This is a group for the in-depth study of the human figure and its anatomy. We (The Crimson Cadavers) focus on Écorché drawings. For those not familiar, an Écorché drawing is an anatomical representation of all or part of a human or animal body with the skin removed so as to display the musculature.
Écorché studies began taking place during the renaissance when Pope Boniface VIII lifted the ban on human dissection. Many artists took up the practice and even preformed several of the dissections themselves. I'm sure you're all familiar with the the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, describing the ins and outs of the human figure in great detail. While there where dissections and écorché studies done in ancient Greece, the renaissance was when artists first got to have a good look at our anatomy and record it.
Today, we don't have to worry about preforming dissections ourselves. All the dirty-work has already been done and we can have easy access to hundreds of years of accumulated knowledge on the subject. Some of this knowledge will be featured in our ever-growing resource section.
This group is meant to be a place for sharing our work, getting critiques and advice, and also a resource for any student interested in the subject. The group is open for all that share this interest. We hope you make anatomy a studying habit and use this group as an extension of your personal sketchbook. Think of it as an off-branch where you can more easily get feedback on this one subject.
There will be changes made to the group as time goes on and we will also implement new features like a google hangout, livestream, skype group, challenges and our own anatomy workshops/tutorials. We may also feature members that put a lot of effort into their studies and contribute to the group, giving their sketchbook, portfolio and stream some well deserved attention.
Before you start posting, have a look at our rules and guidelines.
Anyone of any skill level is welcomed into the group and to start posting. There is no membership requirement. Just show up and start sharing your work and helping others.
If you wish to add something to the resource section, feel free to PM me and I will go through what you’ve sent to make sure it’s appropriate.
Posting.
Make sure your posts are relevant to the topic. Anatomy is more than just figure drawing. This group is for the in-depth study of the human figure and all that is beneath the skin. DO NOT POST FIGURE DRAWINGS unless they are themselves/are accompanied by an écorché drawing. Figure drawing is a great exercise but it should be confined to your sketchbook and not placed into the category of anatomy studies.
Anatomy is a difficult subject so make sure you take your time to be accurate and to understand what you’re drawing. We’re looking for quality studies rather than the quantity.
I've already started to see people post "anatomy studies" that are just copies of anatomy plates or of someone else's écorché. This is not studying anatomy. You need to research these things. You need to know each muscles origin, insertion, form and function. Just drawing anatomy isn't the same as studying anatomy.
Don't be lazy. If you do not put in the work, we won't help you. Anatomy critiques are some of the most time consuming critiques to give because the person giving the critique needs to check and re-check their anatomy books in order to be certain that the critique is accurate. Respect this by taking the subject seriously and putting in the necessary work.
Feel free to ask questions in the thread.
There are few subjects where this needs to be said but this is one of them. If you intend to share a resources/reference that will involve the posting images of real skinless bodies, just link it and put up a disclaimer. They are very helpful for the subject we’re studying but some may find it difficult to look at. Drawings and paintings are fine, photographs should only be seen by those that want to.
Critiquing
When critiquing others it is recommended that you not only critique the work but also advise the student on how to proceed with their learning.
If you can back up your critique by directing the student to a certain book or website, he/she will not only learn from your critique but will have more resources to move forward in their learning.
Treat eachother with respect. We are all students here doing our best.
We have a growing resource section with book recommendations, course recommendations, website recommendations and more. Feel free to give it a look.
Feel free to suggest your own resources. You can do this by attaching it to a post or messaging me. I’ll look through it to make sure it is at a reasonable quality and then attach it to the list
An ecorche drawing I did on my livestream. I had a bit of lag so it's not as tight as I'd like it do be. Anyway, I hope to see some people contribute to the group :)
Hey, Adam! Good work so far :)
I would suggest you try and push things a little further into the anatomical side of things. When you've done a figure drawing, I'd suggest you get some tracing paper and try to deduce the position of the skeleton on the figure.
I have a document linked in the resource section that you should check out. I'm still working on it but there is a bit of an introduction into studying anatomy and how to do this practise i recommended. There are also images that show where the skeletal landmarks are visible.
As I said in the rules and guidelines "Anatomy is more than just figure drawing. This group is for the in-depth study of the human figure and all that is beneath the skin." So try and gear your studies to more anatomy :)
Looks good, man!
