Empyrean's studies of the human body

[.empyrean.]

Since I don't get much advice in the sketchbook forum, I thought I should open a new thread here and 'relocate' my personal studies.
But before you get something to see, I will introduce myself to you.
My name is Max Schäfer, nearly 20 years old and I live currently in Germany. At the moment I'm still at school, graduating next march.
Art is and was always essential for me, although I have done little in my youth. I think that was for each or almost each of you the case, too.
For a long time, I spent my youth with music, playing the piano and singing in a boys' choir. Since I moved to a new school, the spark for art was re-enlightened by several art teachers, art books and lastly my passion for fantasy and science-fiction in all its facets.
From that point, art was becoming a lot more important for me. I began to take photographs, digitally or traditionally, and started to draw. The process of drawing was again interrupted by school and the lack of ambition. But for the last year I have been drawing a lot more, since I took advanced art classes.

My main ambitions at the moment are:
1. Draw the human body well from observation and imagination.
2. Broaden my drawing skills. Regardless in what.
3. Pave the path of becoming an artist. As occupation or avocation.

The following studies are done over the last two years, but most of them in the last months. I hope it's not too much to show.

Greetings,
Max

[the_allejo05]

dont bother with anatomy yet,that is something far more advanced for the art student. First your hand and eye must be really at your comand so you dont commit errors in proportions,you can study anatomy by reading it so you get familiar with the names and origin and insertions ,but eventually you will have to draw all the muscles and memorize the bones,either from life (drawing bones is best) and using anatomical drawings,those are hard!!! so focus first on easy subjects ,draw from life ,learn perspective,go to www.fineart.sk and look for the book succesfull drawing by andrew loomis,so many here have used this book to learn the fundamentals of drawing,trust me i drew anatomy but i had not mastered form,nor my hand was good that takes many years...if you want to get good at the figure drawing copy from the masters...regardless if you know anatomy or not,if you look at the progress of lets say Raphael,michelangelo even leonardo,they could draw the figure well without much knowledge of anatomy...later on they studied deeply to get a firm grasp of it...so dont worry too much about it at first.Master that figure from imagination (you can by copying only,copy body parts ,hands feet,legs eyes,etc)and then start going to your life drawing sessions (dont put the cart before the horse)...learn to shade simple geometric forms,copy engravings to help you go over the form...
dont waste your time drawing from photographs,they dont teach you anything...either from life or from master artists, later on when you have mastered the fundamentals of reality and imagination...you can use photographs as reference to give you information.