Human Anatomy
- When drawing the human body, it generally helps to start from the head down
- Heads are based on a circle, with the cheek bones and jaw line dropping NOT TOO FAR below the center of the circle. The biggest mistake I've seen people doing with their circle guide lines is use the bottom of the circle as their starting point. The bottom of the circle is used to indicate the MIDDLE of the face later on
- Fun facts about drawing the Face:
- The bottom of your cheekbones will ALWAYS line up with the bottom of your nose
- Your eyes are level with the center of your ears
- For accurate proportions, some people use something called the triangle method. To do this, draw a triangle from the jaw bones up to the top of the bridge of the nose. Use this triangle as guidelines for the eyes and lips. The bottom of the triangle will be the lips, and eyes will lie just on the edges of the two sides of the triangle.
- When drawing the neck, remember the muscle structure that lies behind it. it's an outward curve; kind of like the Atari logo! there's a strong center line (The "adam's apple" and trachea) and the two curves lines around it (the muscles)
- Also, in regards to drawing the neck, the two side muscles become more prominent in certain positions, as well as on thinner people. Keep this in mind!
- The collar bones are connected to the shoulders. Find the bottom of your neck muscles, extend them to become the traps, then send a line starting on either side of the neck, extending IN FRONT of those muscles (since they're on the back part of the shoulder) and extend them into your shoulders.
- On thinner people, as well as muscular people, collar bones and trap muscles are prominent
- Keep in mind that the limbs are not just thin tubes, they have their own unique structure that are build off of the muscles that are there.
- Females have very differing muscle structure as well as smaller waists and larger hips than males. Use the old "hourglass" when starting out finding female form, as well as the "inverted triangle" for your males. When you get comfortable with those two shapes, find different body types and shapes! Not everybody has the same body, you know!
- Lastly, when thinking of placement for joints, arms, legs, etc, Think of those old barbie dolls you maybe had when you were younger (action figures aren't always that great for this example) Think of all the different parts she/he was made up of. The torso was one shape, then there were separate arms and legs. Think of those shapes and how they all fit together. This method usually helps me with the placement of shoulders, hips and legs.
Well, that's all I've got. I hope this helped you out!
