In this video lesson series, Glenn Vilppu will break down each area of the human figure
to show you the essential construction for drawing. You will learn about the anatomy
of each region in addition to learning useful ways to think about the structures three-dimensionally.
Glenn will demonstrate for you over the live model as well as through clear diagrammatical
drawings. By the end of this series, you should have a much firmer grasp on the complexity
of the human figure that can be built upon even further.
In this lesson, Glenn will teach you how to draw proportions.

I want to demonstrate the proportions here because it’s—seeing is believing is what
it comes down to. What we’re talking about here is now, if I take and look at the skeleton
here, I say, okay, the top of the head, the width of the top of the head here, the back
of the head, remember is wider than the front. That distance there is equal to the top of
the head to the bottom of the nose. Well, that distance there is equal to the pit of
the neck. You can see how that works out. If I take and let’s look at Clay here.
That's the width of the head. So we take from the top of the head, not the forehead, but the
top of the head we get the same proportion. And we come from here down to here we’re
talking there. That’s going to take and come down to the bottom of the sternum.
That'll take us to the bottom of the 10th rib.
Now, we’ll look at Tiffany and see the same thing. We’re all very much the same. Width
of the head, from the top of head to the bottom of the nose. From the bottom of the nose to—let
me see if I can do this—you can see that we’re talking about the same proportions.
This is also the same proportion as the clavicle and where the sternum would come through.
We’re talking basic one simple measurement.
Let’s turn around here for a second, Clay. You can see the same basic proportion now
corresponds to the length of the scapula. The scapula coming down. Same thing. It’s
not a complicated thing. It’s really just one measurement. We’re talking about the
distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the nose and to the pit of the neck. That
equals from there to the bottom of the rib cage. We’re talking about the same proportion
coming down here. Half of that to the pubic arch. At this point we’ve really gone through
the whole point now. Let’s take and demonstrate my points here in doing the drawings.
Okay now let’s take and go through the proportions. First of all, I’m going to give you two
basic approaches. Generally speaking in almost all your anatomy books that you see people
use eight heads, how it figures. In other words, where you have basic proportions breaking
it down. Here I break this. The head size then corresponds to this. I use a little different
system. Okay, that proportion right there, eight heads high is actually not really normal.
Standard human proportions are more closer to 7-1/2 to 7-3/4, so I just break this off.
But this becomes a convenient means of taking and starting out. So if I take and put a mark
at the top, a mark at the bottom, and then take and break that in half and break that
in half again and break that in half. This gives me a rough head size. This part here,
this halfway point being the pubic arch. Then, of course, here I would break this in half.
The halfway part here then becomes the knees.
If we’re taking this proportion to start with, let me take and break the head down
here. We’re starting out with the head here. General proportions now. Everybody is pretty
much the same. Eyes are in the center. Brow line is a little bit above that. So this is
halfway. Brows, you just have to learn to see that. The distance between the chin and
the brown, halfway, is the bottom of the nose. So that’s another halfway proportion. Then
we have the bottom of the lower lip. Not the opening of the mouth. The opening of the mouth
is above that. The opening of the mouth corresponds to the corner of the jaw. The ear corresponds
to the line of the brow to the bottom of the nose.
Now, the front of the head, and if you take and look at our lessons dealing with the head
you will see that the back of the head is wider than the front. The width of the head
corresponds to the distance from the distance from the top of the head to the bottom of
the nose. In other words, what we have here then is roughly a square. That proportion,
the width of the head or the distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the nose
becomes our sort of standard measurement that we work with. This same proportion now will
correspond to the distance to the pit of the neck.
At this point now we have the proportions set up. So if start out with what I have here.
I go through. Eyes, brow, halfway, bottom of the nose. This proportion then taking and
hitting the pit of the neck. As we were talking about the anatomy of the rib cage we saw that
the rib cage is high in back. Also, I mentioned the proportions from the pit of the neck to
the top of the head is equal. This distance here is equal to the bottom of the 10th rib,
so we’re talking about the rib cage. Half of that distance, in other words, the same
proportion that we’re talking about from the pit of the neck coming down is where the
cartilage attaches in the thoracic arch. Then these become the bottom of the rib cage, 10th
rib. Not the actual bottom. The rib cage is high in back, so we’re coming down and we’re
digging and working through the proportions here.
