. If you dedicate time to working at it, you will see benefits
Think about your end goals.
All that being said, Knowing what you want to do with anatomy its a good way to make your studies feel useful. Do you want to be able to construct Imaginary figures? Would you like to place heavy importance on nailing likeness for portraits? Would you like to focus on motion for animation and cartooning? Push yourself in directions that make sense for your artistic goals. Breaking down anatomy into geometric shapes makes for better character construction and is a nice transition from simple shape studies. Photo studies are good for trying to work on rendering, and studying materials. Skeletal/muscular studies can help with building imagined figures in a believable way, even without the most stellar reference. Drawing from live models helps you observe more directly how skin and muscles adjust to movement and stretch over bones, and give you less barriers when reading depth and form
Be accurate and be diligent, keep studying in your normal routine
A lot of times people abandon studying because they've left school. In school you take classes and push yourself to do 30 hour drawings of some perfectly rendered figure, and then never go back. If you don't need highly polished anatomically correct work in your portfolio, remember that is not the only reason to study and pursue technical accuracy. It is just as useful to do a few hours of study here and there as it is to work at a long term painting. Plot out studies in a way that make sense for you. Don't overwhelm your workload with lofty expectations, just try to maximize your actual learning and information retention.
Alright, that was a lot! I wanted to be able to use this thread for reference in the future. Anyway
Some Assignments you can do for this enrichment
-List out some anatomy books you have and talk about the resources you use
-Do some photo studies, Draw the skeleton, the muscles, and break down the figure into shapes
-Draw from life! Ask a friend to pose for you, go to an open life drawing session.
-Draw people at the library or airport or subway
-Draw yourself in the mirror. For extra art school effect, get naked.
>>Enrichment Directory<<
That's Right This monthly enrichment is pretty damn general. Its anatomy time.
Anatomy is a pretty tough road for a lot of folks. You see really intensive muscle studies and you wonder if its worth it. You do really intensive muscle studies and you can't figure out how to retain and apply the knowledge. You think you've acquired and retained knowledge, and you turn right around and draw a shitty, malformed leg/hand/face/everything. We all need to sit down and study, and anatomy is one of the more complex subjects.
There are a bunch of different ways to study anatomy, and I think that's where people get caught up. Is it worth your time to study master sculptures, do long ass skeletal studies, hammer down you accuracy and proportions to perfection? Its not easy work, and for some people the tedium of it can be absolutely painful. I think there are some important things to remember when you are starting out
Studying from life doesn't mean you'll be stuck painting realism.
Doing still lives and anatomy studies doesn't need to 100% directly translate into the visual nature of your art. If you are planning to mostly draw cartoons, that's fine, but a master study here and there wont kill you. It is a mental exercise as much as it is a visual one. You will learn how to translate form in ways that you hadn't before, and you can apply that to anything you're heart desires. You must try to draw new things in new ways to push yourself forward.
On studying in general:
Occasionally you run into the novice artist who thinks either "This doesn't apply to me" "I COULD draw realistically if I WANTED to" or "I just don't have the time to study". These attitudes will always hold you back. I do think its important to set goals that fit with the career and and visual aesthetics that you desire for your art, but its important to not loose track what is technical study. Some parts of drawing are objective and purely technical pursuits, and they are essential for learning how to see. If you cannot accurately draw a square on a table, you cant accurately translate the crazy shit you see in your head. Anatomy can test your ability to translate movement, emotion, light, form and texture all at once. If you dedicate time to working at it, you will see benefits
Think about your end goals.
