Drawing musculature

[mygrimmbrother]

Ok, I'll be honest guys - I pretty much suck at this, unless I'm copying from a particular reference. At the moment I'm sketching up a large A3 portrait of Devlin Waugh, using a drawing from an anatomy book as the source (a drawing which is itself based on 'Hercules' by Laurent Delvaux), and as such I can see exactly what I'm doing, where all the muscles are and everything. So far so good. But what about when you're drawing a character with pretty defined muscles - such as Waugh, Dredd, Rogue or Johnny Alpha - for a strip, and you have to draw that character in multiple poses? Is this something that just gets easier over time, as you 'learn' where all the muscles should go? At the moment, there are times when I have to pretty much make a leap of faith and just guess. It's usually obvious if I'm way off, and I'll scrap it or work over it, but still, this is something that troubles me. Anyone out there have any hints/tips? Be very appreciated chaps.

[pauljholden]

Keep working at it, don't get discouraged, EVERYONE (and seriously, EVERYONE - every living artist and every artist that has ever lived, included Da Vinci - which is why he performed autopsies, taking apart the body to see how it works) has difficulty with anatomy, the trick is to study, draw, study, draw and repeat. Forever.

Hope that helps

-pj

[radiator]

Have you ever taken a life drawing class?

Essential stuff!

[mygrimmbrother]

Have you ever taken a life drawing class?

Essential stuff!

Yeah, I did loads at college but when it came to doing a degree I chose graphic design instead of illustration. Regretted it ever since really! No life drawing at all. A few months back I enquired at a couple of local colleges to see if they offered an evening class, but again - no luck. I'd love to do one though, yeah it'd be very useful. There are only so many times I can draw my girlfriend!

And cheers PJ, I'll soldier on then!

[The Legendary Shark]

You could try and get yourself a copy of Poser. Poser 3 is often given away with 3D/Art mags.

[mygrimmbrother]

You could try and get yourself a copy of Poser. Poser 3 is often given away with 3D/Art mags.

For a minute there I thought you were suggesting I get a stroke book. Which I guess would also help...

[radiator]

I've been thinking for a long time that I'd really like to set up a life drawing class in my local town - I hope it's something I get around to at some point. I think it would be fairly easy to organise (I might even be able to get funding from the council) and I could publicise it myself quite effectively. Perhaps you could go down this route?

There's a bar near where I work that does a life drawing session on Tuesday evenings, but I never finish work early enough to go, and also it's apparently a bit oversubscribed.

[mygrimmbrother]

I've been thinking for a long time that I'd really like to set up a life drawing class in my local town - I hope it's something I get around to at some point. I think it would be fairly easy to organise (I might even be able to get funding from the council) and I could publicise it myself quite effectively. Perhaps you could go down this route?

There's a bar near where I work that does a life drawing session on Tuesday evenings, but I never finish work early enough to go, and also it's apparently a bit oversubscribed.

Wow! Don't know if I've got the time/energy to undertake something like that, but what a great idea. If you go ahead with it, best of luck mate 

[Bouwel]

There are a few 'virtual pose' books available out there. As the subjects are mostly nude in them they do come across as stroke books but they're very helpful when you need to draw life-like poses of muscled subjects. Example:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Virtual-Pose/dp/0971401098/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1250091905&sr=8-3

On the rare occasion I have to draw something human looking I used to find it a massive clashing of mental gears as I normally work with wood or metal. I get around this by trying to see the subject as being 'flat' regardless of the pose. I've also used Poser and wooden maquette shapes for both the whole figure and hands. I still find it hard though and as you can devote only so much time to practice I concentrate on my craft skills.

-Bouwel- 

[Kerrin]

You can get copies of Poser from ebay quite cheaply, I just got Poser 5 for the Mac for £35. Make sure it's the english language version. Second hand and remainders book shops almost always have some anatomy for artists books that nobody wanted to pay the extortionate original price for.

[Professah Byah]

Deviantart is full of attention whores who put up pics of themselves and yes, a lot of it is just emo boys and girls taking pictures of themselves at arm's length with their phones - but there are a lot of models and professional photographers with accounts, and a lot of amateurs who take photos of themselves reclining with a bedsheet or dressed like James Bond doing combat poses with guns or whatnot, and some of the more prolific stock accounts can run to 4-5000 pics.  Chances are good you'll find something helpful if you take the time to trawl through the felt tip pictures of anime Sonic the Hedgehog gaying up with Knuckles, but you'll have to join up with the site if you want to look at the nudey stuff.

Or you could do what Greg Land does, but chances are high you'll not get much actual drawing done with only one hand in use.

I seem to recall mention of a Glen Fabry reference sketchbook on human musculature in the recent Meg interview, too.

[mygrimmbrother]

Deviantart is full of attention whores who put up pics of themselves and yes, a lot of it is just emo boys and girls taking pictures of themselves at arm's length with their phones - but there are a lot of models and professional photographers with accounts, and a lot of amateurs who take photos of themselves reclining with a bedsheet or dressed like James Bond doing combat poses with guns or whatnot, and some of the more prolific stock accounts can run to 4-5000 pics.  Chances are good you'll find something helpful if you take the time to trawl through the felt tip pictures of anime Sonic the Hedgehog gaying up with Knuckles, but you'll have to join up with the site if you want to look at the nudey stuff.

Or you could do what Greg Land does, but chances are high you'll not get much actual drawing done with only one hand in use.

I seem to recall mention of a Glen Fabry reference sketchbook on human musculature in the recent Meg interview, too.

This is interesting - I recently set up a deviant art page (but I'm no emo boy by a long shot). How do i go about finding these models Byah? Cheers for the suggestion too.

[Professah Byah]

It's unpaid amateurs for the most part, so I don't think there are that many nude models, but there are a few.  Searching "male/female muscles" or "male/female motion" seems to get plenty of the kind of thing that might help you if you're drawing bodies moving about.

Disclaimer: I advise you don't do the same search in Google.  Trust me, I haven't done it myself because at this stage I don't have to and nothing that comes up would surprise me in the least, but don't.

[Noisybast]

Cheers for posting this, MGB - I was just thinking about posting something similar.
I'm currently attempting to use a copy of Men's Health for reference (Erm, it's not mine, I was just, um, minding it for a friend...). I'll post the results if and when I ever produce anything worth scanning.

[Bouwel]

This site has some very good poster sized tip sheets:

http://www.cedarseed.com/fire/tutorials.html

-Bouwel-