I mentioned the difference between a male and female is that the male thoracic arch
is more of a triangle. Female is slightly narrower, more like 60 degrees. One is 90
to 60. Okay, the distance from here to the end of the iliac crest is the end of the pubic
arch. In other words, the corners of the pelvis. Half of that distance takes us to the pubic arch.
In other words, you can see this distance here, half of our standard measurement is
taking us to the pubic arch. This is equivalent, this point here now is equivalent to four
heads. The same measurement that we’ve been talking about. This measurement from the top
of the head to the bottom of the nose corresponds to the end of the clavicle. In other words,
remembering the clavicle is an S-curve coming through. The scapula comes out beyond that.
As we take down to the knees here, the trochanter, your hip bone, now is going to take and correspond
roughly with your pubic arch. The leg is now going at a diagonal. Remember that this joint
is not at a right angles. This is square so that the leg, the knees come forward at an
angle. Then we come down to the wrist. Now, your elbow will take and correspond to your
waist. So as we’re coming out of the glenoid cavity of the scapula, coming down here. The
wrist corresponds to the pubic arch. Now, if you notice as you bend your arm that the
wrist, this distance here to here is quite short. It doesn’t come up to where your
shoulder joint is here. The glenoid cavity at the end of the humerus. So then the hand
itself is equal to what we refer to as the face, which we take and break the head down
into roughly quarters. You would find that the, where you have the theoretical hairline.
So the hand is the face.
Now the foot. The size of the foot is—now, of course it varies from one person to another,
but the foot is basically the same size as the head. The hand, if we take the foot, the
shape of the foot coming out this way, you’ll find that your hand will fit into from the
arch to the end of the big toe. These are very, very common proportions. Now the back
is taking and is actually the same thing. If we take and look at the rib cage say from
the top, we see that the rib cage is shaped—it’s quite horizontal this way.
The scapula, let’s just take and create a line here where the pit of the neck would
be. Notice I’m drawing considerably smaller. The rib cage is tiny at the top. The clavicle
goes this S-curve that goes around. The scapula now is coming across the back, and it’s
on this curved surface and coming off out here. I’ve mentioned about the fact that
we have, this is a squared off corner back into that. The scapula from the back, and
I’m going to superimpose this over the front here. The scapula is going off and the length
of the scapula is equal to the clavicle. But since it’s going around a curved surface,
we’re going to find a gap from the center of the spine to where the scapula begins.
This is the change in here. The bottom and it lines up pretty much with the pit of the
neck. The base of the scapula is coming to where the sternum, not the end of the xiphoid
process, but where the cartilage attaches. This is line here is not a perfect straight
right angle. It’s slightly moved out. These points here. But these are the same measurement
essentially as the distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the nose. The clavicle,
scapula, both ways come through, and they come down to the end of the iliac crest. What
happens. Let’s look at the proportion.
Let’s look at this in profile. This is not actually what we see. What we see is something
quite different. In other words, if I take and draw the pelvis in profile there is the
end of the iliac crest, the points and the dimples on the back, the pubic arch coming
down here. The coracoid process—excuse me, remembering all these names, never do. Ischial
tuberosity in the back here. This point here. These tend to line up through here. You have
the spine coming across at an angle in here. The muscles of the stomach are taking and
coming down and attaching to the pubic arch, but that actually is not what we see. In other
words, the muscles are coming down and attaching at this point right here. What happens is
that we have fat pads. The body has many fat pads all over it. At this point, both and
female, they have a fat pad that goes down through here. In other words, the fat pad
is filling up the space right here.
Both male and female genitals are coming from the underside. They’re down here. So what
we see is the distance, like we see this triangular shape generally, both male and female coming
down this way. This is a misleading proportion. The pubic arch is in here, not down here.
And so you’re looking at that point. In talking about the anatomy and talking about
how where you take and bend your leg, here is the end of your pelvis. The leg when you
bend it—I was just going to take and add a bending leg coming out and drawing this
as a cylinder. The bend takes place where the bone here is. That’s where the change
is. This now is taking that leg. If it was going out it would be bending at this point.
