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Anatomy give me a headache

Help.....

I am going nuts to be honest with you; Studding anatomy i think is the hardest thing i ever took in my life to learn.

I am not sure what i can do, to actually make my studies more fun and easy to learn. I tried everything, But there is so much to learn and i don't even remember and understand 1% of what i am doing.

Yea i even tried with drawing, but that didn't last long, because i never drew in my damn life :poly118:

About classes, well that can't be done, because we don't have any of it.

Replies

  • Bal
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    Bal polycounter lvl 17
    No one said it was easy, there's no secret, you just need to grind away at it. Figure drawing is probably the best way to improve, never having drawn before isn't an excuse, at least you know you don't have any bad habits to break in that case.

    No classes? If you can afford it, Scott Eaton's online anatomy class is great:
    http://www.scott-eaton.com/anatomy-for-artists-online-course
  • Brian "Panda" Choi
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    Brian "Panda" Choi high dynamic range
    @Pravely: Where are you at right now?
  • Shiniku
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    Shiniku polycounter lvl 14
    There are online classes. I've taken the Scott Eaton anatomy for artists course. Doesn't really require much in the way of drawing skill, and is quite comprehensive. Even if you only absorb 1% of it, that'll be a lot, and will help you with future studies. It's a bit pricey but totally worth it in my opinion. Otherwise, there are some really good books and free online videos. You can get several Andrew Loomis books for free as .pdfs online, I highly recommend going through "Figure Drawing for all it's worth".


    Don't expect anatomy to be something you can learn in a short amount of time. It IS a lot of information to soak in, and it's easy to get overwhelmed. Just try to take baby steps. Give yourself assignments, and break your studies down into small areas.

    If you're not so into drawing, taking a clinical approach can be beneficial too... if you memorize all of the names of bones and muscles, it can help you remember them when you go to sculpt them or whatever. But I do suggest drawing them, following along with books and tutorial videos. Even if the drawings aren't good it can help you visualize the muscles later.
  • Elynole
    Had to take a good amount of anatomy and medical terminology classes with my time in the military as medical personnel. If you truly want to learn - for anatomy pick up a book on basic greek language - for diagnosis/diseases/treatment pick up a book on basic latin language.

    When it comes to medical terminology, it looks extremely daunting, and to some extent it is, but once you begin learning keywords they really start to make more sense about how the names are structured.
  • slosh
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    slosh hero character
    life drawing is the best way and i find it quite therapeutic. If you can't do that, try and sculpt anatomy in zbrush. Don't get caught up in all the small muscles to begin with...study major forms. Once you are confortable with major forms and proportions, work your way down to smaller muscles and details that fill out the larger forms. I think keeping stuff simple is better in the beginning...don't overwhelm yourself by looking at ALL the muscles and thinking you have to learn them immediately. Also, start with just one body part...maybe just the chest or upper torso. Head, hands, and feet are more complex IMO.
  • SuperFranky
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    SuperFranky polycounter lvl 10
    No one said it's going to be easy. Truth to be said, everything is very damn hard. The only thing you can do for yourself to make it easy is to start to really like the learning/studying process. Then learning won't be a bother, but something fun and enjoyable all in itself.
  • Baj Singh
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    Baj Singh polycounter lvl 9
    Its never easy, I always make sure I have a ton of reference whenever I work on a character.

    Unfortunately, I find its very easy to forget the facts (unless you do constant anatomy studies every day, which on top of everything else you do as a character artist, might not be feasible).

    Take in a bit at a time. Whilst you might not be able to learn every bone and muscle on the body, you will find it easier to visualise them overtime as well as finding obvious errors that you wouldn't have noticed previously. But, it does take time.

    If the cost of classes is too much, I would probably start sculpting a character, no clothing or accessories just the form and get constant feedback on the forum. If your just starting, others will see your mistakes better and ,as a result of their feedback, you will develop faster (faster than noodling on your own anyway).

    Good luck :).
  • Pravely
    I don;t have problem with names, and remembering them. I have more problem to pronounce them.

    How to break down my anatomy studies? I would like to start with the skeleton, then muscles, then skin or surface muscles, or whatever is called.

    About videos, i am not sure, but all of them are time lapse, which is very frustrating me.
  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    Its actually really tough, I find sculpting muscles even harder than cloth and cloth is hard. as others have said its a case of grinding it out till you are happyish.
  • Anchang-Style
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    Anchang-Style polycounter lvl 7
    Iam suprised that there is no quizlet class for artists anatomy. Iam working on some stuff to learn the names for now then learn to sculpt them...using a vocab trainer^^.
  • Pravely
    Jesus... I am doomed then?
  • Gestalt
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    Gestalt polycounter lvl 11
    Some advice-
    Make sure to not go into details all at once.

