Official Anatomy Thread

[Ryumaru]

hey cow what you have is a good start- ladies are hard to draw and i'm not very good at them so take what you want from this
The torso is usually about 3 heads tall- from the pit of the neck to the end of the sternum- from the end of the sternum to the belly button- and from that to the pubilacularous ( making up words is fun : D) area. Your arms were close to being right for the most part- I haven't seen anybody's arms that don't follow this: that the forearm length ( bone) is 5/6 the size of the humerus, sometimes this can be hard to judge with all the muscular mass on the arm.
I also put her into what I thought to be a more graceful pose, the weight-bearing leg is under the center of gravity and the other one is just having fun.
I also gave her long dark hair because thats my type :3

hope this helps a bit :]

[Cow]

Thank you all for your crits.

Arms are unrealistically tight with the body. Legs are too long. Shorten the upperleg so that the fingertips touch the top of the knee, and scale the lowerleg accordingly. Make sure your feet fit about 1.5 times into the lower leg.

I agree with you on the arms. The legs seem fine to me, four heads to the crotch region... I'm not sure where the fingertips touching top of the knee comes from, my body and a few charts I posthumously consulted seem to contradict that. Feet are an issue with me, as I can't reference my own body because my feet are essentially as long as my forearm and I'm reluctant to believe that's the norm, thanks for the proportional guideline.

Note that knowing proportions won't do. Whatever you draw, I actually recommend to find some sort of reference to get your perspective right. I tend to be able to draw a pose from a certain angle from my mind only if I drew it from life once, I don't know how this is for other people, but basically I'd have to draw every possible limb from every possible angle at least once to be able to draw anything without reference correctly.

For the past couple months I've felt a sort of artistic stagnation which I believe has a direct correlation with my dependency on references. I can draw from life and from photos well enough for my purposes (for now) but when it comes to imagination/creation rather than reproduction/interpretation I feel my art is lagging significantly. So now is my attempt to remedy this by confronting my deficiencies as an artist, even if it means 'regressing', or rather, abandoning my comfort zone in order to learn new things.

Yeah, sorry for the little monologue. Once I have a firmer grasp of proportion and shapes and overall construction I think I'll be set...

Both arms might actually be too long, with how they're bent, actually.

Yes, I agree. My application of proportions in general is far two two-dimensional, I need to work on some foreshortening I think.

Ryu's post

Thank you very much for the edit. What you did with the arms and shoulders is very good. I will make some more things soon with your advice in mind. I'll be trying to make some more dynamic stuff soon also.

[Ryumaru]

It's funny that you say that- the proportion rule IS that your foot is essentially the length of your forearm :] Might be a tad smaller for ladies - or maybe not.

[Helm]

Cow, it's very good to see you do what you are doing. As it was said, the arms are too long, though not to say that there aren't women with as long arms, but they're certainly exceptions. Also, the shoulders are a bit invented in that you'll need to study how the muscles and tendons work a bit under the skin there to realize what you're doing wrong.

Ryu, have you been instructed to not count the neck in the first 'head' from chin to sternum? The graph I always reference from (taped on my wall) counts it in and it seems pretty accurate for what it is.

[Ryumaru]

Burne Hogarth teaches that the neck is about 3/4ths a head long- but i've found that to be a bit to long for anything other than his muscly creations. But mine( as in my very own physical neck ) is clearly about half a head and is separate from the first head of the torso- although that might just be me and/ or not apply to ladies that much.

[ndchristie]

Burne Hogarth is a blight on young artists everywhere, the sooner you abandon everything he says the better.

I draw long necks because ah likes 'em, but in "perfect" posture the crest of the shoulders is half a head and slopes up slightly to the neck.  Most people tend to hunch forwards with their head tilted up to correct, which means that from many angles the neck is a quarter or less to the chin.

Ryu's girl is very tall but somehow works.  that's another funny thing about proportions is that you can work it if you want to .

[Ryumaru]

Yeh yeh, and Schmid is a bad painter :3
I think you can learn a bit from anybody- while Hogarth generalizes things too much  and is bound to that almost super humanish look, the proportions he teaches are for the most part " correct" ( for lack of better term- there's no such thing as " correct" proportions kiddies) and his diagrams of putting the figure into space and perspective have helped me at least.

Yeah I think sometimes for me drawing a figure from imagination is a hit or a miss

[ndchristie]

Hogarth and Schmid both teach a lot of terrible practices to artists too young to know better.  Your studies I think are a prime example of a guy who has begun to see the world for himself but you're definitely still shaking off the taint of copy-studies and how-to-draw type practice.  Hogarth poses no threat to most twenty-year-olds, but most twelve-year-olds don't yet know how to study and they form habits that are hard to unlearn.  Schmidt teaches kitsch to old women using words like dilly-dally and is also not a threat unless he's taken too seriously.

The fact remains though that neither artist is a proper teacher for anyone with aspirations.  Few if any artists are.  They offer two of many points of view which should be considered as a terribly small part of a larger picture and both preach technique over philosophy which I can't stand.

But you knew that was coming the moment you wrote a post starting with "burne hogarth teaches..."

Another anecdote : I sat in on a class the other day on my lunch break where a professor was teaching kids to stretch from the corners in, because he thinks that it's easier and feels better.  Now, the case has been made before for this method in a lot of ways, the greatest majority of them concerning artists who white-knuckle the first pinnings (a major no-no!) but in general I tend to side with the conservators that I've met who all tell me that paintings stretched from the corners are far sooner lost to time.  Regardless, there are now twenty kids walking around parsons who, because they have never stretched canvas before, are now going to do it from the corners in who, if they are still doing so in fifty years, will probably find all their old paintings to have given out.  It's just another example of good guys giving bad advice.

[Willows]

I'm inclined to believe that there ain't no right way, and that every artist will think their current mindset is the only way to do things. Me, I've been brainwashed by my education to believe that art should be produced with the robot juice of a thousand factories, not the sparkling, imaginitive fairy dust of the casual painter. And I love it. I get "instructed" "Don't fail the mission!" and "Don't think, just DO" and other awesome things, and though I don't really agree with that kind of a mindset, when I'm not starving and sleep-deprived I'm laughing my ass off about how silly the whole thing is.

But hey, I'm learning, and at this stage there's so dang much for me to learn I'll worry about whether or not something doesn't suit my fancy later. Thinking that I might possibly be learning bad habits (undoubtedly true) just makes me afraid to learn, and according to someone practically everything is a bad habit.

Also I'm somewhat curious what 'zactly these bad habits are. I've done a bit of Hogarthing in the past, and if there's anything I learned that I probably should watch out for, it'd be coo to know. I do much 'ppreciate you voicing your opinion though, andchristariuse

[Ryumaru]

Well Nate anybody who stretches canvases corners in is just lamesauce :p Maybe Parsons should add stretching a canvas to their admissions requirement?
I know this is off topic from anatomy- we could call it canvas anatomy maybe?- but white knuckling the first pinnings is a no no? My teacher taught me to do centers of top, then bottom, left then right, and if my hands don't ache from the stretch I put on the canvas it always turns out too loose to be used for anything more than drapery.