So from here to there you have a basic three-finger gap. This is a point that is often a mistake
that many, many beginning students, most beginning students think of the leg as being attached
to the end of the pelvis up here. It’s not. If we bend the leg coming across here, we
would find that all of the muscles that are on here are taking and attaching to the bone
itself, or taking and going inside here. What we have happening coming from up here are
two primary muscles, a tensor and a sartorius muscle that are taking, but those are the
straight line that we see in the model in a profile. That gives us the essence now of
our basic proportions that we’re looking at.

Now, where we begin, how we use the anatomy. But first, remember the whole point is the
gesture. As I’m beginning the drawing and I’m first starting with very, very simple
vertical figure. Again, breaking it down into quarters to get a head size, which is a very
simple way of doing it to begin with. When the figure is perfectly vertical—and I use
this for a landmark here. We’re talking about straight up and down. Look at the eyes.
Use this, basically take and half the distance to the bottom of the nose. This becomes the
pit of the neck. That takes and we take and deal with the distance. It takes us to the
bottom of the 10th rib, coming through.
We use the anatomy and we will take and half that, now is coming through into the pelvis.
These are symmetrical points, clavicle coming up. These are symmetrical points that we work
for, halfway, onto the knees. Remember, eight heads is not normal—for real, I should say.
Then the bottom of the knees, elbow coming down. Come through. These are the points.
These are the wrists, hands. It’s like a mannequin here. As we’re coming through,
again, coming across. So now these symmetrical points, when you move them this is where you
get, these become tools that we use. What I want to do is take and apply these landmarks
that we’re working with, proportions. You’re always dealing with this. So when I’m drawing
I’m constantly drawing the anatomy.
Clay, could you take and give me sort of a three-quarter view? Okay. Something like that.
That’s good. Okay, so now as I’m taking and drawing. My first point that I’m after
is to just take and feel the action.
I’ve been talking about all these measurements.
In practical terms I don’t actually measure. I take and feel the flow of how the body goes
to take and capture. Everybody has something that they do that’s a little off. I tend
to make legs a little too long. I’ve got my proportional thing going here so I can
take and, and I’ve got something to judge by. But I’m just taking and feeling this
flow coming through, shoulders. Thinking where the arm is going. Thinking where the wrist
would be coming off out here. The other arm is going back. So once I’ve blocked this
in. Now I’m coming across. I’m looking.
As you’re doing the drawing, each time I go through the drawing, and I go through the
drawing many times as I’m doing it. I’m taking and constantly checking. Okay, the
center is coming across. I’ve got my landmark. Now I’m literally drawing the rib cage.
As you look at the model you’re going to see that it’s not really easy to see that.
So I start out with a very, very simple volume to start with. I’m constructing. Coming
through. I’m taking and think of the angle that we’re coming across. Think of where
the bottom of the ribs, the sternum lies.
So I’m really focusing on the landmarks that we were talking about proportion wise.
In other words, the real, the real skeleton. So we take and come through. The pelvis is
turned away from me so we’re getting a real clear twist that’s taking place. I’m looking,
again, for the corner out here, coming through, going across. Pubic arch, remember, coming
in. Now as I’m pulling through so you can see the flow of the figure. Remember where
the leg three fingers down gap, coming through. Knee coming across, going across the condyles
of the knee coming through. I treat the leg to begin with as a cylinder. I go from a gestural
line to the simple volumes. We’re seeing
simple volume so essentially cylinders, spheres,
boxes. Basically, some people refer to it as the Vilppu method, but it’s not my method
by any means. It’s just a very traditional approach. It’s a constructive approach to
doing a drawing. Analytical and constructive. You can see now that we’ve got a halfway
point here down the bottom and down here. Now we’re building into this. Now the clavicle
is taking and coming out. We’re going off out into here, coming across, through. The
neck is a cylinder that’s fitting into this. We feel the shape, the trapezius muscles coming
across, through. Scapula is out wide.
So then even dealing with the arms I first treat them as visually thinking of the simple
cylinder type of thing. The wrist is basically a rectangular type of shape going through.
