Reddit reviews Human Anatomy for Artists: The Elements of Form

Anatomy is the rigorous, studious part of learning life drawing and isn't as dependent on having a live model since you're dealing more with muscle and bone. You might want to consider signing up for something like Rey Bustos' anatomy course at NMA and get a guided course rather than trying to dive in on your own.

Goldfinger's Human Anatomy For Artists is an exhaustive resource on the subject but can be overwhelming. Robert Beverly Hale's books Anatomy Lessons From the Great Masters and Master Class in Figure Drawing are less complete as far as covering every muscle and bone but are more approachable.

How you actually do it is a lot of read, study, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy. Which is why I want to reiterate that some sort of guided, organized course is really a better approach than just trying to dive in on your own.

I think both /u/DeweyTheDecimal and /u/plolyglon are correct. Faces are really difficult to do well because we see them all of the time. Even people who have never spent a day in their life studying art will be able to tell if something is wrong, they may not be able to tell you how to fix it, but they can tell if something seems off. It is also the case though, that since you are at least working and sculpting, you are most definitely on the right track! That is the only way to get better. It could be of benefit to spend some time watching tutorials too. Zack Petroc, for example, has been a HUGE help to me, the guy is really amazing, especially when it comes to human anatomy. He actually took classes at university dissecting cadavers to study human anatomy up close.

So please please please keep sculpting, like every day if you want to get better, it takes a lot of time like others have said. Look at references, get books on human anatomy for artists, watch free videos on youtube or buy Gnomon or digital tutors videos to get yourself started. It all depends on how serious you are about it. If this is what you want to do as a job one day, you have to start learning another 3d package like maya or 3dsmax at some point to learn about good topology flow and building simple base meshes to start sculpting from (helps with getting proportions started, at least for myself, but everyone has their own way to work). Otherwise if you are doing it for fun, just keep sculpting.

Start at a really low subdivision level and get all of your proportions set up, take that as far as you possibly can before you subdivide it, and then take that new level as far as you can. Things get kind of swollen looking if you jump into high divisions too quickly. It looks to me like you added a lot to whatever it was you started from (as in built up form with the clay build up brush), but don't be afraid to really carve into your sculpt either. Don't worry about fine details like wrinkles and whatnot until the very end, focus on setting up good proportions. The neck on your sculpt feels a little weak, like its too small and too skinny. The sternocleidomastoid should be emphasized a little bit more to give the neck the girth that it needs. Same with where the trapizus inserts into the base of the skull. The neck also feels a bit too short, trying dropping down the the lowest subdiv level to pull it out a little bit more. Anatomy is all about the way these muscles interact with one another, for it too look good, everything has to look good and the gesture has to flow just right. Just keep studying anatomy and sculpting and you'll progress quicker than you may imagine.

You need to pick up an anatomy book because right now you're inventing muscles and applying too many shadows until the whole drawing becomes visual noise and it doesn't read clearly.

First off, I'd recommend you study Figure drawing for all it's worth by Andrew Loomis. You can probably find a PDF of it online for free and it's not overly complicated for a kid to understand. Then, if you feel you want to stick with drawing in the long run convince your parents to invest in these books:

Atlas of human anatomy for the artist

Human anatomy for artists : The elements of form

Classic human anatomy: The artist's guide to form, function, and movement

Figure drawing: Design and invention

How to draw: Drawing and sketching objects and environments from your imagination

How to render: The fundamentals of light, shadow and reflectivity

Color and light: A guide for the realist painter

Life drawing. If you're looking for good books though, Human Anatomy for Artists: The Elements of Form is a pretty good start.

Then don't draw, study. If you can't think of something to draw or think it'll turn out nasty, pick something you suck at and study it. Also, Loomis isn't all that great, /r/learnart just thinks he is. Loomis is good for construction and construction only, he has his problem areas that no one here seems to notice.

Muscles, Eliot Goldfinger and Bridgman.

Lighting and Dynamic Poses with that anatomy, just draw from life, figurative and animals, as well as study animation.

Pick up Goldfinger, Michael Hampton, and Bridgman's Drawing from Life books (you can find this at Half Price Books for $5-$12, get it there).

Also, you don't need these books, that should be the number one rule. All they do is give you reference, especially Goldfinger, for analyzing reality. That's all art is, realizing form from fact rather than what you think you see within your mind, if anyone wants to argue, go watch the Disney Family Album on youtube.

Good luck, op, don't let /r/learnart guide you in the wrong path, we aren't all professionals here, just a bunch of people aspiring to be artists.

I would also add Valerie Winslows' Classic Human Anatomy and/or Classic Human Anatomy in Motion. Eliot Goldfinger Human Anatomy for Artists is also an amazing book.

My favorites are "Human anatomy for artists" by Eliot Goldfinger & Constructive anatomy by George Bridgman.

Goldfinger is very accurate but can be quite dry to read, Bridgman isn't as accurate but is great at describing structure and retaining the gesture.

Anyone not linking to this is wrong.

http://www.zackpetroc.com/skull-and-muscles-of-the-face/

http://www.zackpetroc.com/skeleton-and-muscles-of-the-body/

http://www.zackpetroc.com/marta-design-sculpt-ztl-2/

http://www.zackpetroc.com/reeve-design-sculpt-ztl/

EDIT:

As well as:

http://www.amazon.com/Human-Anatomy-Artists-Elements-Form/dp/0195052064

As the Warframes are near-human-looking constructs, start your drawing by learning how to draw a correct human form first, especially the body musculature. You should not need to invest in learning a proper rendering of human facial structure if it bothers you since it won't be used for a Warframe concept anyway (and to tell you the truth, a rendering of human facial expression is one of the hardest subject to master).


This book is one of the very good source for that. I highly recommend it if you have that inkling of desire to start learning to draw human anatomy for artistic purposes.



There are also a lot of online courses for human figure drawing. Free tutorials on Youtube and sites like DA are mostly fine too. Just remember that at the beginning you don't want to delve too much into the artistic aspect of drawing; get your basic / technicalities firm first then you can start being creative on your own.



Draw a naked human figure in a neutral or T-Pose as the base and put a lot of emphasis on the correct musculature (since the Warframes are usually lean and muscular). Do it three times each on a different camera shot: one for the frontal shot, profile shot, and rear shot. If it's done, start adding the skin or armor of your Warframe concept on that figure.


You could draw additional, a more detailed (close up) shot on complex things you need to explain more such as the details on the fingers, the gauntlet armors, the head armors, etc; but get the overall shot of your Warframe concept clear and right first before dwelling too much on the individual parts details.


One of the good rule of thumb of character design is if you could identify the character in a silhouette, it is a good design. Think about Mario in his signature jump pose, Megaman X while shooting his X-Buster, Ryu while doing Shoryuken, Superman in his flight pose, or other signature characters, and then think whether you could easily identify them even if they were just a silhouette.

These are flash movies, so granted, you'll need software that can imitate, or an actual flash program. You'll need to learn basics of animation, so looking up books like these would really help you, also listen to djm19. He's got good advice there.

It would also help to learn basic drawing, so anatomy lessons are go so books like Human Anatomy by Eliot Goldfinger, as well as learning how to use audio programs like Audacity (It's open source, and I'm sure you'll be able to find better types) for the sound part of flash shorts.

Just a little critique. Your sculptures are nice, but they're really flawed with your lack of anatomy knowledge, her head is way too large for the rest of her proportions and her legs are different sizes. you can sculpt breasts but her form is off balance. I'd recommend picking up this, this, and this.

If you're interested, I can send you a lot of files of art stuff, I believe we can improve your anatomy ten fold.