Week 4: Here comes the Pelvis!

So this week we proceeded to add the pelvis into our drawings. This week has to have been the most challenging and difficult week for me yet. I think it just didn't click as well with me as it ussually does, and I just in general had to focus and feel my way through drawing the pelvis and keeping it in proportion to the rib cage.


At first, my major problem was the Rib cage, and simply making it too oval shaped and therefore long. The rib cage was too long and as a result, the pelvis obviously looked waaay out of proportion. It really helped to see my professor draw the shape infront of me. I think I learn best when I'm just shown how to draw, and then adapt from that.

I actually realized that I had been drawing the Ribcage all wrong the entire time. I generally tried to eyeball it and get it semi-correct based off of memory and observation. Now, it doesn't take a genius to guess that this is a really really bad of going about it (Heh...)

So then I actually started drawing the egg shape first as an outline, and THEN drawing the actual ribcage after I had gotten the egg down. Wollah! Everything fell into place beautifully!

By the end of class on Wednesday, I began to get the hang of it, and then I started working on getting the pelvis right. Of course, the learning had scarcely begun for me. On Friday, we had our male model again, and with him, a bunch of personal challenges for me.

I'm better with the female anatomy and body type, simply because that's what I've drawn more. Drawing males, despite being male myself, is quite difficult. The difficulty was turned up to the max, when our professor announced that we'd be adding in the muscles for our longer drawing.

Now, I realize that literally no one actually added the muscles into their drawing, and I felt like a bit of an idiot for actually doing it... BUT! I ended up actually understanding a lot more about the human antomy that way. By the end of the class, I definitely felt like I could draw the male figure a lot better, and I definitely could see why this class is so important.

The process of dissecting an object from its base structure, to adding volume to it, its the perfect way to draw anything. I'm not sure about those artists that can just eye ball stuff and draw it accurately, but for an artist like me who may not have the legendary talent, I Thank God for these techniques, they definitely keep me going.

The Manakin this week was interesting, as it was basically some muscle layering. All in all, a pretty sweet week. My post is a bit shorter than usual, but I'll probably supplement it by posting another one in the middle of the week if I have time XD