    Knowing anatomy is good for knowing what to look for. It will sharpen your sense of what's off and let you troubleshoot a fix, but the most important thing in my opinion is to start as generally as possible before trying to tackle very specific anatomy details.

    Practice making the gesture of the body and forms first before going into detail (and stressing out when it looks horrible). Work with low poly counts when sculpting and make sure to hit the balance of forms at the lowest level. Try to get the major planes of the figure at the lowest level. Keep it clean using something like trimdynamic.

    Probably the best way to get started is to practice figure drawing. Proko has a good series on figure drawing. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtG4P3lq8RHGuMuprDarMz_Y9Fbw_d2ws
  • MagicSugar
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    MagicSugar polycounter lvl 10
    Pravely wrote: »
    Jesus... I am doomed then?

    You don't have to memorize anatomy names as a pro. Nobody's gonna give you a pop quiz at work and fire you if you can't name one of the hamstring muscles without googling.

    If its not fun try sculpting more while using references or start from a full body basemesh that's comes standard with most softwares now..

    The more repetition you have drawing or sculpting you'll eventually memorize anatomy forms and locations. And maybe even their scientific names.
  • Anchang-Style
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    Anchang-Style polycounter lvl 7
    Gestalt wrote: »
    Some advice-
    Make sure to not go into details all at once.

    Knowing anatomy is good for knowing what to look for. It will sharpen your sense of what's off and let you troubleshoot a fix, but the most important thing in my opinion is to start as generally as possible before trying to tackle very specific anatomy details.

    Practice making the gesture of the body and forms first before going into detail (and stressing out when it looks horrible). Work with low poly counts when sculpting and make sure to hit the balance of forms at the lowest level. Try to get the major planes of the figure at the lowest level. Keep it clean using something like trimdynamic.

    Probably the best way to get started is to practice figure drawing. Proko has a good series on figure drawing. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtG4P3lq8RHGuMuprDarMz_Y9Fbw_d2ws

    Holy...Proko is awesome :)
  • Pravely
    I thought that knowing the details will make character better and more realistic. Now i see i have been wrong all the time.

    So with Zbrush, i should start with dynamesh on the lowest resolution level, to match the form and proportions?
  • Anchang-Style
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    Anchang-Style polycounter lvl 7
    I dont think there is one way. A lot of people still prefer the ZSphere approach, a lot of people whos timelapses you can see, use Dynameshed Spheres. Maqqued Workflow is a great workflow for beginner who have to wrap their head around anatomy. It's basically building a Zsphere skeltal (well you don't have to, and then build the major body areas as seperate dynameshed Spheres which you push and pull in shape. You can push and pull every section into shape until you are happy with it, without having to manipulate the others. Check out Ryan Kingsliens free ZBrush Lessons on his site (free register necessary) or these a bit older vids to get an idea of what that means:
    http://www.isculptstuff.com/2012/07/new-maquette-sculpting-workflow-in.html
  • JacqueChoi
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    JacqueChoi polycounter
    When I was younger, I drew SOOOOO many comics and cartoon heroes.

    I literally went through an entire packet of paper every 2-3 days, or a sketchbook in a week.


    Wolverine, Batman, Psylocke, Spawn, Venom, Ninja Turtles etc.. It didn't really teach me accurate anatomy, but it did give me some understanding of proportions and overall shapes.

    I'm not sure if you feel you've outgrown comics, but its still a lot of fun to just doodle a HULK. Oftentimes when I saw a really cool pose by an artist I really liked, I would just straight up copy it (but use it on a different hero).



    Just to be clear, this is NOT a good way to learn anatomy. It's a great way to really get a feel for the shapes, and forms. From what I've seen, this has been used as a springboard a lot of us older Polycounters used to develop an obesession for this stuff.

    And when you're ready to take the next step from there, studying Anatomy is really the easiest way to improve.






    Doing it the other way, is like trying to learn guitar by studying high level musical theory, rather than simply learning how to jam the 3 powerchords to "Smoke On The Water".
  • Torch
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    Torch polycounter
    Yeah Proko is really good, just got the figure drawing fundamentals and its pretty sweet :)
  • Mongrelman
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    Mongrelman polycounter lvl 18
  • arcitecht
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    arcitecht polycounter lvl 6
    www.zbrushworkshops.com

    Ryan Kingslien is tha shit. He's got a lot of free material around too (youtube) so you can get a sense of how he teaches. His starter courses on anatomy are tough but well-paced and he makes no assumptions that you have an art background.

