I have a really REALLY hard time to wrap my head around human anatomy especially muscles.
I don't mean the basic proportions, I know that the crotch is around the half of the body, nipples one head below the chest, the chest is ~ two craniums wide etc.
But let's say I would draw a person catching a ball in mid air from imagination, I would not know how to accurately attach deltoid, bizeps, triceps and all these fucking weird muscles of the forearm to my mannequin.
Or let's say I look at a naked body, it's almost impossible for me to see the muscles if it's not a very buff person and even than I struggle to trace muscles if it's not a very good lightning.
There are resources and books that show the muscles but only in the soldier position and in a very medical fashion. I roughly know where these muscles are but I cannot imagine them in a three dimensional space and how the rotation of the hand would affect them etc.
Any tips or resources?
I'm going back to my days in figure drawing and doing from drawing from "life" (photographs on my second monitor).
It doesn't really teach you anything but it does help reinforce the locations and volume of muscles and bones. To help teach the most important shapes within the figure I took the original, redrew it from "life", redrew that in a "simpler" manner, redrew that even more simple, and so on.
Eventually you arrive at basic shapes and lines, which are where you usually start when drawing from imagination, so I can see the process of basic shapes to actual figure a little clearer.
My tip for this approach (a "study approach") is to keep doing these "studies" until you feel more comfortable starting from scratch and building your figure. Like learning a new language it's important to practice it consistently or the knowledge will fade.
>pic related
The picture I was working from (the middle bust).
>>465815
My study result (I shrank the simplified busts next to each other just to see easier but when you actually do the study you do each bust in a new layer and "trace" the next one)
>>465832
>Eventually you arrive at basic shapes and lines, which are where you usually start when drawing from imagination, so I can see the process of basic shapes to actual figure a little clearer.
You draw her in the soldier position, but what if you wanted to draw her while picking something up from the ground?
Or what if you wanted to draw her with more body fat?
Understanding the surface and describing the surface with simple shapes would no longer be sufficient, drawing her accurately in any position, gesture and even variable body fat would need an actual understanding of what happens beneath the surface.
As I said in my opening post, I'm not struggling with basic proportions, I'm struggling with anatomy.
>>465834
Proportions are derived from the basic shapes. e.g; If the rib cage is smaller than the hips you can change the shapes of either to change these proportions.
The study I mentioned in my post is about arriving from these shapes, regardless of proportion, at the final figure.
>Body fat
The busts I'm drawing from are just muscle (not toned muscle but rather just basic muscle you would find almost anyone has if you removed fat). You can practice body fat locations and volume by using reference pictures or busts that include them.
Proportions are the building blocks of a figures pose. It's not quite as simple as moving the basic proportions around and connecting them to create a pose but it does offer a start to building the posed figure.
If you have only two proportions (rib cage and hips) and move them in reference to each other, to create the pose of the torso, then connect them you will lose a lot of the other proportions that are important in-between for the pose (lower stomach, mid abdominal region, side abdomens, naval location, etc.). My study helps with this mostly but there are a lot of other studies you can do to help with posing.
In figure drawing we did balance studies with vine charcoal, we did sighting to keep pieces of the figure in proportion (most useful for extremities like arms and legs), we did mapping of the major points on a torso, we did massing in of the torso, and so on. There are tons of studies that each help in their own way to build a figure.
I offered my study because it requires no prior skill to do (you could trace the bust if you needed to and then work to make simple shapes from there) and I had an example of it on hand.
Anyways, my only over-arching tip is to keep studying if you feel you drawn-from-imagination drawings aren't coming out satisfactory. Study in a way that at the end of the study you feel a little better about your artistic skill in some way, then be sure to keep studying maybe once or twice a day.
>>465830
0770434142
0486202046
Between these two, you ought to get an idea of what goes where.
