Beginning Figure Drawing Part 2: Parts of the Body

[Nathan Drushinin]

Steve has mentioned the intermediate figure drawing course.  Is that separate or will it be added later?  Thanks so much. 🙂

[Joshua Jacobo]

It’s now part of this course

 

https://www.nma.art/courses/constructive-figure-drawing/

 

The terminology may have changed over the  years but everything on figure from Steve published so far is part of that!

[Mariel Jollymore]

How do you tell which way you should draw the lines that wrap across of the cylinders of the body?

[Daniel Daigle]

Hi Mariel, its just like drawing the ellipses of cylinders in perspective

[Mariel Jollymore]

maybe this would be a better way to word my question: how do I tell which way a box or cylinder of someone’s body is positioned in space? Here’s some pictures of my drawings where next to them I’ve drawn forms that I’m wondering which one I would use because it looks like it could be either, and it’s hard to discern sometimes…

[Daniel Daigle]

If we are talking about the upper arm, you have to first understand which is closer to you: the elbow or the shoulder.
if the shoulder is closer to you, then you would draw the bottom cylinder, and if the elbow is closer to you, you would draw the top cylinder.
I highly recommend drawing people as boxes and cylinders for a while until this becomes instantaneous
Also, remember to draw through the form, your ellipses don’t look like they are wrapping around the cylinder yet
you may also want to practice sketch perspective whenever you get an extra few minutes

I recommend watching these

https://www.nma.art/videolessons/figure-drawing-with-glenn-vilppu-part-4-cylinder-forms/

https://www.nma.art/videolessons/figure-drawing-with-glenn-vilppu-part-3-box-forms/

[Mariel Jollymore]

Yeah, the arms are usually a bit easier to tell then the ribcage.. though sometimes they don’t look like they’re strongly coming towards you or going away from you, just more straight on and so I don’t know which way to draw the lines. )))) or (((( For the ribcage it looks like it could be either going away from you or coming towards you because I can see on top of their chest but also usually the ribcage is usually tilted back so I get stuck there too. Thank you for the links, I have watched all of those twice as well as Steve’s videos lol. I don’t know why this is so hard for me. Also yeah I erased some of those lines that were moving over the forms because I wasn’t sure they were going the right way.

[Daniel Daigle]

Its a skill that you just have to practice. Watching a video only shows you what is possible. We have to apply the concepts until they  become second nature. Don’t worry that its difficult, that’s normal.
I think practicing observational perspective will help a lot. keep it simple art first, then slowly work your way up to the human body 🙂

[Alzapua]

Just a little note for anyone interested in the muscle names. Steve erroneously refers to the sternocleidomastoid as the gastrocnemius. The latter one is the calf muscle.

[Daniel Daigle]

Hi Alzapua, Thanks for catching this. Could you send me the time stamp and chapter so we can fix this?

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