Figure and anatomy
Proportions, the framework and the big movement, with bones and muscles underneath them. This is where drawing the figure with understanding begins, instead of neatly copying a silhouette.
Lessons in this category come with the Basic plan — $12 a month. Choose a plan
Lessons in “Figure and anatomy”
subscribers only2:11:18The male figure in paint
Posting the recording of the stream where I show how to make a painted study of the male figure. Reference and Procreate brush attached
subscribers only2:19:16The female figure in foreshortening
Posting the recording of the stream on drawing the female figure in foreshortening. Two hours of perspective and of views from below and above. The reference board, a Procreate brush and a photo of the result are in the attached files.
subscribers only1:34:09Male portrait with the shoulder girdle
Sooner or later every artist has to move on from floating portraits to drawing whole figures. And then the question comes up: how do you connect the head to the body? How is it all put together? That’s where you need to study how the head, the neck and the shoulder girdle work together. Here’s a lesson on the subject.
subscribers only1:35:10The figure. Long study. Marathon “The Human Form”, week 8
subscribers only1:08:12Study of the female figure from the front
This is a video lesson that will easily improve your drawing and your understanding of the female figure. I go into detail on accents, anatomy, forms, proportions and the order of operations for getting a dynamic, expressive drawing. Enjoy watching and drawing.
subscribers only2:05:54Drawing of a male figure from the back
A video lesson that will show you how to draw the male figure from the back, what to watch for, how to keep the proportions, and where to place the accents. I also talk about light-and-shade modeling and, of course, anatomy: where the shoulder blades are, where the gluteus maximus is and where the gluteus medius. A timelapse of the fast process, the reference, and my own result are attached. Happy drawing!
subscribers only2:07:22Drawing the male figure from the front
A video lesson that will show you how to draw the male figure, what to watch for, how to hold the proportions and where to place the accents. I also cover modeling with light and shade and, of course, anatomy. Attaching a timelapse of the fast process, the reference and my own result. Happy drawing!
subscribers only1:29:16Eyes, lips, nose, ear. Marathon “The Human Form”, week 2
Week two of the marathon! A stream on the anatomy of the parts of the face, graphic devices and ways of stylizing the form.
subscribers only1:33:27Drawing the skeleton from the back
If you want to draw the human figure well, I always recommend starting with studying the skeleton. The skeleton is the main structure of the figure, and once you understand that structure your figure drawing will be taken to a new level. Enjoy!
subscribers only1:26:09Drawing the skeleton
It’s comfortable to begin studying the figure by drawing the skeleton. On the skeleton you come to understand the main landmarks that show on the figure, the overall structure of the figure, all the key nodes and joints. After all, a human being’s basic structure lies in the skeleton. And once you understand the skeleton, it’s much easier to wind the muscles and the fat onto it afterwards. In this hour-and-a-half lesson I’ll show how to draw the skeleton, what to watch for when drawing a live person, and how to make the figure dynamic.
subscribers only1:34:58Drawing the reclining female figure
When we draw a reclining figure, a long run of options for the pose opens up. With a standing figure we have to have one (or two) supporting legs, but here we can bend the overall shape of the figure into far more variations. The main thing stays the same, though — the big movement and the interaction of the pelvis with the ribcage. In the lesson I talk about line, value, drawing the portrait, the accents and the overall feel of the drawing. Enjoy the watch! :)
subscribers only2:00:52Construction drawing of the female figure
For a lot of beginner artists it stays unclear where to even start when drawing the human figure. How to convey the flow of the forms, the proportions and the rhythm, and where to place the accents. At the beginning of a drawing it’s important to limit the range of tasks to the simple forms, the big movement and the directions of those forms, and to add the details gradually. Once we’ve handled the silhouette, we work with the volumes and find the main landmarks: we work out the pelvis, the ribcage, the knee and shoulder joints. After that comes the stage of separating the main from the secondary, placing the accents and finishing the figure as a whole. Enjoy the watch!
subscribers only1:33:17Digital painting of a female nude. Evening open stream
Posting the recording of the stream where I finish off my painted nude sketches. In case anyone missed it
subscribers only1:42:33The painterly female figure. Mini-course
If you’ve always wanted to understand how to combine anatomy, color, drawing, and value, and to learn to paint expressive figures, this post is for you. A cycle of five sequential lessons in which I show the process of working on a painterly female figure. Every lesson comes with my commentary and is clearly broken into stages. More than six hours of practice in the intensive recordings, and all fifteen years of my experience in drawing the figure in color, went into this. I recommend spreading it over several days, in sessions of 3-4 hours a day. The first lesson is about sketching, the second about the general working up, the third and fourth about details, and the fifth about backgrounds. You’ll need basic skill at drawing the human figure. If you’re a complete beginner, the lesson will be hard. Attached are the brushes I used for the work in Procreate, and the references. When you buy the post, you get permanent access to all the material in it for an unlimited period. Happy drawing! Be sure to share how it goes in the comments!🙂✨
subscribers only2:54:42Drawing a female character from Fallout
In this workshop we go through drawing a clothed female character in detail, from scratch, from a small sketch all the way to the final color. I picked my beloved Fallout and a girl in a vault dweller suit with bits of raider armor. First you want to draw quick sketches, pick the best one and take it to a finished state. Enjoy the workshop!
subscribers only1:33:40How to draw the male torso and legs
A drawing lesson where we work on the male shoulder girdle, rib cage, pelvis and legs. I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to understand and draw the human figure better.