But again, we’re talking just placement now. So as that arm is coming forward out
here we’re going over the surface, going back in. Coming through. Arm is coming forward,
coming across. We’re building out. So this is applying the proportions now. So now we
can see as we come across, the pectoralis muscles. I’m going to shift a little bit
of a color here. Pectoralis come from the corner, the front part of the clavicle coming
across pulling off of the chest. This is a shape that’s coming across. So now you’re
seeing very, very simple basic anatomy. That arm comes forward. We can find that the pectoralis
is pointing across here. It’s coming across through here.
We can see the rib cage coming through. At this point we’re also picking up the latissimus
dorsi in the back. But it’s these landmarks. Now we’re thinking of the surface, going
over, coming down. We can feel the pull of the external oblique coming through. The stretching
that takes place, going through as these muscles coming off of the rib cage coming down. Feel
the pelvis pushing out. Then we would be pulling into forms coming through. You can see I’m
building these elements as we take and we go through.
Making the shape of the head, through. Feel the trapezius coming across the back, coming
down, going over the surface. Coming in. Deltoid coming from the corner of the clavicle, and
I’ll take and deal with this stuff a little bit more, and get a little bit more carefully
involved with this anatomy now. Work to the condyles, the medial condyle. We feel the
ridge muscles coming across the shape. Then the hand coming through. The hand, remember,
is the same size as the face from here to here.
If we had, in other words, from the hairline. Feel the sternocleidomastoid coming down in
front. In the leg I was talking about a natural rhythm coming through. We feel going across
the condyles. Feel the patella coming out on the end. Remember, I was talking about
the fact that the inside of the knee is curved. It’s much rounder. On the outside it’s
fairly straight. Feel the shin bone which visually is curved, although the bone that’s
just the ridge. We feel then that the gastrocnemius, your calf muscles are high on the outside.
Your ankle is just the opposite, low on the outside and high on the inside. Then we’re
fitting into, we fit into the shape of the foot. I will treat the foot and the hands
a little bit more in detail by themselves. This gives us the basic sense of how all these
parts are working with our landmarks.
Okay, now let’s just take and go through the same thing here. Working from the back
we can point out the primary points. Again, I’m just going to take to get proportions
a little bit here taking and starting out top, bottom. Again, this is a simple way to
take and get relative sizes so that you’re in the neighborhood. That will give me a basic
head size. This is the pubic arch. This will be the bottom cut off a little bit because
the figure is not eight heads high. We come through. The bottom of the knees will be roughly here.
Take the head coming through. Coming in I want to feel, I want to feel the flow. So
I’m taking and coming through, and we’re talking about the S-curve. Now, on the male
it’s not quite so obvious, but on the female we do. It’s very obvious. So we’re taking
and feeling the basic pose. Head is slightly tilted down. Again, take the proportions.
Think of the distance, top of the head, eyes are in the center about halfway from the brow
to the bottom of the nose as I come through. That’ll give me even though I cannot see
the pit of the neck. I have the measurement. I know the rib cage is high in back. So in
this case we can see where the 7th cervical vertebra is. The vertebrae there, we can see
the bumps are pretty much even with the chin with his head bent slightly. So that will
take and give me this distance from here to here. It’ll give me basically the bottom
of the rib cage, 10th rib. So they come through and now I can take and go from here. I feel
this pull through. Notice that I’m drawing through. I cannot actually see all of this.
I’m taking and I visualize that we’re feeling the rib cage coming through. It’s
volume. It’s like an egg coming through.
Now, the distance where we would have the pit of the neck, this would be the sternum,
bottom of the 10th rib. Halfway or we should say that same distance now will take us to
the end of the pelvis, and in this case it’s the dimples in the back, which I’ve talked
about. Come through. The pelvis is going this way. This is your trochanter. Hip bone would
be here. Pubic arch on the opposite side. We don’t see it. But you can see how I’m
playing with this. Now, I’ll just take a very, very simple flow of taking and coming
down. Notice that as I’m doing this I’m not being rigid. I’m more concerned with
feeling the flow of how the parts go. I use these landmarks. Literally these are landmarks.
They're targets, but I’m focusing first on the flow. Now, I’m looking at the model fairly
close, so I’m getting a perspective so I’m looking down. So one leg, foot is going to
be a little bit higher than the other, coming across. Remember the scapula is the same distance
size-wise from the top of the head to the bottom of the nose. Since the head is tilted
you’ll notice I’ve moved this at an angle. Now what I’m doing is lining up with the
pit of the neck we can see where the end of the bump, the clavicle and the scapula are here.
