What are your favorite resources for understanding anatomy?

Hello! I'm new to line of action. I've been practicing for a few days, and I have noticed I'm lacking some basic anatomy understanding. I have a general grasp on proportions, but when I look at my drawings I notice I have trouble understanding how "meat sticks to bone" (does that make sense lol?).

Whenever I'm trying to draw a model with a lil more curves, I can't figure out their basic form. I think it's because I have mostly focused on old-school references which depict stereotypical bodies. And that's no good! So I was wondering, does anyone have any advice?

I would appreciate if anyone could drop their top secret resources that helped them get a better understanding on how the body "connects" or the volume of muscles and mass works.

Does that make sense? I hope it does :) ty

I actually don't have a favourite resource for anatomy, but one observation to your post: If your main problem are models with "curves", then it is not about understanding muscles, (which most anatomy resources will focus on), but about body fat.

I personally find it helpful to treat the paunch and on female models the breasts and occasionally the thighs as additonal "masses" when sketching out "the main masses" (head, chest, hip). They aren't as decisive for the pose itself, as they usually don't influence the position of joints, but they can just hide so much of the construction and influence the outline so much, that sketching them in individually helps me a lot to find the OG main masses quicker, and stick more consistently to uniform shortcuts for them. The forms of paunch, breasts, thighs, aren't spectacularly complex either. Just being aware of them and treating them separately in the main construction has helped me at least a lot when sketching overweight models. So something you might want to try, to see whether it helps you, too.

EDIT: If you don't use "curvy" as euphemism for overweight, I still believe, that the problem might be not with anatomy, but with shading.

Thing is, the models, were you really need anatomy for are those really ripped ones, where you can literally make out every single muscle. With "curvy" females, the issue is still body fat. Namely, that for example females have on average a higher body fat percentage than males, so unless the connective tissue is degraded by age or desiccation, there are a lot fewer details visible on the body, and if you don't draw accordingly, the model may appear somewhat unhealthy.

So you either need to consciously reduce the amount of details, by focusing on long curved lines, or if you actually insist on rendering full detail, you need to be extra extra careful with sorting out the values. Make sure the values are consistent over the whole model, the lights are "clean", i.e. shadows are terminator, core shadow and reflected light, while lights are halftones and highlights, and asl the halftones are part of the light, they MUST be brighter than the shadow w/ reflected light, even if local contrasts want to leave you astray.

• Aunt Herbert edited this post on January 20, 2024 10:44am.
• Aunt Herbert edited this post on January 20, 2024 3:11pm.

i've heard good things about the morpho: anatomy for artists series, and it has a book on fat and skin folds

I am not any expert but I would HIGHLY reccomend you to do a bit of research about the muscles with the parts of the body you're having problem with; I was having the same kind of issue when drawing the basic forms of the face, but know that I can slighty comprehend how does the muscles display under the face is easier to draw any forms or curves of the face. Try to not get over everything at once, but to scan trough a group of muscles of your interest and observe them as layers or flat but stretchy tubes that "wrap" around the bone. That's what works for me, I dunno, I'm still trying to figure out anatomy as well.

Just wanted to drop by and say thanks for all the advice!

I found the book from Morpho on fat and folds very interesting (it was easy to find online too :P). Still, some of the drawings were a bit difficult for me... so I went back to basics: trying to break down everything into very simple shapes. This helped me understanding the structure underneath much better. Upon reviewing some of my recent drawings, I realize my main problem is with understanding volumes: when I have to draw a tummy, or breasts, they don't come out right. Muscles I find easier to picture, because I can identify the edges better (maybe because I'm more familiar with them in my head?). So far what I'm doing is:

· Looking at other people's drawings and studying how they break down skin folds, breasts, butts, all that good stuff.

· Focusing on identifying the main shapes and breaking down the models I had most trouble with.

· Studying my disgraceful attempts to figure out where I went wrong, and giving them another shot!

Hoping this helps others who might struggle with bumps and lumps like me. :)