Official Anatomy Thread

[Indigo]

Helm, I especially like the new one with the girl and guy.  Very nice stuff - Though I think the way you render feet could be improved a bit across all your images.



the image on the left points out problem areas and things of the sort, while the image on the right shows an example of how the critique can be applied...

I'll go through one by one.

The thigh of (his) left leg currently doesn't support the flow of the figure.  It appears to by almost sagging despite his beefed/firm muscles.  The red arrow shows your current action-line, and the blue line shows a possible fix.

Also on that same thigh, the frontmost muscle on the quads is just a tiny sliver in comparison to that of his right.   I think his right thigh is better rendered in this regard.

His right arm also has a number of problems.  with the palm of the hand facing away from the camera,  all the muscles should twist around to support it.  the forearm seems to do this pretty well, but the upper are doesn't at all. the bicept should wedge between the upper (extensors) and underside muscles of the forearms, but currently there is no such flow in it's connection (Ryumaru mentioned this as well)  Also, his deltoid is no where near it's relative size it should be in comparison to his left.

on his left arm I outlined the extensor muscle.  These muscles do not wrap underneath the wrists.  They stay on top.  You actually did this quite nicely on his right arm, but not his left.

lastly, I believe you've over-exaggerated his lat.  Even on the most extreme buff men, the contour of the lat should meet up somewhere where the shoulder joint is.  They way you have it drawn now suggests it connects somewhere to the underside of the tricept.

[edited a couple things]

[Helm]

I guess I should post these directly to the Anatomy thread 

Good points all around and I will address what I can tomorrow. Keep in mind though that whereas your rationales for the edits are sound most of the time, the proposed solutions you present suffer from Marvelitis. You sorta misconstrue my intention. It is worthwhile to remember that this sort of physique is not the result of nature and as such the 'perfect stylized uberman' that one learns to draw from studying American superhero comics is only one possible abstraction of how muscles would work (or say, stack) when pumped up to such grotesquery by overworking out and possibly chemicals. Dude is not supposed to look like he has an 'awesome', enviable body, he's supposed to look icky with his huge piles of pock-ridden meat. Your edit misinterprets the theme of the picture, and while it's really useful to get anatomy critique at any case, I hope you don't mind my critique your intention in critiquing. I am trying to communicate a small story much more than I am trying to be a physician here.

http://bp1.blogger.com/_6X0pq71c8Ng/R6gaaYdusGI/AAAAAAAAAOY/cTeE3FEe6EE/s1600-h/9804-BodyBuilding-2.jpg check this out
and http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/body_builder_10sfw.gif
and tell me if these are patented Marvel ubermen or if they're distinctively different.


What is my life. Where am I? How long have I been out-cold? If you drew this, would you expect to get anatomy critique for it?


Check out the legs here. Are they the same legs you envision every time you think of drawing a muscly human? (also, enjoy suprise ball!)

The left (ours) shoulder is an extremely valid one though. I will have to rework that arm from the top, it seems. Legs crits aren't really doing it for me for mentioned reasons.

Also, forgot:

The thigh of (his) left leg currently doesn't support the flow of the figure.  It appears to by almost sagging despite his beefed/firm muscles.  The red arrow shows your current action-line, and the blue line shows a possible fix.

Again, intention. I am not drawing a superhero comic book where a streamlined direction for everything and total eye-please are the point. Sagging is good! Ugly is beautiful! An emotional response is valued higher than a pleasing, familiar and shapely uberman. Christ, look at his face!

[Indigo]

None of my critique covered how to style the image (as you say Marvelitis).  All the critique I gave (with maybe the exception of the action-line on the thigh) is applicable to ALL styles as they are anatomy facts of positioning from life.  No matter how buff or exaggerated you're intending your muscleman to be, the positioning and general flow of the muscles remain the same

even in your picture examples you're showing here - they address all the issues that were mentioned in my critique.  their frontmost quad is not a sliver, their upperarm muscles flow naturally into the forearm, and the extensors dont wrap under the wrists but rather stay to the side as they should be.

[Helm]

More or less yes, no matter how you disfigure your body you probably won't misplace any discrete muscle groups, and an edit will be coming. What I wanted you to keep was that your proposed solutions, besides addressing soundly various errors I made prettied up the figure. "Duh, helm, if you fix muscles it'll look better!" yes, but I mean pretty as in some sort of beefcake ideal, which is the opposite of what I'm going for. It's a minor point for your interest (unlearn Marvelitis, Satan compels you!) and in no way meant to fight your critique, for which I thank you

[Indigo]

ah I understand.  To be more clear, my edit was not a proposed solution when it comes to the style of the image.  It was merely my way of showing the critique applied without regard to style - and it accomplishes this well.

Its a tangent point you make - and I do agree with it.  But as Ive said before, I've never read or studied american comic books before, and the style that is drawn by my hand is just how I interpret anatomy.  I am working on being a bit more dynamic with my renderings though.

[Helm]

no, be less dynamic!

fixes:

[Indigo]

the arm has been beautifully fixed.  I like it much more.  I'm still convinced that the saggy action-line of the leg is hurting the image quite a bit.

BTW, I tagged pixeljoint.  REPRESENT!!
http://pixeljoint.com/2008/07/06/2586/Indigos_Pixelation_Theme.htm

[Helm]

haha, awesome! Using!

Also, check out how lowering the right (ours) clavicle helped the balance and 'how long are these arms anyway?' effect.

Sag stays 

[Ryumaru]

The arm is much better now. You said that it depends on how you flex but im sure you've noticed that while that is true to an extent it's impossible to get the upper and forearm to be in those positions and be perceivably connected.
Your doing a GREAT job of portraying ugly muscles, It's hard not to open him up in painter and pretty him up with more ideal shapes!

[Helm]

Yeah I tried it and whereas it's mostly possible it's not really comfortable so I changed it. The lesson I must learn is to never draw the rotations of the muscles on the arm before settling on the exact position of the hand/palm.