A question about learning anatomy

[Big-Dave]

A lot of people on the forum (myself included) recommend learning more anatomy as a way for artists to improve.

However, I never actually thought about what anatomy studies should entail until now. So to anyone who can help, what should a *good* anatomy study consist of? Copying skeletons out of references? life drawing? Trying to apply bone structures to a pose you've drawn? Any advice on how to go about this would be appreciated :)

[-sideshowbob-]

u need to understand the muscles as a 3dimensional object.. u need to know how and where they are placed along the muscles.. when u see on arm u have to realice how its rotated.. and which muscles u see emmediately

when u draw one arm studie.. be aware of the parts u dont see.. draw another pose to see and to understand who shape rotation works in 3d space its not easo to rotate round forms.. cubes are easier.. but the way u draw them is same :::: spatial sense ::::: u cant draw things like usee them when u cant figure out how and where to create the third dimension... we see 3d but we draw 3d the 2d way... a paper front only is flat... u cant allign the third dimension like u can in reality... thats why need somekind of translation.. in real u move into distance.. when drawing.. u only move up... in reality u move up.. on paper u move up to.. thats hard to figure out where and when to draw up or in distance

iv learned anatomy with burne hogarth... hes just awesome

if u got some more questions.. just pm and ill try to answer :)

[k4pka]

^^ He's right. Ask yourself, your shoulder, do you know how it works? What IS your shoulder blade attactched to? How can it move so much?

If youve never studied before, chances are you will not have a clue. So start studying, and understanding how it all works. And when you understand it, you will suddenly be infinitly better at rendering it, with a much deeper knowledge of structure instead of superficial ideas of what you think it should look like.

Phew.

[peterhurman]

i second what k4pka and sideshowbob have said.

when im learning anatomy it seems to take a long time to stick in my mind. so after drawing from anatomy books e.g arm muscles, draw some arms in different poses and angles to cement it in your mind.

quite a good exercise is to take a picture from reference and draw it with an anatomy book open, drawing in the bones and muscles on top.

[Perfiditty]

If feel like I'm butting in here but I have to agree that learning anatomy is incredibly important. Personally I'd reccommend going to life drawing classes as you learn so much (especially if you are asked to draw from 30 second poses) plus it's a complete buzz to draw from someone whose directly in front of you.

Look around you as well, watch how people move. Another useful tip if you need to come up with a pose snip the pictures out of newspapers and you can study the pictures and how people stand, hold themselves.

[TopherMark]

All good advice. I had an art teacher once who was classically trained. He was very good, and I wish that I would have listened to and learned from him more. In life drawing, he had us learn all the bones and surface muscles of the body. Having the dialogue is important to be able discuss anatomy with others. It is so important to understand the underlying shapes and the way we move.

IMO, drawing from life is the best. I really miss my life drawing classes. I need to find a group close by to join.

[Roodwurm]

Just started to attend to classes that mainly deal with drawing models. Good stuff.

[metroeast]

If you are interested in looking at a good reference. Burne Hogarth's "Dynamic Anatomy" is a great book a lot of guys in the comics field use it. It is a kinda embarrassing buy, but any body building mag is good too.

[TheCleaner]

i have been well into my art since i can actually remember, and thats the honest truth, not just something you put on a job application. All those years drawing and experimenting, its fair to say, im not too bad, only 1 of 4 in my whole year group at college to study fine art at the advanced level.

Anyway, its not until now (literally 2 weeks ago i discovered this site), at 17 years old, that ive studied anatomy. now im like DAMN !... i cant believe how much i find it COMPLETELY facinating <3 , seriously, if id have 'discovered' it a few years ago, and practiced as much as i did having fun drawing manga characters and monsters, im confident i could have probably been alot better at drawing everything.

One thing ive found, drawing anatomy/life studies exposes all your weaknesses, in every type of drawing. so, you think your mechanical... yet figuring out how to, with precision, draw all them bones, and interlace muscles properly poses the greatest challenge you ever face.. then, think your a more expressive/traditional painting artist.. working out skin tones, shadow.. etc onto the human figure, is going to be harder than any landscape you ever paint.

