[Kjetil Nystuen]

Hi everybody,

I was taking a look in some old drawers, and found this. This was a task at the graphic design school I went to, back in 1995/96. The reason it's unfinished was the amount of time we had. There were simply not enough time to do it all properly. Most students didn't cared much about drawing from life anyway since it was a graphic design school.... Also, sorry if the scans are a bit lame, but scanning A1 formats is pure hell......

The reason why I post this is because it is a VERY good exercise in anatomy. I'm really not sure where this post fit in the best, but I'm posting it here at the work in progress section. Eventhough I'll never touch these drawings with a pencil ever again.

This is what you need: 1. A live model. That the model is nude is essential. 2. A very good book about anatomy 3. Even more books about anatomy. 4. A skeleton. You should have all this lying around in your drawers...

Explaining the steps.

First we were drawing the model. This is where we spent 75% of all the time. Our teacher was very strict on that we should get the proportions as good as possible. The errors you do on this step will cause you a lot of problems on the next drawings. I'm sorry to say that mine isn't the best example...



The next step is to slice the model. This forces you to think about the space your eyes don't see, but still is nescessary to have good knowledge about if you want to make believable drawings of humans. We were looking at our model from different angles making sketches. This is actually very clever to do already in the first step. Many times you are drawing, you focus on what it looks like from your point of view and forgets about what is actually happening. Why is the arm sticking out like that etc... I had an old german anatomy book that showed a human sliced every 5th or 10th centimeter. I have forgot it's name, I should check that out first thing in the morning. It's a great book.



Step three is to place the skeleton inside your pose. This can be rather difficult since it's usually hanging straight down. (Imagine 20 students twisting and turning the bones all the time....) I never had the time to finish it, I'm very sorry about it. I would like to do a thing like this once again with 10 times more time. If your first drawing is unaccurate, you should have MAJOR problems on this step.



Here is a close-up



The final step is to draw the muscles. (It's a good thing to use a well fit model and not a complete fatso...) You should consider your skeleton. The best thing is to trace up the skeleton on your drawing, so you can get the muscle attachements right. Remember what the muscle's purpose is, to keep the skeleton up and make it moving. If your biceps had been attached only to your upper arm, it wouldn't work at all. Also remember that whenever there's a muscle pullling your arms up, there's always one on the other side pulling it down. You need GOOD books about anatomy to get this right, or a medical study... I am sorry to say that I didn't complete this one either



I'm sorry to say that I wasn't able to finish this one either, but I used a time consuming technique. I'm pretty pleased with how the arm came out though..



More details...



My main mistake on this exercise was to focus on the details too soon. I should have traced it all up before I ever started rendering out details. But believe me, I really didn' use much time on this, and I'm really sorry about it.

Well, hope you took your time reading this. Maybe someone has any use for it. Good luck.

-Kjetil

[Zoso]

Thanks for posting this man. I can use all the anatomy reference I can get. This is definitely going to be an exercise that I attempt.

[toast!]

hi kjetil

thanks for posting ;
it seems to look so hard man ! i think the fact that this exercice has been developped in a school environment is important ; getting anatomy basics is really hard when you go for a self teaching way; i mean , when you don t have any feedback it s easy to develop very bad habits..

Do you have a good book in mind ? It s hard to find a good one with a good compromise between theory and good sketchs .

I would like to know if someone has a good method to learn basics when you dont have time to have some drawing classes . (practise is good but without any feedback it is very slow )

[Kjetil Nystuen]

Zoso: It's nice that you find this useful.

Toast: You have a very good point abount how this exercise has developed in a school enviroment. It has matured over several years, and my teachers have seen the exercise perfomed by many students and seen many models. I mentioned a German anatomy book. Hopefully I'll have the title tomorrov. I'll post it here.
If you don't have the time to go to classes, then books must be the best answer I guess.. Maybe you have some friends or family that can pose for you? Models with clothes has it's mission too, along with giving you a sense of the proportions, it's also very useful to see how the clothes are draped onto a model.