Give a look at the resources. I posted a few links to some of the books and added a few more. Check out Constructive Anatomy. Seeing how Bridgman simplifies things might help you keep your drawings a little more organised. He really focuses more on form rather than trying to draw all the muscle fibres and that stuff.
Also, try and focus on making accurate contour drawings. If you can get the contour drawing correct, everything else becomes much easier. Check out the figure drawings of Charles Bargue (link). They're really clear and when you've gotten to that point, drawing the anatomy within lets you focus actually learning the anatomy. Simple and accurate is the way to go :)
I've found my old account, it says I've been absent for almost a year.
My first anatomy study. Never done those before, which is strange, because musculature and skin wrinkles are my favourite things to render. Just not realistic ones.
According to amount of background music played it took just under one hour.
Hey! Looks good, man! Good to have you in the group!
So I've got some anatomy critiques. It may sound nit-picky but hopefully it's helpful :)
I think you should try and separate the muscles a bit. Simpler drawings tend to be easier to work with.
It looks like you're giving certain muscles a bit too much volume. The posterior head of the deltoid is mostly tendon and starts to get actual fibres when it groups with the head of the deltoid. So where it attaches to the scapula, it's just flat tendon.
The latissimus dorsi is really flat and doesn't have much volume to it. On your drawing it looks like part of its origin is with the serratus anterior and external oblique. Its actual origin is the iliac, (lower) thoracic and lumbar vertebra.
The lower part of the trapesious is also very flat and where it attaches to the thoracic vertebra.
The external oblique starts at the iliac and goes all the way to the front where it meets the rectus abdominis. It inserts at the lower ribs on the back so the further forward you go, the more it takes on a backwards direction rather than everything going straight up.
All muscles have an origin and an insertion. A beginning and an end. when you know these two areas, you can confidently draw the muscle as a nice clean form on the body. If you're not aware of these origins and insertions, it can get really confusing really fast.
Hope it helps and doesn't sound like gibberish ^^
Here's a quick anatomy drawing. Didn't have a lot of time today because I'm dealing with my future living arrangements when studying at the atelier
Honestly, you've lost me at the terminology, but I'll look into it, thanks!
I tend to focus on detailing and rendering certain parts from imagination, neglecting the actual reference. I just get carried away easily and have to restrain myself from turning these studies into some fantasy creatures. More studies coming in a couple of days.
Also, I'd like to point out that Pinterest is a good resource for images. For example, this board looks nice: https://www.pinterest.com/david_ramiro/anatomy/ or just search for 'anatomy reference'.
I had the craziest dream last night, thanks to this thread. Skinless and severed people torn apart and put together again in a macabre fashion; walls painted with blood; the sickest torture devices; and the cave it was in was organic living thing. It was awesome. Also I had no pants on.
Hey Tristan and others! you are already helping me out a ton with your free resources!!! and your drawings are exceptional!. I can already tell you are on a whole different level when it comes to anatomy and it's really exciting to see. I will do the best I can to try and hone some of my anatomy skills on my sculptures and post them here. I love it when I meet guys like you that can call my bullshit, and can take the time to explain concepts to us less fortunate noobies.
I have just been going by eye and occasionally looked at reference and tutorials when I would get frustrated but I am tired of not being able to execute my limited knowledge in a timely and accurate fashion while sculpting. so I am going to try and set my ego aside and study and hopefully contribute to this group.
as a person who doesn't have the resources to attend college I want to say thanks again for starting this up! you're a lifesaver!
I'll make sure to put in CC along with a description of what I am focusing on when I do a sculpt or drawing/painting study that I think you guys might want to see. I'm a noob, but maybe you can learn something. and if anything Tristan can call me out when I'm doing something wrong and you guys can learn from that ;-)
Spellsword - Ah, you'll learn all the names of bones and muscles in time. It just takes a bit of work and it's worth it if you want to focus on character based artwork. ^^
Foxy - Hey, welcome to the group. Hopefully we will see you around and posting. Be sure to keep some reference close at hand. I have two exhaustive anatomy books on my desk in case I need to look something up. Never BS any anatomy, I tend to be offended when I see people try and fake the anatomy of the back. You need to confront any issues in your anatomy rather than try to just pass by. :)
Elias - Looks good so far! I would recommend you spend more time on each drawing. So many people seem to be in a hurry when drawing. I think the main reason is that they go to youtube and watch someone like Feng Zhu and they see that he draws very quickly and with confidence. The issue with this is that these people draw like that after several years of intense training, and trying to match it when you're just starting out will only lead to poor drawings.