Since the shoulder, he’s at three-quarter, that shoulder is actually facing me so the
proportion will be fairly close. So I’m checking to see where the end is here. I can
come across, and that’s going to take and come through in here. The base of the, that’s
going to come down. They’re lining up. As we go around the corner, remember that the
rib cage actually has an extra curve in it. We can see that proportion going around. It’s
going back away from me. I can’t even see the end of it. All I’m seeing is the blade
of the scapula as we start to come through.
Here I take and I can see the bump or the nuchal ridge corner, and the shape of the
skull coming through. There is a twisting that is taking place. We can feel the twist
coming across. We feel the trapezius coming through and down, going over. We can feel
the shapes coming in. Scapula, we can feel the pull coming through out here. We’re
feeling some of the muscles coming off of it in here.
Now, the elements that tie the rib cage to the pelvis are—of course, we have the spine.
You have this shape coming down, and we have what we refer to as the sacrospinalis muscle.
It’s a whole series of muscles that go up the spine, two sides.
These are the elements that tie the two parts together.

You will have the external oblique coming across, coming through here. On the other
side we’re seeing, notice one other thing. This is a point in my approach to taking and
doing drawing. I don’t copy. I’m not starting with the shape of the outside and filling
it in. I create a contour by drawing the forms. That’s why I say I begin from the inside
and work my way to the outside. Now here we’ve got, I can feel, we’re going over the surface.
Feel the muscles coming off of the scapula. Your serratus anterior, your latissimus dorsi.
Feel these coming through. The arm now is coming out. So I look proportion wise. Remember,
we’re talking about the elbow. It basically comes from the waist. We have the three points,
the medial and lateral condyles and the end of the ulna. This is like a cylinder now that
is taking and going through this way. The wrist now remember is pulling from basically
the pubic arch. In drawing that I take the wrist, which is essentially a rectangular
shape that’s coming through.
The hand, remember, is basically the size of the face, the face being the distance to
roughly where the hairline would be to the bottom of the chin. This proportion here now
would be the hand. The hand, of course, is not all extended. It’s just turned a little
bit so it’ll be a little bit shorter. So I’m treating this as a triangular or cylinder
type of shape with a square end. We would then start to see how the muscles are pulling
off of the scapula. This is something we’ll deal with a little bit later. Now you can
see the basic pattern that we’re taking and doing. That’s an important point to
make now. We’re talking about pattern. As I’ve mentioned here what you’re doing
is you're learning the pattern of the anatomy. So this is like having a model sheet that
we use in animation. Model sheets tell us what the characters look like. Here in drawing
we do the same thing. We’re taking and looking at the figure as we’re learning the parts
of the anatomy as model sheets. We take and help us to take and draw the figure. The goal,
of course, is to be able to draw the figure from imagination from any angle. Here we’re
coming across. The fullness, again, start out with the idea of the leg as primarily
a simple cylinder really going across the tendons of the back of the knee.
It gives us like a box.
As I look at this we can see how, it looks like what I’ve done here is I’ve probably
taken and got the legs a bit short. In other words, in the first measurement I was off.
When that happens you change it. No point and moaning and groaning about things. This
is a process that you start out fairly loose. Now what I’m dealing with here is perspective.
This is taking, I’m looking down at the thing. When we go to the back knee, look across
where forms are, through. You look at the shape here I’m seeing a
very clear-cut rhythm to the forms.
I can feel the pull. Curve, through.
This is a—now you can see where I’ve been focusing. Let’s just take and clarify these
with my marks now. The 7th cervical vertebrae. Hit the landmarks, scapula. These are the
points. This is what you’re looking for. The center, the 7th cervical vertebra. Center
of the spine. Dimples at the back of the sacrum. Pelvis. We think about where the pit of the
neck is. We use the tendons coming across the back of the knee into this angle. We take
and, like the corners of the box coming through. Here just indicating simply the way we fit
in. And look at the leg, the foot, I should say, just a simple triangle form. Coming through.
High on the inside. Low on the outside.
As we go into that the leg is a little bit more detailed.
You’ll see that I work with the common tendons, back of the leg. Your Achilles tendon.