[toast!]

actually, i ve started to watch tv and draw every character i saw ;
this gives a good way to learn movement and overall shapes but very hard to learn muscle structure and the way elements are attached

also, the way character appear on the screen are often on the same position

it s fun to do thought

[Lukai]

ALLRIGHT! I'm of the few who decided to enter into Med. Illustration, so it's great to see this kind of stuff up here. Looks like it's a cool exercise as well. I don't think I'm ever going to stop learning about drawing the human figure so the more exercises the better! Thanks!

[Joachim]

awesome exercise Kjetil. And, very well pulled off as well.

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www.JoachimArt.com

[Kjetil Nystuen]

Oh, the forum is up again...

Lukai, if you like it, and you're in to medical illustration, then I guess I must have done something right. Thanks a lot.

Hi Joachim. Actually I'm a bit confused, I get very little feedback on this one. Only three guys have replied. I think that's a bit strange, because this forum is full of questions about anatomy, so I thought people would have had a lot of opinions. But it looks like most of the members likes drawings of various superheros/superbabes more. Well, up it goes again. Someone around here must have an interest in drawing anatomy? Thanks Joachim for giving me feedback.. Maybe it's in the wrong forum...?

[Slicer]

Well I for one, is really trying to get a hand on how to get the body proportions right. But since I dont have anyone who wants to stand model for me I just have to rely on photos.
I also have another problem. I have difficulties on drawing big. Its hard to get down the proportions right when drawing big.

And the anatomy books, well, they are not in my hands yet but I think ill order some books soon. I need them =)

[Zaphod]

Thankyou!

I've had a good anatomy book for a while now. But I've never been sure how to utilize it the best way. Sitting down and just copying all the drawings proved to be both tedious and boring. But now I have something to start from. The book wich holds over 1200 detailed drawings of human and animals and the drawings is really good. It's written by some Andr�s Suzyoghy guy. I could give you the ISBN, but I have a Swedish version of the book, so it won't do you any good. It's called (directly translated form the swedish title, so it might be wrong): Anatomical drawing school.

Anyways, I scanned a few pictures of a head from that book a wile ago. If you want to see you can look here http://hem.passagen.se/zappod/zaph/head.jpg

I'm planning to attend some life drawing soon classes soon. But coming along with the book (that weights some kilos and hosts 600 pages) seems pretty clumsy. Do you think that it will work just as good if I take the drawings and do all the muscels and stuff back home?
Or should I have the model before myself when I do this too?

/magnus

[Nex]

hah, I have a book from the same guy and its great.

its from (ilus.) Andr�s Szunyoghy with Text from Dr. Gy�rgy Feh�r. (both are hungarian)

the book is called "Human Anatomy of the artist".. uhm wait [edit] "Human Anatomy FOR the Artist" of course[/edit] has 496 pages and goes into detail.

muscle names, bones, function, movement, connection points.. all in there.

if you see it around take a look, its really a great book.

If anyone is interrested but cant find it, I could scan some examples.



[This message has been edited by Nex (edited January 20, 2001).]

[Kjetil Nystuen]

Hi Slicer. Most people have problems when they start drawing big. It's very important to step back and look very often. Also it's important to get the proportions right from the beginning. I've completely forgot to look up the title on the anatomy book I used on this exercise, I'll have to do that. But the book Zaphod has scanned from looks very good.

Zaphod, I think I looked at that book in a bookstore last week. It is good. I almost bought it. I think I'll go back and do so. And yes, I think to do the drawings first and the muscles at home is very clever. In that way you'll get a lot out of the classes, not just forgetting about the drawings when you come home. When you start filling in muscles you'll get a totally different understanding of your drawings. Of course, if you have the oppurtunity of having a model of your own, nothing is better. But both ways will work good I think. Good luck!

Nex, thanks for the tip! I wish I was the lucky owner of that book too.

-Kjetil


[This message has been edited by Kjetil Nystuen (edited January 20, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Kjetil Nystuen (edited January 20, 2001).]