What helped you learn anatomy?

[Skyy]

So Iwas thinking of doing some anatomy studies and I wanted to know what helped other people learn anatomy and how they use it in their styles.

[kyupol]

And also try some medical textbooks.

[NickRowler]

I felt like Andrew Loomis's guides were helpful when I took a drawing class. Some of his ideal proportions for both men and women are a bit dated. Tho, I think it's a good guide of understanding basic proportions.

[jwabeasley]

The thing that did the most for me was doing life drawings, and I don't mean just naked models in an art class, but sketching people in meetings or standing around, teaching lectures, waiting on public transit, anywhere else where people hold still and you can look at them without them noticing. That's the most effective way I know to learn.

If you don't want to go outside, it's easy enough to find art pose references online - as long as you don't trace them, it'll work. Not as good as life drawing does.

[Caro]

I’m gonna double up on the life drawing advice here. Books can be helpful aids but there’s no substitute for life drawing because human bodies are all so different and move in really strange ways sometimes and with life drawing you get to draw all the weird little complexities that come with a real human body in movement in a real physical space.

I also recommend real life models because practicing putting 3D shapes into 2D is a huge part of drawing a lot of people neglect. When I was younger I cheated on my high school art classes and would take pictures of the still life or model we were drawing because it was infinitely easier to translate the 2D image I took on my phone to the 2D image I was recreating on paper and then I wondered why all of my art looked flat . I spend so long doing “cheating” that I now still find it difficult to not draw so flat so I WISH I got out of that habit early on.

EDIT: I also want to reiterate; I’m not some anatomy master at all! I am just passably fine but I think I would be a lot more comfortable with it if I took the advice I gave when I was younger.

[KennethLopezJr921]

Taking an anatomy and figure drawing course at college helped immensely, but I kind of had a head start because I did a lot of reference drawing of Dragon Ball frames and panels as a teenager. If you didn't happen to know, Dragon Ball has a lot of muscular characters so I unwittingly teaching myself the foundations of anatomy without me knowing it. I couldn't tell you what exactly a bicep was at 14, but I could certainly draw one. I know most art teachers tell you not to draw anime because of how stylized it tends to be (not in my experience funnily enough), but perhaps Dragon Ball is the exception

[Skyy]

I haven't been told to draw anime, my art teachers have encouraged it because they wanted me to make my art stylized and work for me. I've never watched Dragonball but I do think learning how their muscular structure was drawn is pretty good. Though didn't the characters have like scoliosis or something

[NickRowler]

You need to be a bit careful with anime/manga. It can be helpful if you want to emulate another artist's style however there is a lot of anime/manga with wacked out anatomy.

Like this is not a good anatomy reference

[NGChloe]

A lot of different things, trial and error, using irl references, referencing the character designs in Senki zesshou Symphogear, because the characters in that series wore skin tight armour that could be used to get an idea of form, and using 3D models in Clip Studio paint

[VibrantFox]

i'm not gonna lie outside of the bare bones basics i got out of like middle and high school classes everything else i picked up was just self study and hoarding every free resource i saw shared on the net from tutorials to art book pdfs and the like

like just doing a quick google search i managed to find this treasure trove of art books and other learning resources (it's even got books from the morpho series)

https://toyhou.se/~forums/11.general-off-topic/452522.have-some-free-anatomy-book-pdfs-lol

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18E49JBLYwbtTyx24hpYQ8cj6-IJ0r3hK

life drawing and sketching things and people you see does help a lot of course since you can see how things move in action but once you've got the basics down you're free to break the rules how you please after

[jwabeasley]

That is a heck of a resource!

[Shanny8]

Getting older...when I was younger I had resources like the Hogarth books and muscle magazines but I couldnt(wouldnt) focus enough to translate it well...after becoming a parent and gaining the achievement skills of MORE patience & discipline, I'm able to practice it enough that it starts to stick in the ol' noggin.

[jwabeasley]

Funny what character traits having kids can build in you.

[lizardlullabye]

Not sure if this helps, but this is roughly how I translate body references into my drawing for studies.

• Figure drawing. Observe how the body moves together for this position -- such as spine curve for half-way falling hug, or if leg is foreshorten, etc. May help to think about how skeleton and muscle (connections between bones that squash and stretch) interact too, if you find that interesting.

• Break down into the "anatomy" shapes however -- could be more spheres, noodles, triangles, etc. It is never accurate (for me), but it helps get a me a better sense of how the body moves and what will still look "possible" enough.

• Redraw the reference while applying "anatomy" shapes. For all drawings, keep checking the reference b/c you might see something you missed before, like how I misunderstood how the legs were positioned.

REF credits from AdorkaStock: https://www.deviantart.com/adorkastock/art/August-AdiPOSE-Klause-Dips-Shae-for-a-Kiss-921237223

[feuersichel]

Hey, this website is very neat to practice poses and anatomy: https://quickposes.com/en

[BoomerZ]

If you want free models, this is what I have been telling people for at least a decade. Porn sites on the internet are fantastic. Got to any porn site, they all have a softcore section. This will give you woman/girls. For men, change the setting to gay. And here is why porn sites work, they are in the business of letting you find your "type", so they have a massive filter system to find your type. Tall, short, young, old, fat, skinny... literally you can find the exact model you want, usually in multiple poses. I know it sound sketchy, but use the free resources if they are there.

[Aleksei]

@BoomerZ <- Understated comment. It's true, if you want to check anatomy -whole anatomy- porn sites works to find the type of person that you want to model. Of course there is limitations, as you wont find people drinking tea, waiting for the bus, etc. And some of the camera angles might be too exagerated to practice -unless you are searching for just that, but mostly is fine. Use them to complement the traditional sites of pose reference. Also, Pinterest its incredible full of AI nowadays, even for quick references and they don't tell you, while most porn sites say when a picture has AI, so they are even better than normal pages, whoa!

@VibrantFox Yay! So much info! It took me a while to check all of that!

@NickRowler Yes! I still use loomis proportions because they are basic! Of course later I can stylice the drawing, but for general proportions, loomis its a great starting point!

My little advice to add to all this beautiful comments its to, beside pratice, its to have some dolls, action figures, or the digital equivalent, like this ones;

And from the digital front you can of courser use CSP 3d models, Design Doll, JustSketchMe, DAZ Studio -even download some free models and put some bones in them with blender and use them in CSP.

Really, even a 4 image tutorial found with google search engine will work if you understand it, and make your brain click.

[jwabeasley]

I use DAZ a lot in my workflow but I wouldn't recommend using the shortcuts when you're learning, because they will slow your growth.

The digital references are most helpful when you already have a good idea of how things should fit together - just like when doing math for science or engineering, you need to be able to estimate the ballpark before you punch it into the calculator, or weird mistakes will get introduced into your work.