Just a combination of several muscles. So we’ll try and go. In this case he’s
got a little bit of a weight on the left and a little more relaxed on the right.
We can feel the difference from one side to the other. Now, from the back I want to take and what
I do, I’m mindful of all those points, but I’m not necessarily taking and measuring
everything now. I want to go for the feeling. He’s taking and doing something like this.
Coming through. I want to feel the flow. I’m just trying to feel the action that’s going on.
Legs going in, through. Coming down, pulling through here. Shoulder going over the surface.
Feeling this going back. The arm is going out. I am going down. I’m going in.
So now this is the first stage of the drawing. Now I want to go back and I want to take and
feel the base of the skull coming through. You can feel the ears coming through. Building,
head. Think of the line. Look at the line from the eye to the corner of the eye socket.
Head going down. Thinking of the neck fitting in. I want to draw the rib cage inside.
Feeling the pull, broad at the base.
Now here we have to take and—the rib cage is a round surface so now add the gesture
doing this. But the actual surface, the way the spine goes in on top so now I’m drawing
a different line coming down. Now I want to take and pull the dimples, back of the pelvis
coming through. Add the scapula. Coming through. Across, going out. Feel the trapezius taking
and pulling, turning as it comes down. Through. So you notice that it starts up high, coming
through. It would be considering very, very carefully the twisting that’s taking place
and feel the pull of the muscle going out to the scapula, taking and coming across,
going out. Feel the scapula coming down. You can see the shape pulling from here, going
out a little bit farther. We pull from there and then we’re picking up. Clay is very
developed so we’re getting a very strong latissimus dorsi coming on top, which actually
attaches to the pelvis down here. You can see the sacrospinalis. In this case I would
take and go out of my way to take and push and to actually feel the curvature, the roundness
of the rib cage. Feel the external oblique pulling down, coming through, going over.
We can feel the pinching taking place. We can feel the pull.
Again, we’ve got the muscles coming off of the scapula. We can feel the latissimus
dorsi in here. He’s really developed. Now we’re getting a pinching on the opposite
side here, coming through. External oblique. The buttocks now is coming across the compression
on the right side, and where we would feel the gluteus coming through down. The opposite
side now is dropping. Leg is going in. Pull through. Again, as I’ve used the idea of
the cylinder taking and going in, going through, coming around. Coming across. He’s got his
foot lifted slightly, coming through. The other one is down, coming through. Here we
can feel the angle now, and I’m adjusting now. See as I’m coming through I’m adjusting
placement as I go through. Find the shape we’re dealing with. Notice I’m drawing
the rhythm, the flow of how the thing goes. The pressure of the buttocks. One side is
relaxed, taking and going down in. I use the tendons coming down off of the pelvis, curved
on the inside. Go over the gastrocnemius. Going over the surface. Coming down and you
can feel—in this case you can see how strong those gastrocnemius muscles are sitting on
top of the soleus with a common tendon coming down to the end of the heel. We go down, the
foot is underneath. Feel the calf high on the inside, whereas the ankle bone high on
the inside, low on the outside. The opposite over here now. We take and we, through. We
want to feel the pull coming down. We can feel the shape now. Look at the pattern. Pattern,
pattern, pattern. Curved on the inside, pulling through. The shape here with the large abductors
that are taking and going through. We would actually feel, if we could see, without the
trunk there you would see a shape in the gluteus as it’s pulling around. Going over again.
High on the outside, low in the inside. Coming through. Soleus underneath. Common tendon
coming down to the calcaneus bone. Through. High on the inside, low on outside. Then we’ve
got the foot going through. As we go back into the arm, again I’m taking and look
to the condyles. The ends go through, making the pull where this is coming out. They primarily
start with the idea of the cylinder, direction. We use these condyles as landmarks, which
we’ve talked about. The arm here is going in. I would be working to the shape of the
wrist then the hand coming out. The deltoid then is taking and pulling from here. And
we feel the pull. It’s coming all the way from back. It actually comes all the way from
the back. The end the scapula here, but generally we don’t see that too much.
Now, the triceps will be coming through and coming down, a little bit lower here. Coming
through, the other side going over the surface. We feel the deltoid coming down. The shape
coming in. Pulling through, around. Visualizing this as a cylinder coming back down. Going
through. Pick up the end of the ulna and the condyles, medial and lateral. The hand is
bent back. Triceps reveal the pull coming through. That’s a very quick run through.
