Term 4, Anatomy III — Legs and Feet, Week 2
For a description of this unit see my Anatomy III unit plan. For full context, see the description of my Art Home School Curriculum.
Retrospective
I finally finished my latest comic page this week, and I’m getting close to finishing my first pass through the anatomy of the body. I’m still splitting my time between 50% studying and 50% working on original art.
Log
Drawings and Critiques
Monday, Jun. 28
Proko butt muscles.
I added the muscles on top of images of skeleton poses. I felt like these were awful while I was doing them, but looking at them now, they’re not so bad. When they’re small it’s harder to see how messy the lines are.
Studying butt muscles.
Practicing some cogs and wood textures.
Added a stone street to my original comic page.
Tuesday, Jun. 29
Proko butt muscles exercise.
Constructing figures from imagination.
My torsos tend to be too long when I use this construction method.
Original comic page.
Finally finished! I think this took around 20 hours total. I like the barrel, the inside of the central room, the middle circular tower, some of the sludge effects, and some of the brick detail. I think the bricks get too repetitive since they cover 70% of the page. I think it would look better to have more blacked out shadows rather than crosshatching the bricks that face away from the light. The floor could use more shadow on the right where it’s behind the central building. I cheated the perspective on the right-most tower because it was coming out of the cone of vision and getting really distorted. I think it looks good, and I can’t really tell it uses different vanishing points. The basic effect of the picture is what I had in mind when I conceived of it, so in that sense I’m happy with it.
Wednesday, Jun. 30
Studying adductor muscles.
Legs from comics.
Planning out the next comic page.
I want the shadow from the sewer grate to create lines in an underground room, but it takes me several tries to figure out the perspective tricks to achieve this.
Thursday, Jul. 01
Studying adductors.
David Finch style legs.
Planning next comic page.
I like the lower left panel on the left photo. This is a rough thumbnail of what I’ll be working on this week. I’m still having trouble figuring out the perspective of the sewer room.
Friday, Jul. 02
Adductor exercises.
I switched back to charcoal and newsprint for the anatomy studies. I like the idea of doing each exercise once in charcoal to get the tradition academic understanding, and then doing it in a comic style to understand the leap from realism better. Most comics rendering is pretty advanced and simple tone is easier to learn at first compared to cross hatching.
Comic-style legs.
Saturday, Jul. 03
Studying adductors.
Studying quadriceps.
Still working out shadow perspectives.
I finally switched to 1-point perspective, which made it easier to understand how this is supposed to work. After that, I was able to get the gist in a 2-point version. I want a figure lying face-down on the bed with several bars of shadow crossing him.
Sunday, Jul. 04
Quadriceps exercises.
I haven’t studied the lower leg yet. They look too small here.
Planning next comic page.
The top panel is finally the thumbnail I’m going with for the final version. I haven’t fully decided what the other panels will be yet. I like the idea of the middle right panel — looking up at the sewer grate with the bar shadows spilling over the face and body.
