Stop Doing Figure Studies

[00:00:00]The secret to learning anatomy is to draw Batman. I've said it. I I told you.

[00:00:05]I revealed it. That's all you need to know.

[00:00:08]What am I talking about? What the heck are you saying? Well, we've all experienced wanting to learn anatomy.

[00:00:14]Whether you want to draw a scene with some poses or some characters you have in your head and you just don't know how to do it. The first thing you do is probably look up on YouTube how do I learn anatomy? And you get some guy that tells you to do figure studies. And that makes sense, right? Just [music] study figures. You can find it online, in person, and you just practice them. Do them daily. Do a bunch of different poses. And that sounds [music] like it would work. Like, oh, if I just study all kinds of poses, it's going to make me understand anatomy and I'll be able to do it from my imagination perfectly.

[00:00:47]But the issue is one, it's like if you have a look at figure studies, like I'm interested in drawing like fight poses and action poses. And I'll look up figure studies.

[00:00:57]And generally, unless you go out of your way to search for this, they're just like people lying on the ground. And like I originally, when I started, I would just draw whatever. I'm like, okay, I'll just learn the body. It's all kind of the same, right? But there's a very strong difference between actually like practicing the poses that you're interested in. If they're not applicable to the things you want to do, >> [music] >> why waste your time learning like someone just lying upside down if you want to do a kicking pose?

[00:01:26]So, [music] you have to actually look up references tailored towards the kind of things that you're interested in. And you won't always find this on figure study websites. Like sometimes you might be better off going into your favorite movies and looking at movie poses. Or UFC if you want to look at like real fighting poses.

[00:01:46]So, actually [music] put some effort into where you find and source these references for the kind of poses you want to do. That's the first step.

[00:01:54]Second one, the Batman step.

[00:01:57]I don't know if you've ever done it, but figure studies can be pretty boring.

[00:02:01][music] I I don't know. Like sometimes they're fun depending on if someone has a really unique looking body, but most of the time it's just kind of boring and it's hard for me to get engaged. I'll feel like I'll do the study and it's like, "Sure, I've learned that." But it >> [music] >> I don't know if it necessarily translates like that. Cuz you have to be interested in it. And something that I found that I think is super interesting to do is drawing [music] the figure. You can get up a figure study reference, but then also get some photos of something that you're actually interested. Maybe Spider-Man, [music] maybe Batman, maybe freaking Mario, I don't know.

[00:02:38]And try to draw the character or the person that you're looking at as one of these characters.

[00:02:45]>> [music] >> It can be a little harder, but it makes it so much more fun. I think that's one of the reasons with comic style stuff where you have these superheroes.

[00:02:55]They're they're wearing clothing, but it's it's like form-fitting. So you're you're learning the form. And even studying from studying from actual artists instead of just figure poses, you can probably learn anatomy a lot quicker by focusing on how artists do it because they'll usually exaggerate certain features and make [music] muscles more pronounced. So it's a lot easier to learn it. When things are subtle, it can be very hard for you to really know what's happening, but an artist will typically exaggerate features [music] making it so much more easy to learn and understand. Sometimes you'll be looking at a muscle and it looks like a little blip. It's like it's little freaking weird looking thing. You know, like what is that? It's just a little sliver.

[00:03:42]But if you have an artist that's drawing a superhero character, that muscle might be extra pronounced and it's like, "Oh, there's a thing here that I can remember." Where this is why as much as it can sound a little boring to learn the anatomy in terms of the actual names, I feel like it is very important to actually name stuff. Whether it's whatever you can make up these names.

[00:04:04]Call it like the the fliggle. You know, it's fliggle on his neck. Naming it will help you to remember. If you think about the fact that you know the names of most of the features on the face, like the nose, the mouth, the eyes, just knowing that means that when you're drawing a face, you'll remember to include them.

[00:04:24]Whether they look good or not is dependent on how much you practiced it, but it gives you such an advantage to actually know what's there. If you're drawing an arm and you simply don't know what a bicep is, you're going to be looking at this weird-looking arm. It's like, "Why is it just Why does that look weird? [music] I don't know. What's missing?" You won't know because you haven't named and memorized kind of the components of that part of the body. So, if you treat each part of the body kind of like the face, you'll have a much easier time. And I don't think the other parts of the body are typically as complex as a face is, so it shouldn't be as hard, but just put a little bit of effort every now and then when you're drawing to kind of pick out certain features that you might recognize that reoccur and give them a name that you can remember. You don't You honestly don't even have to know the official terminology for it. Just make something up. But, the main point of this video is to essentially just like tell you that you can make these things fun. And the more fun you can make them, the more tailored towards what you actually want to do. There's no rules. Like, you don't have to follow or learn art in the way that you think [music] you need to. Just cuz a lot of people have done it a certain way, doesn't mean it's the only way that works. And it might work, but they might have a like really boring, uninteresting time while doing it. And if you're not at the stage where you're ready to do that, ready to just sit down and kind of push through a lot of uncomfortable [music] boring work, then it might push you away from art and you might give up or quit. So, there's no pressure to learn art in any way that isn't interesting for you. You can do it the way you want and I just want to give some ideas of how you could maybe go about learning anatomy in ways that are actually interesting and fun to do. And one of the best parts about this is that considering you're kind of changing the reference of the pose, you're creating something new, which is always just super fun to do. And for me, like I I hear a lot of people in my comments kind of they don't really feel like this, but for me at least, I find it very hard to feel like I've made something or I don't get as much creative enjoyment when I just copy something one-to-one.

[00:06:45]When you're changing it a bit, it's it's very easy when you're copying something without changing anything for the goal to feel like, "Oh, it's as it's only as good as how close I've gotten to the reference." You're judging it based on, "Does it match the reference?" Not anything on its own. You want to You want to have it separate, so then like cuz even when you show other people this, if they know what you're studying it from, it's very easy for them to point out like, "Oh, the eyes main thing looking."

[00:07:16]Like, "Get out of here, man. I get out of it. I don't want to hear it. Get away from me." When you change stuff, it just lets you kind of judge it on its own.

[00:07:25]It's like it's something entirely new, so there's not really much you can compare it to.

[00:07:31]So, it's just like, "Does it look good or not? Does it Is it appealing? Is it interesting?" And I find that's a lot more of a healthy way to be judging art compared to just does it look like the reference? Cuz that's no fun. And it can be it can be very uh it can take out a lot of the creative aspects to art because if you wanted it to look like the reference, I would just save the photo and then show you that. It's like that's not what art is. That's not what drawing is. It's taking away all of the freedom of like creative choices and like translating it to a different medium. That's That's what makes art fun. It's not just look how close it looks to the reference. So, anything you can do to kind of separate that so in your brain you're not just subconsciously trying to get it one-to-one cuz that that's very boring.

[00:08:21]I don't find most people would find that enjoyable to do. But it's also really hard to not do when that's what you're doing. If you're copying something, you're you're naturally going to try and make it look as close as you can to the reference. And it will be very discouraging if it doesn't match it.

[00:08:40]Anyways, I hope this was helpful. Um if you like the way I teach and would like to consider supporting me, you could check me out on Patreon. I have a paintover series that I do for some people where I I can give feedback and do paintovers of your art. If you're interested, no pressure. I can I can already sense it. You're like, "Oh, what's this guy he's begging for money.

[00:09:01]Yeah, I need to take my money. You're not getting any. Give me it for free.

[00:09:06]Give me it for free, you dog."