AuthorTopic: [WIP][C&C] General pixel-art  (Read 42853 times)

Offline Facet

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I would recommend studying some older renaissance anatomy book illustrations, particularly the ones by Vesalius.
This site is pretty good for such information, some of them are pretty bad for reference, but there are a few really good ones (Vesalius, Albinus, Genga, Cheselden  and Casseri (to an extent)).

One book that doesn't appear in the list, and is more medical in nature rather than for art, is Grey's anatomy, there some really superb illustrations in it.
http://www.bartleby.com/107/indexillus.html
While those links are hugely interesting, I think a more contextual figure drawing book (try Loomis – Figure Drawing), would be more appropriate than de facto anatomy tome. The idea of a beginner improving the figure that way (and specifically from antiquated sources, which could easily be misleading or inaccurate) actually seems a bit mad to me. Gray’s is cool; I have a copy inherited from a nurse, but might only have really used it a couple times for zombie viscera or something. 
 
You might actually be better off focusing on honing your observational drawing skills (measuring, proportions, shapes, fluency) to improve the accuracy of your figures and most else. You can always keep ref. handy 'til it sticks.
« Last Edit: October 11, 2014, 06:01:42 pm by Facet »

Offline Night

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While those links are hugely interesting, I think a more contextual figure drawing book (try Loomis – Figure Drawing), would be more appropriate than de facto anatomy tome. The idea of a beginner improving the figure that way (and specifically from antiquated sources, which could easily be misleading or inaccurate) actually seems a bit mad to me. Gray’s is cool; I have a copy inherited from a nurse, but might only have really used it a couple times for zombie viscera or something. 
 
You might actually be better off focusing on honing your observational drawing skills (measuring, proportions, shapes, fluency) to improve the accuracy of your figures and most else. You can always keep ref. handy 'til it sticks.

By no means am I saying that these are best ones out there (as I said most of them are pretty terrible, especially the older ones. I noted the ones that I saw as the best); but they do represent the muscles and skeleton in a very clear way, to me at least.
 
Perhaps I've had an unusual way of learning anatomy to others, but I don't see the big deal about learning from those, nothing mad for sure (I swear I'm not crazy :crazy:).
In terms of accuracy the ones I noted are pretty accurate in my opinion, nothing really irregular catches the eye; and sure there might be some small muscles that are inaccurate (which is doubtful within itself seeing as all of them are drawn directly from dissected bodies) ,but you aren't expected to remember any those (like in the area between the neck and traps for an instance; looks like a bunch of strings to me, but it has a configuration).

The muscle groups are largely the same as the modern ones would depict them, if not exactly the same (muscle groups likes the pecs, delts, biceps, triceps, etc... big muscles).

About Grey, a rather interesting example you give to its use, but I hope you didn't misunderstand me as I wasn't referring to the organs and stuff, but to the skeleton and muscle illustrations, which might be few, but still are pretty great in my eyes.
There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Offline AshCrimson

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Could you cite the books you're reading possibly? Just wondering.

With anatomy it's pretty important to know how the skeleton looks like, so you know where the muscles originate from and attach to; put some more attention to that.
I would recommend studying some older renaissance anatomy book illustrations, particularly the ones by Vesalius.
This site is pretty good for such information, some of them are pretty bad for reference, but there are a few really good ones (Vesalius, Albinus, Genga, Cheselden  and Casseri (to an extent)).

One book that doesn't appear in the list, and is more medical in nature rather than for art, is Grey's anatomy, there some really superb illustrations in it.
http://www.bartleby.com/107/indexillus.html

I'm currently using books designed for beginners currently:

Human Anatomy Made Amazingly Easy By Chris Hart: http://www.amazon.com/Human-Anatomy-Made-Amazingly-Easy/dp/0823024970

And

Figure It Out! Human Proportions By Chris Hart: http://www.amazon.com/Figure-Out-Human-Proportions-Christopher/dp/1936096730/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1HCB4TQTA7GM9E88T42P

My foray into pixel-art is to be honest my first and only time i've ever done art, i haven't studied it before, nor anatomy, so im not familiar with any other references be they art or anatomical.

I originally made stuff like weapons and shields before thinking "Oh it would be cool if there were characters that could hold them and stuff" and then made the logical leap to making said characters.

Offline Facet

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@Night Sure, loads of those are beautiful and I hadn't seen them before, so thanks for that! I'm surely not knowledgeable enough to say where those might be inaccurate but it’s an unnecessary pot-luck on top of all the stuff which won’t be useful; those are presented and archived as historically notable artworks, not reference sources.
   
And of course I don't mean to say you’re crackers if that worked for you! :lol: Don't mean to overstate. But there are some well-established artist’s guides that make sense of so much, and from what’s being worked on I don’t think full spectrum anatomy will be that helpful. 

edit:
Quote
About Grey, a rather interesting example you give to its use, but I hope you didn't misunderstand me as I wasn't referring to the organs and stuff, but to the skeleton and muscle illustrations, which might be few, but still are pretty great in my eyes.
In everyone's eyes! It's excellent stuff to refer to some specific. I think later editions have some replacements of the original drawings, and the contemporary hardly anything left, which is a shame.
« Last Edit: October 11, 2014, 10:02:57 pm by Facet »

Offline jtfjtfjtf

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I second getting Andrew Loomis' book Figure Drawing. His other books are good too.

Offline Mr. Fahrenheit

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His books are online for free here: -noped-
« Last Edit: October 12, 2014, 09:38:56 am by Crow »

Offline Crow

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I question that legally, Mr. Fahrenheit. Especially because another site linked on the one you provided stated they had to take their copies down due to a cease and desist. More info on the books, please, and if it's really okay to distribute them freely.
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Offline Mr. Fahrenheit

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Hmm, sorry about that crow, I never realized that.

Offline Night

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Quote from: AshCrimson
snip
Seems alright I suppose, sorry if the links I sent were a little out there; I still think you should check them out when you're more comfortable with anatomy though.  :D

Quote from: Facet
snip
You're welcome! about using them as a reference; I might be pulling this out of my ass since I have no clue if it's true, but I think they might've been used for art during the renaissance, and are still used today by some.  ::)

And I was already starting to think that I've gone insane!
Yeah I agree with you, and to backtrack I actually think Loomis' books are wonderful and would suggest them too, but for the purposes of learning the muscle groups and skeleton alone I think these good ol' tomes are too, wonderful (the ones I noted! not something like the Persian illustrations or Brunschwig's work); perhaps not fit for a beginner though on a second thought..

I'm not suggesting studying anatomy all round if that's what it seemed like I was doing (that'd be useless for the purposes of art, well, unless for something like zombies like you mentioned earlier), but I am advocating to learn the skeletal and muscular structure in depth, if that's a little less crazy.  ;)
There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Offline AshCrimson

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Thanks again for the links to the Loomis book, Started reading up on it and attempted to draw one of the "Manikin Frames" (from page 40, 3/4 Front view).



I realise the limbs are quite thin, just wanted to get the general shape of the thing down before i detailed the limbs specifically. Will try to make the knees and elbows more obvious, but at this point tried to indicate them with darker shading.