How do you use an anatomy manual? (another stupid question)

[Koguma]

I'd say start studieing his drawings. Though if you check out proko and loomis, they might have an easier approach or hampton even. Imo they explain it in a more understandable way. For example hampton gives you the building blocks that you are looking for and shows you how to draw them in different angles. Hope this helps a bit.

Indeed!!! Thank you soo much. I checked Hampton's book in the library, and oh boy, this is actual English!. No but seriously, it's more "approachable" I've ordered it right now

Hi Koguma! First off, your inquiry isn't stupid. I'm also kinda interested on how other people use these things.

I will reference two books: Figure Drawing for all it's Worth and Dynamic Figure Drawing. For the sake of shortening the names, let's call them Loomis and Hogarth respectively.

How I used Loomis: I started out with reading everything from cover to cover. And then, put it on standby. Literally right next to me. I visit the book if I'm having trouble with, say, drawing legs, because I never quite got the muscle construction committed to memory. I look at the pretty Loomis drawings, and probably do a very quick study (like drawing the same leg but in a different angle) if I'm not lazy. I mainly use it to remind me how anatomy works.

How I used Hogarth: I never read Hogarth. But I tend to look at the pictures a lot. I tried to read the whole thing, but the drawings speak for themselves. I go to it whenever I need to answer the question: "how do I make this character I'm drawing more interesting?". Hogarth to me reminds me how to exaggerate the anatomy but at the same time, stay grounded on the level of realism (or what I think is realism). I also whip that book out to copy the figures, out of pure fandom. And because Marko said so.

I would like to know how do you guys learned to draw anatomy (Also please notice that I'm not asking for a "3-steps tutorial" or anything like that :V I'm more interested in knowing your methods)

To tell you honestly, I am still learning anatomy. And probably still would be learning anatomy until someone stabs me in the head and die. There's too much to learn in the subject, (e.g. muscle construction, bone placements, drawing it in an awkward perspective, how to depict broken bones or muscle tears, animal anatomy, made up sci fi anatomy), that'll last a lifetime. Or probably even more.

Hope this helps!

Completely agree sista. Jut by reading through all those pages I realized that our own body it's pretty complex and quite easy at the same time (if that makes sense).

Do you have a sketchbook or some drawings we could see? I could give better advice if I know where your current skills are at. Generally people skip to anatomy when they still need to memorize proportions and basic forms of the body. If you can draw a figure from various angels without reference and come out with correct proportions THEN worry about anatomy. Also bones are the most important to understand not muscles like a lot of people seem to think. Take a look at Proko's anatomy videos too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDgyQjNF...QmZJH4__Zv

Michael Hampton's book Figure Drawing: Design and Invention is a good starter book. Its anatomy-lite basically. It will take your through the basic anatomical structures one at a time, which is how you should be doing it. Learn bones and then where the muscles attach to the bones. Without knowledge of the bones though your muscles will be wrong no matter what.

Oh dear, my art is way too shitty to even attempt  to showing it off But one of these days I'll maybe open a sketchbook, when I feel more confident I'd say that I'm just starting, so there's no much to show anyway xP
The thing is... I was watching a guy on Youtube talking about Anatomy, but he started to explain how muscles worked. And I was like wtf, does that have something to do with drawing anatomy?. When the video ended I realized that by learning the function of those muscles you can get a better idea of how the move in space, how they twits,how they stretch... I guess the same goes for the bones, for me are quite important since I realize bones are much better for keeping the proportions of a "body". They are easier to read. #DontForgetAboutTheBones

Thanks guys for your help, I really appreciate it <3