Where to Learn Figure Anatomy??

[SweetPea]

Hi guys, looking to learn some more on figurative anatomy as you can see... ive followed mentlers thread for a while and i think those dvds are going to be brilliant, but also that theyl not be out for a while... so i know SOME anatomy but not really a ton... recently started working in wax which has helped me a bit with understanding the stuff physically as opposed to looking at a drawing or a pic.... i have the bridgman complete guide which is pretty good at explaining most stuff... but there are some things left completely unexplained.. which really frustrates me.. and we all know i cant go around like da vinci cutting up corpses to learn about it... and they wont let me take anatomy until 12th grade... and being that im going into 11th (wohoo junior!!) i do need to learn a good bit more than i know about this stuff... any recommendations? books? other dvds? websites? anything helps!

(been looking around on the net a little bit but they dont really explain too much)

Thanks guys!

[OmenSpirits]

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=162963
http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=152626

[SweetPea]

thanks for that, have you used any of the hale books? they look rather good, i think i might check them out... know if theres newhere thatd have them in stock? just wanna flip thru them right quick b4 i buy them... thanks!

[dcorc]

. but there are some things left completely unexplained..

such as...?

(knowing what you are puzzled by, what you think isn't covered, may help people make better suggestions)

[SweetPea]

like which muscles go ontop of the others.. there are a few of the back muscles that arent named or nething, it didnt actually say anything about the internal obliques, had to go searching for a while on a wild goose chase because i didnt even know which muscle it was that i was looking for... etc.

[SweetPea]

but thats not all that i want to learn more about... i want to learn about it all..

[Hyskoa]

Might want to check out Goldfinger's book.
http://www.amazon.com/Human-Anatomy-Artists-Elements-Form/dp/0195052064

[zanna92]

here's what you need andrew loomis anatomy/figure drawing books for free :)http://fineart.sk/index.php?cat=1

[SweetPea]

thanks guys!

[mbarq]

Highly recommend Acland's Anatomy DVDs (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000F4J8G8/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=304485901&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0781740673&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1JG56XMZG7VDTCQ7JZTV)

They are very much worth the investment. The entire DVD is a live dissection of the human body. He explores the body beginning with the bones, pointing out their movement, uses, then he starts to lay in the muscles, what they do, how they do it, what bones they tug on, and finally lays in the nerves.

What I love about his approach though is, the dissection is flawless, if he needs to show you a muscle or an artery, he'll remove whatever is in the way. For the spinal cord, the spinal vertebrae was perfectly cut in half to show you the nerves inside (he even clears that up to show the raw spinal cord), that's insane!

He even does the same for the nose, which...lends itself greatly to the studies in Bridgman, when the skin was removed from the nose, you could see, plainly the different sections of the nose that Bridgman talks about in his book. They're not the EXACTLY the same, but you can see why Bridgman would split the nose into wings and bodies, it's because that's the way they're put together in nature (wedges Bridgman calls them).

I only have a couple of days doing this (on and off) and...I'm just overwhelmed by the knowledge put into these books. I mention Bridgman the most because, in my opinion, his approach...lends itself better to anatomy.

To be perfectly honest, Bridgman, Loomis and even Hogarth are very much, in my opinion, for those that already have some knowledge in anatomy. The approach is very abstract and especially for Bridgman, you'll just get caught up in trying to replicate the poorly reproduced lines instead of thinking about what Bridgman was trying to capture.

So, it's not that it's not covered (because it kind of is, especially when you read the text accompanying it), it's just that...the Bridgman books are about making sense of constructing what you know about anatomy. It would be like Newton having to explain Cartesian geometry to you in order to understand calculus. Yes, he'll go over some stuff from the former, but...it's assumed you know most or at least some of that stuff so that the latter becomes easier to explain and understand.

Of course, there's lots to learn even if you don't have some knowledge in anatomy, but I think you benefit more from those books (especially Bridgman) if you've looked at some actual bones.

If you don't have money for the DVDs, check out your local library, they had a really nice set when I went. It wasn't as good as Acland since it was more of a...motion text book with some live models of skeletons, but...it was still something. You can also check out Gray's Anatomy (http://www.bartleby.com/107/indexillus.html), completely free and insanely detailed, everything is covered (I think).