This blog is no longer maintained. While shared content should still hold up, posts written by me on this blog were written when I was much younger and I cannot guarantee the quality of the advice.
fat bodies, fat anatomy, and how body fat tends to work should be taught as standardly as skinny anatomy and how muscles work in art courses. fat bodies are not an outlier. fat bodies are not a minority and theyre not abnormal or wrong. fat bodies are normal and they belong in art teaching spaces as commonly as other anatomy, because fat bodies ARE normal anatomy. people have diverse bodies and there will never be a single body type that encompasses the "normal body type"
tldr; fat anatomy should be taught as a staple in art courses just like any other anatomy. this is fact <3
ive gathered various links to refs so that people who see this can actually access helpful info on how to draw fat people. first and foremost though, using references will always be the biggest help :)
Everyone says NEVER TRACE!! THAT'S ART THEFT! Ok but we can do a little crime in the name of Learning.
Trace to learn, not to earn.
I like to take my own photos, but you can study whatever you want. Link back to original photos, and don't post copied artwork unless the artist is dead, cool with it, or both.
As always with learning, start every sketch with the intent to throw it away (trash for paper, quitting without saving for digital) This takes the pressure off and lets you make Bad Art, which is very important.
So let's make Bad Art of a Deer because I happen to have one handy
Start with a photo of your subject in a nice/neutral pose with all four feet visible. (so not like me)
Freehand copy it. Try not to stylize, focusing instead of matching proportions and pose. Don't get too detailed!
It's ok if your art looks terrible and has broken legs. I've drawn LOTS of deer so I have a leg up. Everyone's art sucks in their own eyes and here's where mine went wrong:
Either lasso-distort (recommended for beginners) or redraw a copy of your first sketch with your reference behind it (scaled to match the main body of your sketch)
Put the original and modified sketches together and compare the differences. Write it down if you want. This shows you where your eyes saw things the wrong size, so you can correct for that next time.
After learning about both deer and yourself, try freehand copying again.
Marvel at your newfound knowledge and skill!
but there's always room for improvement
You can stop here and move on to your real drawing, Or do another freehand-fix-compare cycle. I actually overcorrected my "draws heads too big" and veered into "heads too small."
Another note on tracing: Learning HOW to trace is more important than anything you could learn By tracing. Draw the Anatomy, not the outline. In real life, things don't have outlines, they have bones.
These are from the same shoot which is extra useful for consistency. The lines are minimal and follow where the animals joints are, and only important parts are drawn.
You won't know what Important Parts means right off the bat, which is where in-depth study comes in. You need to do learn the hard parts to do the easy parts right.
"Study the anatomy study the anatomy" but they never tell you HOW. It's not "read a book," It's more like flailing around wildly and crashing your browser from too many tabs.
This is going to be about How to Make a bones and muscle chart. Because even if your art sucks, you learn so much more by doing than by seeing.
Get Set up. Get a photo, like above, but it doesn't have to be the same photo. And now... gather reference.
We'll start with bones. Search up "[animal] skeleton" and get photos or super scientific illustration. Add in things like "top view" to spice it up.
Next, search "[animal] skeleton sketchfab." This pulls up 3D models that you can rotate in your browser. Remember that these are art and the anatomy is only as good as the artist, so pick a good one.
Time for bone!
The spine is the most important, and in a lot of animals it will surprise you. Draw it in over your photo and then add spikes because skeletons are punk. These are not scientific and I didn't count them because their number doesn't matter to art. So you better be referencing from scientists and not me!
The rest of the bones and some notes. These are my notes to myself about things I want to remember. My personal discoveries in anatomy that made my art better. You can make the same notes but also make sure you have your own thoughts on there as well. that's how you help yourself the best. Be as detailed or vague as you want.
Same deal with muscle. Here are my personal notes to myself. Label stuff that is important to you. I actually grouped a bunch of muscles together based on what is visible from the outside. Muscles are way more complicated than this, but Baby's First Anatomy Chart gets to be simple.
This is good enough for me because I have intimate knowledge of the other muscles working under and over these ones. Feel free to add as many or as few muscles as you like. You chart your own course.
This is very VERY much not an anatomical chart. I'm sure there's nerds out there pulling their hair out looking at this. But listen, it works for art!
And you know the wildest part about this?
I don't need to look at it to use it. The act of making your own anatomy chart puts that knowledge in your brain. Like how you can make "cheat sheets" even for tests that don't allow them - the act of making the sheet helps you remember what you struggle with most.
And after all that complexity? Your simplification will be based on Real Knowledge and you'll put those random circles in the right spots.