Again, let’s push out the landmarks that we were just talking about. Corners here.
Come out, through. Going across here and down. Feel the pull here. The nuchal ridge there.
Center with the spine. Pelvis and the sacrum. The trochanter would be here. We’re talking
about the tendons coming through creating corners that we can take and work with like
a box. Then we come down ankles, and this is high on the outside the calf. Gastrocnemius.
Coming down and ankles just the opposite, high on the inside, low on the outside.
We look to the condyles across the end of the elbow. Triangle shape. The wrist is a
rectangle. Going through. See the triangle going through. In this case I’m not even
seeing the arm. That gives us our basic landmarks as well as now here if I needed to I could
push this a little bit stronger. More tension here, and more of a relaxed point
on the opposite side. We go back in.

Now what we’re focusing on is the application in the drawing a bit. So we start out, again.
I focus on first it’s the gesture. We have a flow.
It’s the flow of how the figure goes. Come through.
Feeling the pelvis. Lead the eye to the pelvis. Feel the leg coming back, down, through.
Coming across. Notice I’m not going out of way measuring, but I do take and as
I’m doing this I am making a statement. I’m thinking pubic arch halfway, come through
roughly where the knees are. Feel the shoulders up high. Pubic arch halfway. Come through
roughly where the knees are. Feel the shoulders up high. Arm is going out. Arm is dropped
down. Now the beginning stage we’re taking and thinking of simple volumes.
Taking and thinking, okay, proportions. Eyes, bottom of the nose. Now I’m thinking pit
of the neck. I’m looking toward the chin, pit of the neck. So starting with the idea
of the rib cage, but first it’s a very, very simple volume. It’s rib cage but I’m
not rigid about the forms. Simple volume, cross symmetry. Come down. Now as I do this
now I’m taking and saying, okay, distance from here, top of the head, through the neck,
bottom of the rib cage. The symmetry—she’s going across at an angle. I’m looking and
thinking of the corners of the rib cage. She is pulling going in. Now, the sternum. Ribs,
corner of the rib cage, or the pelvis, excuse me. I’m thinking of where we’re at. Remember,
the woman’s pelvis is slightly wider. Coming through, pubic arch. But first this is a simple
volume that we’re fitting in. The simple volume that’s pulling off, going out here.
The leg as it’s coming down. This is a cylinder, taking a 3-finger gap coming through. I’m
thinking of the center where the abductors are coming across. Coming through.
As I’m drawing this the model is very close to me so I’m getting a lot of foreshortening,
a lot of distortion taking place in here. So the leg, cylinder, going back down.
Coming through.
I’m going to focus primarily on just the torso right here right now. This scale that
I’m drawing. Shoulder, cylinder going back in and through. Now we use anatomy to communicate
the action. Okay, so first I need to get the placement of the volumes in space. Come through.
You can move this down a little bit more. Constantly adjusting. I’m not copying the
model. I’m analyzing the model and thinking of these volumes. Cylinder of the neck. Take
the—I draw the clavicle. I’m really thinking this is going off, going through and going in.
Come around. Feel the clavicle coming across, going through, going over.
Looking at the distance across here.
Feel the trapezius coming down.
Look at where the elbow is at.
Picking up again a simple cylinder to start with.
Now, she’s really tilted over so the wrist is really dropped. But you notice that the
distance is still smaller or shorter than the distance from up here on the top. And
it’s dropped down. I’ve got the thing blocked in. Notice I haven’t started—like
for instance with the breasts. The breasts in a sense if you can think of them. These
are accessories. They build on top of all the things. Now, we’ve gone through the
figure two times now. So now I come back—each time I come back through it I’m giving more
information. When I come back through now I’m blocking in planes. The heaed, feeling
the eye socket dropping down. Come through. Plane going in. Make it where the end of the
nose. Feel the cheekbone coming out. So there is nothing slap-dash about this. It’s very
systematic in the way I approach it even though I’m drawing relatively fast. The speed is
achieved by the clarity of having a clear-cut series of steps that I’m going through as
I do the drawing.
