Look at your own hands and perform a still-life ;_;

But my hands are backwards from teh ones on the page :O

im still looking for my life study notes which i'll send to ya if you want and text me too and i'll help ya out too

Ooh, neat! You should scan and upload them!

definitely... i'll let ya know when i find it .. which shouldn't be hard...

I people watch like a mofo. Often I'll go to a gym around and ask people if they don't mind me setting up and sketching. A lot of the time they don't, and than they want to see what they look like as a drawing.

Really? I often sketch people from afar.

I gotta get the courage to ask people sometime.

*chuckles* I'd model for you, if that'd help. The player's got the lumpy and misshapen arms anyhow, so it'd look right! ;)

The anatomy of the arm forms a spiral. Focus on how the muscles connect at the joints rather than the arms themselves.

Ooh! I'll have to look into this.

Here we go. I think this is what is meant. http://fyuvix.deviantart.com/art/Ho.....-Legs-32122215

AH! That helps. Thanks!

When in doubt, spirals :3

The whole of the human body is made out of S curves and shapes, it's actually really neat :3

Well one rule I remember is that the elbow ends just below the rib cage. And the wrists just below the hips. And well the forearm is usually thicker at the elbow then gets skinner, of course depending on how muscular or fat the person is the shape will vary.

I usually put the hand where I want it, and figure out where the elbow needs to be relative to that. It'll always be somewhere in the circle the "right" distances from the shoulder and hand.

Unless you put the hand too far away.

But anyway!

As for muscles, knowing what the muscles do is far better than memorizing the bulges or locations, for knowing how to draw them. Knowing that the bicep hooks onto the upper arm, and connects to the inside of the lower arm because it pulls the lower arm towards the upper arm makes it obvious where it has to go. :)

And bonewise, the only two points I can think of is:

the arm starts at the sternum, and the first link of the arm is the collarbone, not the upper arm (with the shoulderblade floating free on the back for muscles to attach to)

The bones of the hand are laid out so that the tendons coming through the rist are pulling the fingers directly towards the wrist. So even though the palm is fused together with meat, the lines of the fingers will still make sense.

I suggest getting a drawing doll tool. A wooden figure you can arrange into different poses to get the proportions right.

I've got one of those, actually. Never found it terribly helpful. Too stiff.

A few things I try to keep in mind. These are all averages, so they might not all work for you personally. Every time I tell people these shortcuts they say, "Well MY body isn't like that." Well you're right, it probably isn't, but if you average all humans together, they come out to about these proportions, and if you draw someone with these proportions, it generally won't look wrong. (Adjusting for perspective of course.)

On average, the distance from the tip of the finger to the second knuckle is the same as the distance from the second knuckle to the third.

The length of the index finger is equal to the distance from its third knuckle to the wrist.

The length of the lower arm is about twice the distance of the tip of the index finger to the wrist.

The length of the lower arm and hand together is equal to the upper arm plus half the chest. (Hold your arm straight out, and bring your lower arm and hand in to your chest. Your fingers should just about touch the center of your chest.)

The length of the arms outstretched is about the same as one's height.

The length of the upper leg is about the same as the length of the torso. (If you bend straight over, your shoulder will approximately meet your knee.)

And the length of the lower leg plus foot, is about the length of the upper leg measured to the top of the pelvis.

Like I said, it's not foolproof or exact for everyone, but it's a good starting point and guide. I hope it helps. :>

Problems like this? http://www.furaffinity.net/view/441454/


sorry... it was the first thing I thought about :(

Uhh, actually, that's about right. Started a little tradition years ago where I'd draw characters with tentacle arms when I got tired of thinking about bone and muscle structure.

Oh... now I feel like even more of a turd.

What? No, don't! You were right! =D

Its just that I know what it's like to only have people tell you crappy things you know already over and over again. I don't like making people feel that way, so to me I made a no-no.

Just start drawing without hands, or even without arms. That would be sexy.

I'll just refer you to Monocle's comment above yours and leave it at that. =I

> >;... I just look at my own arm and either add or subtract Mass... moving away some visible bone structure and adding either muscle or flab... > >;.. but I don't look at references so often unless it's the evil of Hands and fingers... > >;... Devilish tings... Bloody fingers... there like thoes bloody cat-- x X;... Conker moment there sorry... After some pratice at looking at your own arms in motion and drawling that you'll hardly remember how you actually do it...

So... my advice I guess is justuse yourself as references... unlike images on the internet, it's not going anywhere... > >

Just draw a lot of bone work, either fully rendered or gestured sketches, then simplify the anatomical relations. Bone and muscle anatomy studies is easy if you have the right diagrams. Bone for pose, positioning and structure, muscle for relation to the body and deformations during movement.
It's what I fall back on every time I can't draw something I used to be able to.

Understanding the framework allows simplifying them into shapes to make more sense in the end. Form and function and all that mess.

Just draw penisfingers and penisarms.

Nevermind that every picture will be a wtf_fa candidate... >_>

Hey, whatever HAPPENED to WTF_FA anyway? There's been like one update since June.

Weetawds took over.

they switched to member only.

OH, WELL. >=I

Now I've got like four months of catching up to do.

This book I often see advocated for more general art theory, including anatomy, and the good news is there appears to be a scanned version here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6641659/T.....mon-Nicolaides

Ooh ... interesting. Thanks for the link!

My biggest problem with arms seems to be making them long enough, and the hands large enough, especially when the elbow is bent. I try to do a Michelangelo-esque diagram, with a circular arc extending from the mid-thigh up to where the arm needs to be. Sometimes it even works.

NEED A DISPENSAH HEA

Study muscle and bone charts.

Have any handy? :)

Google!

I know better than to search Google for anything containing "bone". :P

I always sketch out the proportions in a skeletal gesture drawing first, and instead of making a straight line, draw out a C-curve for the upper arm and an S-curve from the elbow to the wrist as a sort of simplified view of the muscles wrapping around the bone. Shoulders, like ears, are wicked beasts and still perplex me as well :S

If you have local university/college, check to see if they offer "nude model nights" the way mine does. My university's art club charges a small fee for privilege of drawing from life. Best experience there is, though I myself do not take much advantage of it.

I checked. As far as I can tell, they don't.

Bummer. Pretty sad, especially since the university I attend is not even a noted school of art -- it specializes in engineering, :P I hope you will find some art crew that can help out.