Recently in Artistic Anatomy Category

This is an HD video. Click through to youtube and watch it large.

Some people approximate the pelvis as two disks. Others compare it to a bowl. Still others use a box. None of the approximations is exactly right. As Glenn Vilppu puts it, 'The best thing is to just learn the shape of the pelvis.'

I'm using a box as a means of locating the major landmarks of the pelvis in order to better study the artistic anatomy of the skeleton.

Previously:
Anatomy Practice: The Pelvis

A second look at the same animation, this time accompanied by a simplified model version of the pelvis.

It's easy to imagine that a person's forearm is like that of an artist's mannequin: symmetrical and wide below the elbow, and narrowest right at the joint.

It's not, though.

Certain muscles on the lateral side of the joint (the brachioradialis and the extensor carpi radialis longus) begin above the elbow joint on the humerus, creating a bulge which is widest at the elbow, not above it.

Once you see this, you'll draw forearms better.

Tareq Mirza demonstrates his Maya modelling techniques in Organic Modeling I: Human Anatomy Male, an excellent new DVD from Freedom of Teach. Using workflows applicable to any 3D polygon package, Mr. Mirza transforms a box into a clean, well-built virtual representation of Andrew Cawrse's ecorche figure.

You probably will pick up some additional anatomy information here, but this DVD works best not as an anatomy lesson, but as a demonstration of how to think about organic modelling in a polygon environment - it's all about box modelling, controlling edge loops, quad polygon flow, and smoothing. Mirza assumes the viewer has already had some anatomy instruction. For example: When creating the calf muscles, Mirza models the soleus not as a continuous form under the gastrocnemius muscles - as it really is - but as two independent bulges to the left and right of the gastrocnemius muscles - as it appears to be. I'm not suggesting Mirza should do anything different, but a viewer who didn't know anatomy might form a wrong impression of the unseen inner structure of the lower leg. Such anatomy lessons are necessarily beyond the scope of this DVD.

At under $60 Organic Modeling I: Human Anatomy Male is a great value. Freedom of Teach could probably break the chapters on the head and various limbs into their own DVD's and sell each for the price of this entire collection of information. I highly recommend this DVD.

Additional Information:

Subdivision Modeling Resources

Digital Sculpting Forum

I've been practicing drawing imaginary faces over skulls.

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Here's a book I found useful in this regard:

Forensic Art and illustration by Karen T Taylor

This is my understanding of how the two most visible heads of the triceps share the humerus.

The lateral head starts fully ON the humerus, and then fully leaves it.

The long head starts fully OFF the humerus, then comes to be fully ON the bone.

The bone seems to travel diagonally under the two muscle heads as they trade places. They don't share the humerus equally.

Los Angeles artist Rey Bustos teaches anatomy from the inside out. I've been taking his class since the new year. Pictured above is my work at about the halfway point. Read on for more...

Santa brought me an a limited edition (2000) resin sculpture of an ecorche figure originally carved in clay by visual effects artist and sculptor Andrew Cawrse, and offered for sale by Freedom of Teach

I have Version 1 (the least expensive one) and in spite of how it may look under this lurid un-white balanced incandescent lighting, the figure is actually very good.

If you're learning anatomy, and aren't quite "getting it" from books alone, this figure is a great additional resource.

UPDATE 2/2/2011

I pre-ordered a new female figure and some small scale skulls and was looking forward to finally receiving them but was unable to take delivery because of the way anatomy tools shipped them. So back it all went, and I'm incredibly pissed at freedom-of-teach.

Here's a question. Why is the male figure being 're-released' when they swore in 2005 there would never be more than 2000 made?