April 5, 2025 - Starting Figure Drawing and Anatomy

My notes and exercises will be in the study room here.

One of my goals this year is improving my art, specifically three main things: composition, values, and anatomy. I recently decided I will be tackling anatomy first.

I’ve already tried figure drawing. I’ve watched multiple of proko’s videos from gestures to Mannequization and have drawn a lot of gestures. But, I decided to go back and review figure drawing so that I can go beyond figure drawing and finally attempt anatomy. I will be laying out my plan here. There will be no specific deadline as long as I am making consistent progress.

So, first and foremost,

What is my goal: To learn to draw anatomy (even if from reference). I would especially like to get more comfortable drawing men and the body more dynamically.

What’s the plan? I will be mainly using free resources to do this. Mainly YouTube videos from people like Proko. But I also have my eye of Anatomy for Concept Artists by moderndayjames and the book Anatomy for Sculptors as a reference. I might end up using other sources depending on how I’m doing at the time.

Resources:
Proko Free Figure Drawing Playlist
Proko Anatomy Playlist
Anatomy for Concept Artists by moderndayjames
Anatomy for Sculptors (Book)

How Will I study? A lot of the videos made by proko have exercises recommended at the end. I will do those to the best of my ability.

Gestures and the basics: Gestures will be a way to show the movement of whatever it is I am drawing. I will try to do gestures frequently. I will likely do them digitally for the sake of saving paper. Every time I complete a page, I will write a simple note on the page about what needs more work. I will mainly be doing one minute gestures as I’ve found that works well for me. But, I might eventually try 30 second gestures and 2 minute gestures. The gestures will be done from Pinterest references but I’ll try to use videos every once in a while.

Mannequization: Mannequinization is basically drawing the human body with simple forms. It is not preoccupied with anatomy but it is with proportion while keeping some of the gesture. I will do these from references of humans and most of the self-critique should be about the proportion, gestures, and accuracy of the forms.

Anatomy: I will try to tackle body parts one at a time. I will likely be using references to study them but it is one of my goals to also do more art studies. Most of the exercises will be about trying to understand where the muscle is located, how it moves, what it looks like, etc.

Self-critique: I will not fixate on minor details. The critiques should only address the specific topic I’m working on. My critiques will be simple: what went wrong, why I don’t like it, how can I improve it. Firstable, what was I going for? What was I trying to achieve? Secondable, did I achieve it? If I didn’t, what went wrong? What specifically did I not achieve? And lastly, what can I change to achieve my goal? What should I attempt when I next try the exercise or drawing to improve the result?

Units:
Unit 1: Gesture, Landmarks, The bean
Unit 2: Robobean, Mannequinization
Unit 3: Skeleton, the head (expressions) and the neck
Unit 4: Shoulders and torso
Unit 5: arms
Unit 6: Pelvis and legs
Unit 7: Hands and feet

Weekly Check-Ins: I will try to have something to show for each week.