Drawing anatomy can be a pain even for the seasoned artist. Discover new ways of learning it through our tutorials and articles

by Vincenzo

 

Why bother drawing anatomy? with bother learning anatomy? What's the point? Are you supposed to learn all that information that come with it, muscles, bones and such to become a good artist!?

 

Put like that, the answer to all this question might seem a dry and painful yes, anatomy is important! It is terribly important for us drawing artists! BUT..

 

Why should you punish yourself in the process?

Learning how to draw anatomy is not difficult, really! The only problem with learning and drawing anatomy is that it is hard to learn the right way. We think is very difficult to find a book or a course where anatomy for artists is thought in a useful and usable way!

 

We found there are two lines of thoughts when it comes to teach anatomy to artists. Either the "anatomy for the artist" type (with a lot of half naked people drawn roughly and with drawings of random bones every two or three pages) or plain medical books with hundreds of names and details of every minute muscle in our body with figures normally posed really stiffly.

 

We believe both approaches are pretty useless when it comes to teach anatomy for art.

 

The problem is that both approaches do not specifically and explicitly contain the kind of information we artists need when we are studying anatomy.

 

If you really want to create believable figures (human or animal or humanoid) and you want to pose them freely you need to know what happens under the skin of your subject.. and I mean how muscles behave under the skin. ( if you are copying a subject or drawing from a real or photographic model it's everything easier obviously).

 

There are two things that you really need to know:

 

1. You need to know the shapes of the muscles you are going to draw, their form and volume and how they change with the contraction.

 

2. And you need to know the relationship between muscles and bones. Not just how they are positioned relatively to one another, but exactly how the movement of one influences the other and vice-versa.

 

Wow! this seems like a lot of stuff, you might think. Well, yes and no.

 

First of all, this does not apply to ALL the muscles and bones in our body but just to the principal groups. You should start with them, familiarizing with the main groups and subsequently adding knowledge and anatomic detail to your drawings.

 

It's easier than you think. (it requires work and dedication though).

 

Having these two principles in mind, here at the Drawing Factory we are creating guides and tutorials that will give you exactly this type of knowledge. We think that drawing anatomy shouldn't be a chore, on the contrary! It should be fun and challenging.

 

Let me make just an example. Once you have learnt where and how the biceps, the bigger muscle of the arm, is attached to the skeleton (it's attached in fact onto many points) and how its shape changes when contracted or relaxed, you will be able to draw a perfect arm with a bulging/relaxed biceps in any position and from any angle.

 

You'll know how that muscle moves compared to other muscles and you'll be able to position AND draw it realistically and correctly.

 

And you know what? If you want you can disregard the rules and draw it as you please BUT, you'll know exactly what you are doing! You will have cracked the code that make the anatomy drawings of certain artists so terrific.

 

Enjoy our ever growing collection of articles now and have fun drawing anatomy!

 

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How to draw eyes: a simple technique

by Vincenzo

 

Learning how to draw eyes is regarded by many artists as a fundamental skill because eyes are rightfully considered one of the most important facial features [read more]
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Face drawing: the set up of a face

by Vincenzo

 

With this lesson on face drawing we'll be exploring few simple and basic rules to set up a proper frontal view of a face. I will also touch briefly on the positioning of the facial features, a critical element to achieve control over the aspect of a face [read mre]
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Face drawing: the profile

by Vincenzo

 

If you got here from face drawing, the basics this tutorial is the perfect continuation of the previous, otherwise I suggest you to follow that one first [read more].
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Nose drawing tutorial: Nose geometry and placement

by Vincenzo

 

Nose drawing can be a difficult skill to master due to the complexity of the nose shape. With this tutorial I will try to describe a method of defining a geometrical shape for the nose that... [read more]
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How to draw hands: the proportions

by Vincenzo

 

So you want to learn how to draw hands. It is tough but, I ensure you, really rewarding when you know how to do it.

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How to draw a face: male character

by Vincenzo

 

Welcome to another face drawing tutorial. In this tutorial we'll draw a character face of a hero-like character.

 

 

Go back to drawing anatomy top or navigate to the home page

 

 

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