PDA

View Full Version : Anatomy Thread of fuss

fuss
10-27-2006, 12:37 AM
Hi guys (and gals),

I've been lurking the boards for quite some time already and finally decided to open my own anatomy thread.

Something about my (artistic? :D) background: Well, I used to draw as a kid since as long as I remember until my late teenage years (I never got any formal art education, though). Then, however, I became more and more interested in other things and at some point stopped doing anything art related for nearly 10 years. For the last two years I tried to pick up drawing again, but it wasn't before about 6-7 month ago that I finally decided to seriously attack this matter. Since then I am trying to practice drawing for at least 60-90min a day. I would love to spend more time on it, unfortunately college, my part-time job (I'm currently paying my bills working as a computer programmer), learning two foreign languages, my band and the need for at least 7 hours of sleep a day successfully prevent me from doing this. Oh, and recently I couldn't help myself but to pick up painting (or, rather, learning how to paint, right now I really suck at it). I also like to have sex from time to time and unfortunately for this you have to leave the house occasionally and spend time among other human beings, and all that costs precious time (just like writing overlong messages on public internet forums ;) ).

Anyway, before I start posting my sketches, maybe some words about my general approach. I am trying to avoid drawing from reference as much as possible. Instead, I study my subject until I have a quite clear mental picture of it and can visualize it at least roughly in my mind, from different angles. Then I am trying to find or create a kind of formula for it's underlying structure which I can easily memorize, so I can recreate it or variants of it on paper from imagination. Usually I only use reference when I forget how something looks like or to check if a part of a drawing feels odd and I fail to nail down the cause of it. OR sometimes during initial studies, but even then I always try to break the subject down into three dimensional basic forms first and recreate it in "3D" on paper, I never simply copy what I see in 2D. I am also a big fan of drawing quickly, and a lot of the stuff I will post here will be just quick studies or exercises, so bear with me if it's not as cleaned up, nicely shaded and maybe not 100% as accurate as the drawings you can find in most of the other threads ;).

Okay, but that was enough bulls****ing for one post, let's get it on ;). Thanks for reading and congratulations if you've made it so far without falling asleep.

In this thread I will try to methodically study and draw the different parts of the human body until I hopefully learn to draw the complete body form, in all it's variations, from different angles and in different poses. Let's hope I reach the goal before I'll die of old age :D .

So, I am starting with the skull (which is kind of a repetition, since I actually already know how to draw a skull, but I'll do it for the sake of completeness...). These are some of the sketches I've made over the last two days:

http://www.infearia.de/ogo_misc/anatomy25-261006.jpg
Rebeccak
10-27-2006, 12:45 AM
Heya fuss,

Welcome aboard! :) Well, I see you've cleared my first question :D and I appreciate your thorough introduction. :) Are these skulls then from your imagination / or from memorized reference? If so, that's quite impressive - I look forward to seeing your progress here.

Cheers,

-Rebeccak
NR43
10-27-2006, 06:29 AM
Hello fuss

Your intro tells me you're a healthy person, lacking time as so many of us :D

Great to see these skull studies. Your approach towards drawing is very interesting.
I am wondering, do you draw like this because you feel you're making faster progress this way or is there any other particular reason?

This certainly looks like this thread is going to be another great treatment for the eye.
Would love to see more
Intervain
10-27-2006, 09:10 AM
Hi Fuss - really nice start there!!!

so good to read someone's 'artistic' background that sounds like ones own - I was also drawing a lot until my teenage days and then stopped for 10 years :D So we're both proof it's possible :) Keep 'em coming!
fuss
10-27-2006, 01:08 PM
Hello again, thanks for the warm welcome (Rebecca, I apprectiate you used the word "thorough" instead of "lenghty" when referreing to my introduction ;)).

To quickly answer your questions:

Rebecca, for some of the skulls I DID use a bit of reference to doublecheck and correct certain areas, which I still tend to have some trouble with at certain angles. Most of what you see and most of the skulls where made completely from imagination, though (you can actually see it, the foreshortening and some details do not always feel quite right, however I would have fixed those things in a finished drawing). It's not that hard actually, the key is to know perspective and your subject very well and then to build it in perspective. In the above drawings I used a techniques outlined by Andrew Loomis in one of his great books, to which I just added a couple of steps. It's great if you need to draw a head/skull from imagination, though it also has a weak point - it's not so suitable if you have to draw a head that is turned more than 90° to either side, it's on my todo list to figure a better way to do it though (probably using a box instead of a ball as the basic primitive), but that's why you don't see me drawing skulls that are turned more than 90° to the side.

NR43, hi and thanks :). I chose this particular way of drawing because I wanted to be able to take a subject and draw it in any situation without the need for references (and you can't have a reference for every scenario). Besides, it's a greater challenge than just copying a reference picture, and it teaches you more about your subject. I also find it more satisfying and not so boring than mere copying. I want to know more about what I draw, how it's built and how it works, and yes, I actually feel it is faster than the traditional approach, at least for me, although more fatiquing for the mind. With a bit of practice you only have to know how something looks like and then you can draw it from all different angles, without the need to practice drawing it from all different angles over and over again (this approach is nothing new, it's what industrial design guys do when drawing cars, props etc.).

Intervain, thanks, it's good to know I'm not the only one in this situation ;). It can be really daunting to see teenagers who are already so much better than oneself, I feel I wasted so much of my time in the past... I will keep 'em coming ;).
fuss
10-28-2006, 10:32 PM
Although nobody asked me to do that :D, today I thought I could make a quick step-by-step of how I created the skulls in my first posting. As I already mentioned, it's basically the technique described in Andrew Loomis' great book "Drawing the Head and Hands". So, if you read that book, you won't find anything new or interesting here ;). The whole thing was fun to do, though, and maybe somebody can find it useful nevertheless.

P.S. - I promise it will be my last posting about skulls for a while ;). I'll probably come back with eyes or nose next (could take a couple of days, though).

http://www.infearia.de/ogo_misc/skull-steps.gif
NR43
10-29-2006, 09:21 AM
Loomis rocks!
his technique was the first I referred too for drawing heads under an angle, and now when I'm learning other techniques, I catch myself getting back to loomis' way when I'm stuck. I guess that's the great thing about it all. The more "milage", the easier to find a solution for a drawing problem.

Nice anim and oh... post as many skulls as you like here... after all this is the anatomy forum ;)
CGTalk Moderation
10-29-2006, 09:21 AM
This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.