Look at all this hard work you've done. Eventually this will be second nature to you.
Show me what you make! I'd love to see what creatures yall make anatomy charts of.
I put together some photo packs and uploaded them to my gumroad. You can use them and this guide to study! So far there's only a Doe and a Fawn pack, but if I get sales I will put in the effort to do more for deer, horses, cats, birds, and anything else I can point my camera at.
Doesn’t matter your field is, everything we create in some way links back to anatomy. Be it that the body is a frame of reference or the work itself is used to encompass the human form.
So for today I’ll run through some basic starter resources to help you venture into anatomy
Proko runs a premium service on his website however he openly shares a lot of his tutorials either in full or just the basics to give you an idea. His youtube contains an endless amount of videos primarily about the human body but there’s a fiew regarding lighting and shading.
Loomis and Goldfinger are two names you’ve no doubt heard if you’ve expressed even glancing interest in learning anatomy and that’s for good reason. Both artists have multiple books regarding the human form each of which convey their instructions and pointers in an effective manner providing even veterans with insight into understanding the human body.
These books perfectly capture just about every tid bit of knowledge about anatomy you could possibly want. Whether you’re just entering the fray or wanting to go back to basics and maybe pick up on things you might not have known these books are an absolute must for any artist.
hi! umm pls pls PLS if you have the time, do a thingy on arms when you get the chance, they are so hard i could almost cry aslkdjaskjsas, i keep forgetting how many curves an arm should have/how long it should be (in diff positions/when it's not resting at the hips) etc etc etc ahhh omg please!! thank you sosososo much, i l♡ve all of your art and i hope you have a nice day!! ✧ ㅠㅠ ✧
HOW DO YOU DRAW BODIES HELP LIKE I DONT REALLY CARE IF YOU IGNORE THIS BUT MOST TUTORIALS ARE CONFUSING AND I NEED HELP PLEASE JUST DO IT HELP MY DREAMS NOT BE DREAMS
OK IM,, FALLGIN ASLEEP HERE ANON BUT I GOTTA HELP A BRO OUT SO
im gonna point you in the direction of some anatomy tutorials in a second so what i’m gonna help u do is like. understand how to break things down
Drawing things is. confusing, especially drawing bodies - there’s a lot of shapes going on and it can be a little overwhelming
But it’s okay! No matter what the shape is, you can always break it down into three simpler shapes - spheres, cylinders, and cubes
These shapes can then be merged together to make new shapes and serve as a basic guide for you to work upon. But they’re still made of spheres, cylinders and cubes!
Practice drawing cubes and cylinders in perspective, and you should be able to draw most anything! Legs are simply tubes after all, and heads are a collection of spheres and cubes.
The human body is mostly made out of cylinders and cubes.
bodies are like. big old fleshy tubes on the outside but inside we’ve got ourselves a skeleton
we cant actually see the skeleton usually unless the person is super skinny - but it’s there, and it’s helpful to have an idea what the skeleton looks like to help with the construction of the drawing
its way easier to draw a torso if you keep the ribcage in mind, and its way easier to draw legs if you keep the hipbones in mind!
If you break the body down into smaller shapes, and if you include construction like the skeleton underneath, it’s a lot more manageable to draw.
So try drawing the body as some boxes, try drawing the skeleton as some boxes, etc.
I would recommend watching Proko’s videos on Figure Drawing and Anatomy,
his videos are a really great series to learn from!
I would also recommend visiting my crash course tag, it’s got a lot of tutorials that i feel really help with learning to draw people.
And also, i highly recommend the book Figure Drawing: Design and Invention by Michael Hamptom.
anyway i hope that helps a little anon i need to get some sleep now, but just remember - simplify it down into shapes you understand!
When it comes to drawing poses, watch Proko’s videos on Gesture, visit my tag on that subject, and have a look in my poses tag. There’s also a few posts in my art tips tag on here!
i tried to make a tut on how i draw bodies but it came out as a mix between me trying to make sense of my lazy technique and general art tips??
i get overwhelmed by complex scheming and sketching so i try to sketch with the least lines/shapes possible.
if you find this method too difficult-dont worry. ive had years of practice and ive developed a lot of shortcuts for myself, so this might be like reading the notes of a student who has their unique set of abbreviations.
The Google Cultural Institute documents the world’s art and other cultural treasures. At the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, Google workers 3D scanned these skulls, which you can view at any angle.
will this help? it’s just my own way of doing things though, and using references really helps too; it’s hard to draw from memory alone. also, knowing the 7 or 8 head proportion of the body is useful as well