The neck, picking up the sternocleidomastoid from behind the ear. That has two heads. One
head is going to the sternum. The other head is going to the clavicle. That’s why the
name, sternocleidomastoid. Mastoid process is behind the ear. I’m still dealing with
the cylinder of the neck. Clavicle now, it’s this S-curve. You can see the straight. Turns,
goes in, and comes across. We can feel the trapezius pulling a lot of tension there.
You can feel the pull coming across, through. You can see, look at the distance now down
to where the pectoralis muscles.
Now, since the arm is dropped we’re getting a lot of folding taking place. The deltoid
is attaching at that point in the corner, coming through, around. And then the female
now is—scapula coming across—the female is a lot simpler, a simpler shape. But you’re
still, even though it’s a very simple shape the lines you still take and consider all
of the anatomy as I’m coming through. One of the things on the female is that the medial
condyle of the humerus is usually more prominent. We can feel the overlapping of the joint.
Muscles coming off, through. The squareness of the wrist. Come through. We’ll be pulling
into the hands. At this point we want to feel the clavicle going the other side now. It’s
going around, behind. The arm is going back in. So what we’re seeing then is this a—like
I said, I started out drawing this like a cylinder, or I could be drawing it like a
box. But the scapula is coming across out to the end out here. The clavicle is going
through to the point here. Scapula is coming across the back. What we see now as that arm
goes back is we feel a real corner here. We can see where these muscles are coming for
this point in here, pulling through. You can see the light area inside here as it’s coming
across. The deltoid is pushed out. We can see the pecs pulling across. These are pulling
off of the chest. You’ve got to remember; the rib cage is a curved surface going down
this way. The muscles are coming actually from the front of the rib cage, not the side.
Coming through. Again, over. And the breast is sitting on top of that surface. Coming
through. So we’re building the volumes. But you work with the rib cage that is underneath.
So now I’m modifying. I’m pulling this in a bit. Right at this point now I’m picking
up the corner of the rib cage, a landmark to start with. I want to feel that this is
a curved surface pulling in. We feel the overlapping as this comes through. I feel the external
oblique coming from behind. So you can see the changes that I’m going through as I
do it. Each time you go through the drawing it gives you an opportunity
to take and see it a little bit more clearly.
Now, we have those rectus abdominis muscles coming through. Tiffany is in pretty good
shape here, so we’re actually seeing the muscles. Often we don’t. In the male today’s
model is very clear, and we’ll see it. But even with Tiffany we can see.
What I’m doing, as you can see, I’m not focusing on the contour of the whole figure.
I’m seeing the overlapping muscles. We can feel where the pelvis is coming through. Feel
the stretching as they come off of the rib cage. Stretching over to that point. We can
feel it coming around and going over the surface. Going down. Remember the pubic arch now is
here, but it’s not what we see. We feel the fat pads that are on top of the pubic
arch coming through. Feel the corner. So I’m drawing these volumes. I’m constantly going
over the surface. Feeling the volumes.
It’s still a very diagrammatical drawing. I’m coming through. Now, just come down.
I think that the angle of the pelvis, it’s going through. You can see this is a rather
rectangular shape. It’s really pushing out, where the trochanter would be going through
here on the other side. Again, so we’re dealing with the symmetry going across. From
here then the three-finger gap as we take and we feel the pull. We get the large abductors
on the anterior. We feel the outside, a little extra bit of padding. Coming through. Go across
the condyles. The end of the ulna is a rectangular-type shape, and we can feel the fullness of the
thigh here. But since the leg is going back in it’s not really that strong.
We would take and carry this through.
Now, the arm here going through. I’m taking and I look to see the condyle out there. Actually,
the end of the ulna or the medial or lateral condyle in here. We can see this shape as
we go through. We can feel the bit of the shape. She’s got—like is said, she’s
not muscle-bound by any means, but we still can see the muscles. We can see the triceps
behind coming through. Overlapping forms here. We can feel the pull. The biceps actually
goes across at a diagonal. Kind of go over. It’s going underneath. Fitting in. Coming
across. Feel the volumes now. Coming through. The wrist is a rectangular shape. Coming through.
So now we’re getting a build. The hand is actually just taking and coming down. Pull
the wrist angle. Try to feel the gesture of the hand as we’re fitting in. We will be
treating the hands and feet as totally separate subjects.