    Something you're just going to have to accept is that anything worthwhile in life you'll do is going to be a giant pain in the ass. It just is. You have to build up that willpower to stick through the tough parts and it absolutely will pay off. When you're sitting there in the pits of frustration, know that as long as you keep pushing forward, you will get through it and you'll be glad you did.
  • JacqueChoi
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    JacqueChoi polycounter
    Kingslien is a decent starting point for a novice, but I would not recommend his work to anyone who wants to do this professionally.
  • Anchang-Style
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    Anchang-Style polycounter lvl 7
    I would be interested in what way?
  • Torch
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    Torch polycounter
    I would be interested in what way?

    Wut
  • Anchang-Style
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    Anchang-Style polycounter lvl 7
    Sorry, better!: Why would JacqueChoi not recommend his work for anything beyound a starting point?
  • Torch
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    Torch polycounter
    Anchang - I believe someone like Scott Eaton or even Scott Spencer would be preferable when learning anatomy just because they seem to have more of an extensive knowledge on anatomical landmarks, etc. As Jaque said I would only use Kingslien as a starting point for learning :)
  • Pravely
    Yeah, many people told me to avoid Ryan even if i want to start to learn anatomy. No idea why....

    I'll my final questions about learning anatomy. I know how much many times has been asked and answered.


    Yea will accept the fact that, i should start to draw and learn anatomy in that way.

    1.(How someone can learn drawing, if they don't have any art schools/college in the country?) I will take any art book and online course. I am not sure that books will show me how to draw, many of the books i have, has already drawn people, but they are no telling the process of showing how to draw. Even those who show, it is not step by step.

    2.How long do i need to draw per day or pet hour?
    3.Should i even start to learn Zbrush at the same time, or to spend more time with drawing on paper and less time with Zbrush?
  • Lazerus Reborn
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    Lazerus Reborn polycounter lvl 8
    Just draw. There's no secret to it at all. Continuous use and practice are essential. Look into basic warm ups such as drawing real life objects, shading and material drawing practice etc.

    Draw whenever you can. Traveling on the train? Whip out a small sketchbook. 30min break? Get doodling, theres no real excuse not to draw as i've been speaking to a artist that had to use her mouth to hold a pencil for 9 years before she recovered use of her hands.

    Get into Zbrush as well, it won't hurt to start learning your way around it.
  • Gestalt
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    Gestalt polycounter lvl 11
    An easy way to get started drawing is to get good at drawing basic shapes in proper perspective. Learning perspective in a more formal way can be very useful too (with the cone, there's probably a guide online that's free).

    It can be a little boring on the surface but it's easy to just do. You don't have to think of an idea to draw and it's the basis for everything and they're easy to critique objectively and refine your skills with. Practice drawing circles and ellipses, practice drawing lines and connecting two points, practice drawing cubes from different perspectives, build your hand-eye coordination and your sense of making clean curves.

    If you can make basic shapes well you can combine them and quickly mockup a solid underdrawing (the proko vids go over this). That's probably the easiest way to start if you haven't painstakingly built a feel of things already. I recommend using mypaint. It's fast to open to get started and you just hit delete to clear the canvas and keep at it.

    On the painting side of things (if you're into that) a useful exercise is to paint thumbnails for greyscale and color studies. Here's a Noah's Art Camp on it http://youtu.be/kQfF-P70V2Q
  • Wendy de Boer
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    Wendy de Boer interpolator
    I'm personally using this tool to learn the names and their pronunciations. It's not free, but it made absorbing the information so much easier, it's really worth it, IMHO.

    https://www.kenhub.com/
  • Jaco
  • Psyk0
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    Psyk0 polycounter lvl 18
    http://www.zackpetroc.com/skeleton-and-muscles-lecture/
    http://www.zackpetroc.com/skull-and-muscles-of-the-face-lecture/

    I sculpted along the videos with the same approach. It's the best thing i found to learn muscle origin and insertion. I'd still want to start from there instead of jumping straight into Scott Eaton's lessons.
  • Pravely
    Should i start to draw people from start or something else? When i draw something else, i fell bored and it it's not fun at all/
  • JacqueChoi
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    JacqueChoi polycounter
    Pravely wrote: »
    Should i start to draw people from start or something else? When i draw something else, i fell bored and it it's not fun at all/

    Draw what is fun, and draw a lot.

    If you want to get better, the rest will likely fall into place.
  • Torch
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    Torch polycounter
    Psyk0 wrote: »

    Oh Awesome, I loved Petroc's other tutorials like one on female anatomy, will check these out :)
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