#i'm an art student of course i'm going to blurt art advice and nonsense words when given the chance

[kiisaes]

How do you draw anatomy so well? Please tell me your secret🙏🏾

If you actually respond/pay attention to this---

Thank You!

thank u for thinking my anatomy is good! ;o;

my "secret": i've been drawing bodies since like 2nd grade, and more "seriously" since 7th grade. i've done a multitude of live drawing studies (drawing nude figures in various poses) which helps way more than you could imagine. i'm an art nut so eventually i improved through sheer work; my body saw how much i was drawing, aka repeatedly bashing my head in a wall, and was like "ok FINE u can get better at art i guess" LOL

anyway, i never know how to answer this question properly because different artists have different approaches to anatomy. the way i draw a body might not make any sense for anyone else, and vice versa.

i've seen youtube videos that are like "DON'T do this! DO this!" and because there's so many of them, they constantly contradict each other. it gets so damn overwhelming because there's no way you can follow all advice provided to you, much of which are from stuck-up artists who think their way is the only right way. there is no only right way to draw!!! please remember that!!!

that being said, here are my tips that might help you, because they happen to help me:

1—

separate the body into shapes! when sketching, i tend to draw my limbs with blob-like "cylinders"/ovals and joints with circles, like so:

these look like messy mannequin limbs, but they get the general vibe down for me. not to mention, they apply weight to body parts by implying muscle/fat. i used to draw with lines and circles, but this subconsciously made me draw arms and legs a lot skinnier and "bone thin" than i preferred. even though these are just sketchy base doodles, it makes it easier for you to build more detail on top of them!

2—

if you want personality in your pose, a great way to allude to that is by using a line of motion! for me, these usually manifest with the spine:

...but they can also apply to the rest of the body by extending past the pelvis. it's up to you! but a general spine/line of motion, even if just a scribble, can imply a different emotion and pose quite simply. i like to draw the torso and line then add arms and legs, sometimes based entirely on vibe LOL

3—

and honestly the BEST piece of anatomy advice i can give you... is to KEEP DRAWING!!! study figures over and over again, go to live figure drawing sessions (or use an online site, there's a handful of free ones), draw a pose you made yourself in the mirror, study the anatomy pros from art books or tutorials, watch shows or animations or hell, comics — actually PLEASE read comics, often times you'll find a cool pose just there for you to analyze and draw — you get the idea! even though i told you these tips, they won't actually mean anything unless you put in the work.

i know "just draw" is a very basic piece of advice that's kind of a duh point, but it sincerely works. i took a figure drawing class my 3rd semester of art school and it helped me leaps and bounds — all it did was have us draw figures over and over! you can get advice from a thousand different artists, but ultimately what matters is what works for YOU. and you won't know what works for you if you don't draw! i know it can get discouraging if you keep drawing and drawing and you're not getting the results you want, but art is a gradual process. i still continuously struggle with art but i'm really glad i improved leaps and bounds in the past couple years, bottom line, i feel more comfortable with drawing bodies, and it's all thanks to my hard work! (or perhaps my relentless fear of failure, which forces me to keep drawing so i don't fall behind lol)

i hope these helped even a little bit!!!!! just remember: anatomy takes a LONG time to figure out and perfect, and any kind of progress is valuable progress! there also isn't one correct way to draw bodies; just use what works for YOU to achieve what YOU want :)