Art Tips: Anatomy & Figure Drawing

I’ve done a great deal of life drawing in my nearly 25 years of art-journeying. I firmly believe that life drawing (or figure drawing) plays a big role - consciously or not - in setting your art ‘ceiling.’ There is so much to the figure drawing process: gesture drawing, capturing a sense of life and movement, building simple forms, building more complex forms, fitting things together, lighting all those forms, etc., all of which come together to represent the thing we are all most familiar with: our own bodies. If you get the figure wrong, people will know. If you can get it right, that is an accomplishment!

It’s one of those subjects that is right in your face (literally) when analyzing the figure. And it’s just so complex, all the bonus, muscles, insertions, processes, girdles, joints, etc. It can be dizzying just glancing up at the giant mountain of artist-anatomy textbooks out there.

In fact, anatomy can actively harm your drawing, because it can easily become clinical. If you’re agonizing over the origin and insertion of the biceps, it’s quite common for that sort of thing to work against, say, the gesture and mood of the drawing. A zillion artists have fallen into that trap.

I’ve learned to compartmentalize anatomy in the same box as simple forms (see what I did there.)

Yes, it will take some memorization (eg. The Teres major is here, and it looks like this when the arm is raised, and like this when the arm is lowered). It will require some isolated study, which you may want to filter into your regular drawing sessions when you do have a good grasp on drawing simple forms. But don’t let it steal you away from all other aspects of figure drawing!

What I’m Working On

I have built up some good momentum on my ‘Total Guide To Figure Drawing’ class. If you’ve ordered this class as part of the pre-sale, I hope you’ve been checking in lately to see new sections constantly being added!

The class is admittedly taking much longer than expected. Months longer. When I began to really break down my general outline of the course, things just became way bigger than I expected. I’m projecting the final runtime of the class to be about 3x longer than my initial map-out. This is ultimately a good thing, because the class will be extremely comprehensive when it’s done. It will just take a few more months to produce than initially thought. But I’m excited about this course in a way I haven’t been in some time!

The Art Industry: Good, Fast, Cheap?

Have you seen that ‘freelance-triangle’ graphic - the one that lists three items: speed, price, and quality - and the whole caveat is that a client can only choose two, and must sacrifice the remaining item? I think about that often. In fact, I used its principle to turn down a job a few weeks ago. It was a shame, because it was from a fairly big and well-known company (which I won’t name here), but I felt that they were trying to ask me for all three: quick speed, low price, and high quality. I replied (nicely) stating that the job sounded interesting (which it truly did!), but my rate is actually closer to $XXX.XX given the turnaround, and could they possibly meet me closer to that. The company declined, and all parties cordially moved on.

Worth Checking Out: Riven: The Sequel To Myst

My favourite video game of all time is Riven: The Sequel To Myst. It was initially released in 1997 (on five CD roms!), and boasted realistic graphics unlike anything anyone had ever seen in a game. I still think the graphics are great, and did a whole YouTube video on it. The story and world-building in Riven are just awesome, too.

Last year, Cyan, the studio behind Riven, released its remake of the game. I admit that during production I was real skeptical … but Cyan totally nailed it. It really captures the flavour of the original game, while successfully updating it for today’s tech and gaming trends. I’m saddened to report that this year Cyan has gone through two rounds of layoffs, and could use a little support. So if you’re in the market for a powerful, solitary puzzle experience that I all but guarantee you will remember, go give the latest Riven a try!

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P.S. I participated in a character design duel! Is it better to plan or not?