I, despite later this year (septemeber/october) the fact ill be off to university to study my degree in 'Computer Games Art', im still quite amateur in terms of anatomy, but i just find it so exciting that i WANT, no no, NEED to learn about it. Im in the same baot as you though, just starting, so knowing where to start is something i definetly need

Im currently using books by various anatomical artist, and basically trying to first learn the basic rules of proprtion, but then i see work by the likes of mentler, and stray off and do things like this

http://img41.exs.cx/img41/778/leon_legs.jpg

I know I shouldn't, and i should have my head in the books, learning before doing.. dont fall into the same trap.. i WILL snap out of it, but sometimes, i just have to be spontaneous, its my nature

quite a good exercise is to take a picture from reference and draw it with an anatomy book open, drawing in the bones and muscles on top.

Love that idea, i might buy a fitness magazine, since they usually have plenty of bare skin high resolution pictures

[Big-Dave]

Sorry for the lack of replies to this, last time I checked it it was nearly off the page with no replies, so I'd thought it had died

-Sideshowbob-: Thanks for that, I'll try and pay more attention to the dimentions to what I'm drawing :) And yeah, Hogarth's book it good, I've read it a few times at Borders (the one local to us has a cafe inside that you can read books in, don't know why they allow it, but there ya go :p) and it's petty good, although the anatomy seems a bit too stylised for what I'm doing at present. I've got a few other anatomy books though, like Bridgeman's books, and I've taken a few anatomy books out the university library to study from now

k4pka: Yeah, the problem was I wasn't sure how to go about it. I've done studies from books, and I've done life drawing few times, but I wasn't sure whether it would help at all with learning the anatomy itself. Thanks for the advice :)

oven g love: Thanks a lot, thats the kind of thing I've been wondering about trying. I'll get some stuies like that done :)

perfiditty: Don't worry, your not butting in :p And yeah, I've started doing some life drawing classes recently. Up until now the only life drawings I could find were like £100 for 10 lessons, which I can't really afford on a regular basis, although I went a few times. I found a weekly class locally though which is £3 a week so I'm going along to that now :)

TheCleaner: Yeah, I've found quite a few problems I have (worst one is probably that I can't match colours at all. That's something else I'm working on though) Anyway, good luck with the Computer Arts course. Hope it goes well :)

Anyway, thanks everyone for the replies. I'll stop typing now and get some studies done :p

[Revenants]

My first advice, is read through both mentler's threads. That guy is a master at anatomy if anyone is. Here's the books I have and found useful:

The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study
Master Class in Figure Drawing
Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters
Dynamic Figure Drawing
The Practice and Science of Drawing
All loomis books, and Bridgman books.


I don't have any anatomy reference books, but goldfinger's book is supposedly the best. Glenn Vilpuu Drawing Manual is also a nice book. (but I don't have a copy since I live in canada and couldn't find a place that sells it)

[fredflickstone]

a good anatomy study should consist of whatever it is you need at that moment. There are too many levels to think about all at once. They need to be isolated and thought about independently before they all start working well together.

First, you need to understand the skeleton. Probably the most important thing to learn. IT is the undercarriage and everything surface driven is attached to it. Once it is understood, then move onto the muscles, and ask this question again at that time. We can come up with a dozen different directions, but which one will be most important in your learning will come when the results of understanding the skeleton have been input. Foundation first. If that is what you are attempting to gain.

Muscles are easy to learn in muscle groups. They are also easy to learn by shape, be it stylized or natural. But to know how the body functions requires skeletal understanding. Practice this first for a while and post results.

ROn

[Big-Dave]

Revenants: Thanks for the books list, I'll keep an eye out for them next time I'm in the bookshop (well, except the loomis ones since they're online)

Fredflickstone: You know, it's funny how things seem obvious once someone says them. I was planning on starting on the skeleton anyway, but I was gonna mix learning bones along with the muscles that go over them. I'll focus on it more on the skeleton first now though, see how far I can get with that. Thanks for the advice

Anyone who's interested, I'm going to be uploading the progress to a daily sketchbook here (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=401354#post401354)

Thanks again to everyone who gave advice. I'll try and keep it in mind as I work :)