Figure drawing-need help

[Vader]

I find this very difficult when it comes to drawing arms and the shoulders, please if anybody has any tips it would be helpful.

Thank you

[DragonGX]

All I can say is draw draw draw.. Use reference pictures (there are alto of good ones in the reference forum).. It jsut takes time and practice to be able to draw arms (or any part of the anatomy for that matter)

Here is an arm study I did few weeks ago, all of the references were from the reference section..

Please ignore the really bad one on the right, it was an akward pose and I tried drawign the hand and failed!

http://www.o-t.us/upload/guest/armscomp.jpg

[cucaracha]

yep, keep on practicing is the only way

how to practice? use and study reference like on
http://www.fineart.sk
there you'll find good ref's like this:
http://fineart.sk/gray/page_01.htm

they also got Loomi's books online there, take a look at them.

oh, this is me, working out, you know..

http://fineart.sk/muscle/MuscleAnatomyPictures005.jpg

[Avetice]

a word of warning passed to me from a teacher of mine who advised me on the same thing. I wouldn't use reference like that huge body builder just yet as the muscles are too exaggerated to be studying from at such an early stage of learning the human figure. but like the rest said just draw draw draw. Don't however just draw without due concentration, be keenly aware of what you see when figure drawing and make mental notes of what commenalities between different people and pin them to your skull :D
Then the next time and the next and so on remember those mental notes and see how they relate.

Whats helping me as I just discovered right now actually while waiting for the webpages to load is study from an anatomy book the skeleton and after you draw a certain bone a few times and you think you understand how it works visually add the muscles to it and understand how they work visually. Then play around with the bone and warp the bone and see how the muscles would form around that deformed one. If I get some time to scan I'll scan some pics of what Im talking about.

[cucaracha]

the bodybuilder ref is just to see where the muscles are, not how big they are, I think.

Of course, it's quite unusual that everybody's got a musculous body - it's more the other way round.

[drewantarctic]

your link is dead, but thats okay. i would sugest studying smaller types of bodies, ie, not huge musclemen. the problem i always had was drawning the musles first. but i figures out its all about the bones underneath. this is why its not a good idea to take ref from muscle guys early on. they lack the understructure. its just big piles of flesh. study the bones and anatomy first, then go to the bigger guys.