All that being said, Knowing what you want to do with anatomy its a good way to make your studies feel useful. Do you want to be able to construct Imaginary figures? Would you like to place heavy importance on nailing likeness for portraits? Would you like to focus on motion for animation and cartooning? Push yourself in directions that make sense for your artistic goals. Breaking down anatomy into geometric shapes makes for better character construction and is a nice transition from simple shape studies. Photo studies are good for trying to work on rendering, and studying materials. Skeletal/muscular studies can help with building imagined figures in a believable way, even without the most stellar reference. Drawing from live models helps you observe more directly how skin and muscles adjust to movement and stretch over bones, and give you less barriers when reading depth and form
Be accurate and be diligent, keep studying in your normal routine
A lot of times people abandon studying because they've left school. In school you take classes and push yourself to do 30 hour drawings of some perfectly rendered figure, and then never go back. If you don't need highly polished anatomically correct work in your portfolio, remember that is not the only reason to study and pursue technical accuracy. It is just as useful to do a few hours of study here and there as it is to work at a long term painting. Plot out studies in a way that make sense for you. Don't overwhelm your workload with lofty expectations, just try to maximize your actual learning and information retention.
Alright, that was a lot! I wanted to be able to use this thread for reference in the future. Anyway
Some Assignments you can do for this enrichment
-List out some anatomy books you have and talk about the resources you use
-Do some photo studies, Draw the skeleton, the muscles, and break down the figure into shapes
-Draw from life! Ask a friend to pose for you, go to an open life drawing session.
-Draw people at the library or airport or subway
-Draw yourself in the mirror. For extra art school effect, get naked.
Iruka on
+5
Posts
General Tumblrs/sites
http://fucktonofanatomyreferences.tumblr.com/
http://www.figuredrawing.info/image-galleries/
Some crap from my blog:
http://artanecdotally.tumblr.com/post/64447856245/eyecaging-sketch-up-planar-head-download-link
http://artanecdotally.tumblr.com/post/49099996489/helpyoudraw-anatomy-human-arm
http://artanecdotally.tumblr.com/post/62116209069/simonist-ive-been-thinking-about-a-new-way-of
http://artanecdotally.tumblr.com/post/62819459944/jay-h-bomb-heres-some-awesome-figure-drawing
http://artanecdotally.tumblr.com/post/45694969398
http://artanecdotally.tumblr.com/post/42297819611/http-forums-penny-arcade-com-discussion-comment-2
http://artanecdotally.tumblr.com/post/40700229936
http://artanecdotally.tumblr.com/post/38922722002/alldrawtut-michael-hampton
http://artanecdotally.tumblr.com/post/34836855590
http://artanecdotally.tumblr.com/post/34659607459/when-you-find-well-lit-reference-of-people-doing
http://artanecdotally.tumblr.com/post/34302287353/eyecager-some-of-the-reilly-rhythm-basics
http://artanecdotally.tumblr.com/post/33578814235/foervraengd-id-like-to-add-that-the-first
http://artanecdotally.tumblr.com/post/31927315338/dragontier-gh0stick-nellysketchesnstuff
http://artanecdotally.tumblr.com/post/31939877025/outwitha-bang-ibelievepracticemakesperfect
http://artanecdotally.tumblr.com/post/29079499289/planes-of-the-face-download-all-22-images-here
http://artanecdotally.tumblr.com/post/26839153888/animationtidbits-how-to-draw-hands-tom
vids
http://www.pinterest.com/characterdesigh/
Tons of great reference in there.
I've been working on faces too, going for likeness but I'm looking at friends facebook photos for reference. They may not appreciate me posting them all over the internet haha.
Bottom right one is still in the blocking phase.
http://fyeah-artreferences.tumblr.com/
Twitter
After filling up the sheets trying to do a full body drawing. Not happy with the face but not too disappointed with the rest.
getting a little bit of practice in
No seriously I'm never locking this thread, I'd like to keep it around to link people too, and to encourage studying and critiquing together.
This is probably all sorts of wrong.
Also I wish I had a good three dimensional model of a human pelvis to use as a reference
And then using that knowledge gained trying one on my very own.
Now my first solo attempt.
A little bit of practice with body proportions. Even when following the 8 head model and making my heads slightly bigger I feel like they are still a little too small.