Take your time when you draw. I think before I make each mark, I try to visualise it, plan its position, length and angle before I touch pen to paper. At first this makes the process of drawing very slow but you get rewarded with a good drawing and a better understanding of the subject at hand. If you train yourself to be accurate you'll be able to approach any drawing subject with a battle plan where you know that it will look good in the end.
Hey, interesting group (love the name!), I've been planning to go more into anatomy, so I'll be sure to join!
For now, the top part of this could maybe be considered my first écorché drawing (I referenced some anatomy plates in addition to Loomis to figure out what was what):
Although not a fancy écorché drawing, maybe this would still be a good place to get help with this one, I'm trying to figure out the position of her skeleton, but I'm having trouble with the left hip joint...
First attempt:
Second attempt:
Olooriel, I can't see a big problem, but I think the great trochanter connection if in perspective would sit somewhere between the original and the red. Tristan probably has a better eye for that.
I did one of these anatomy muscle-over thingies to test how well I actually know where the landmarks are and where the muscles attach, and I realised I KNOW NOTHING. Damn it was soooo hard. Took me forever, because I literally had to jump around my anatomy books to each muscle and figure it out, plus the additional problem, of finding them with visible landmarks only. I'm pretty sure I got quite a bit wrong, especially in the hip and leg area, but if you see where I'd really appreciate your comments to set me straight.
I really recommend this excercise. It really shows you where you are lacking and need study.
Amit - Looks great, man! Love seeing you posting in the group.
I've also had a lot of issues just trying to figure out what I'm looking at. I'm going to wear out my "Artistic Anatomy" book because I'm also flipping through the pages constantly to try check everything.
Your studies are so good so my critique do require me to spend quite a bit of time thinking and checking if things are correct or not ;) I'm very bad at arms and legs so I'll just talk about the torso.
To begin, the latissimus dorsi is a bit wider than what you've drawn. You have this big area of tendon where it attaches to the spine and iliac and it creates this diamond shape that you can spot on well developed people. This is a way to get the position/width of it and from there you can sort of draw it more accurately.
The external obliques are a little vague. In the paintover you can see how they move back towards the ribs. They tend to move backwards rather than straight up. If you look at a anatomical plate from the side, they have a strong backwards tilt. I am not entirely sure what happens when the figure leans forward, maybe they straighten out a bit but there are still muscle fibres originating next to the abs that they attach to the side ribs.
Over at the scapula the posterior head of the deltoid actually attaches over the entire top spine of the scapula. It's just a bunch of tendons so there's no real muscle mass there. The infraspinatus doesn't cover the terras major, they meet at their origins so they create a V shape between them rather than one covering the other. In the study the infraspinatus is wrapping over the terras major.
Now this is nit-picking but we see a little of the pectoralis major and it inserts exclusively to the humerus. You've drawn the fibres a little as if they re-attach to the ribs. You can see how I changed this in the paintover.
Anyway, this is still a great study! I'm just being picky ^^
Olooriel - Cool stuff! Drawing the skeleton is tricky because it requires you to do a lot of deducing. You kinda have to be an anatomical detective, looking for clues before you make conclusions or reasonable inferences.
What I suggest is that you try to be a bit more careful about marking your landmarks. You mark them a bit loosely and make a few conclusions that aren't really there. One example is that the clavicle on the right side. The sternocleidomastoid muscles attaches to the clavicle so you can use it as a guide to see where it begins. You drew the clavicle before the muscle ends so this is one of the places it is off.
In things like the arms, it looks like you drew the line for the humerus and ulna a little arbitrarily. Check out the resource section. I added a link to a document with all the anatomical landmarks. I think it can be helpful if you print them out and keep them as reference.
Spend a bit more time on those things and try to be as accurate as you can be :)
Alright, so here is something I did this morning. I'm going to spend this week working on arms because man, I'm bad at them...
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Rules and Guidelines
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