subscribers only58:43Digital painting. Skull study
One of an artist’s key skills is working on a study. A study should be fresh and expressive in texture, value, and color. In the early stages you need to use large brushes: they give you texture and cover the canvas fast. As you work it up further you can go smaller, so a contrast of textures appears. And while making a study you should be thinking mainly about silhouettes and shapes, and only secondarily about construction. The rest I’ll tell you in the video lesson. Enjoy!
subscribers only24:41The male shoulder girdle
A lot of people struggle to understand how the head sits into the rib cage, how to draw shoulders, what they’re made of and how to give them volume. I cover all of it in the video lesson. Enjoy! :)
subscribers only4:57Digital painting timelapse. The figure. A long pose
For an artist to grow it’s important to take on tasks of different lengths: very quick ones as well as longer ones. This setup is one of the long ones. Try to trace how it all began and what stages the piece went through. To get the most out of it, I recommend picking a similar reference and trying to reproduce the process step by step. Or just make a copy. Go for it! You’ve got this! :)
subscribers only6:10Timelapse. Nude in a difficult foreshortening
Hi! Friends, today I’m sharing a timelapse of drawing a lady lying down. The main tip: move gradually from simple shapes to complex ones, refining the form and working subtle color in with glazes. Good luck! 😉
subscribers only2:53:04Stream recording. Marathon “Value and Rendering”. Week 6: Parts of the human body
Hi again! Here’s the recording of yesterday’s stream! A reminder: your task is to do two to four body parts of your choice, using hatching and what you’ve learned about value in the previous topics. References are attached to this post. I’ve shifted the feedback and final stream dates a bit so you have more time to finish everything: December 25 at 21:30 — feedback on the sixth marathon assignment December 28 at 20:00 — marathon results announced 🔥 Good luck! ✨
subscribers only24:26Skull and muscles
Hi, friends! I decided to share one more archived video, this one of drawing… a ghoul! In case you feel like making a couple of illustrations for bestiaries, myths, and legends? But really, in this video I show how to draw a skull covered in muscles. It helps you understand which muscles the human head has, how they affect the shaping of form, the main volumes of the face, and the expressions — a very useful exercise for working with portraits later on! We’ll start by depicting the skull and then gradually add the muscles — for convenience I draw them in red. Don’t forget to turn the sound on in the video: I go through each muscle in detail and explain what function it performs.
subscribers only13:18Drawing the male neck
Hi, friends! I’m carrying on with videos from the archive. In this lesson I talk about how to draw the human neck, about the neck muscles and where they attach, and about how to bring out the form properly with hatching. The neck is a very important part of the body (though of course they all are), and you’ve probably noticed how much the neck can change a person’s look and character: a ballerina’s swan neck is definitely not the same as a bodybuilder’s. ✨
subscribers only39:20the lady drawing marathon. Results and winners!
Hi, friends! I wrapped up the marathon today on a live stream — here’s the recording, to watch and rewatch: These six weeks flew by at the speed of a wild boar tearing across a green field! We started drawing back in winter, with snow everywhere, and we’re finishing in the warmth of spring! What I want to say about the marathon itself: it was so cozy, and it was wonderful to watch your work, your creative flights, and your growth. Every single one of you did great, no exceptions! And the winners are: First place — Irina Dolganova. Second place — Spoonchik. I couldn’t decide on third place, so three participants share it: Ksenia (darkartboutique), Alena Lyubanevich, Daria Efremova. Winners in the "Graphics" category — Anastasia ZhdaNN and Ri Avale. In "Figure rendering" — Anna Polovinkina. In "Stylish portrait" — rxttn. and sign up! Thank you to everyone who created the atmosphere of this marathon — those who made it to the end, those who didn’t, those who work through the assignments at their own pace — thank you! Congratulations on finishing the marathon! Hooray! ✨🙂
About “Figure and anatomy”
Anatomy for artists is not a separate lecture here, it runs inside figure drawing. The section has 69 classes: long lessons on the male and female figure from the front, from the back, lying down and in difficult foreshortening; lessons on the skeleton, including a separate look at the skeleton from the back; series on the pelvis, the torso, the muscles of the abdomen and back, the shoulder girdle and the neck; value studies where the form is carried through to volume; recordings of the teaching streams from the marathons.
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What changes in your work. The figure starts from movement, not from the contour: first the line of action and the relationship of the pelvis to the shoulder girdle, then the plumb line from the pit of the neck, which has to land on the supporting leg. You begin to check human proportions by relationships rather than with a ruler: how many heads fit down to the pubic bone, where the middle of the figure falls, how high the elbow ends up relative to the waist. Foreshortening stops being a reason to put the sheet away, because what shortens is volume, not line.
It breaks most often at the junction. The torso gets drawn as one piece, although the rib cage and the pelvis are two independent volumes joined by a mobile lower back, and almost all of the figure’s movement lives in that gap. The pelvis gets drawn as a flat trapezoid, so the legs grow out of a skirt instead of out of joints. The muscles are then sewn onto the wrong frame: in the lessons on the muscles of the back you can see that the latissimus does not run sideways from the armpit but goes down to the lower back, and it is its edge that defines the silhouette from behind. That is why the skeleton is taken apart before the musculature and not after it.
A newcomer would sensibly go like this: “Drawing the skeleton”, then “Drawing the skeleton from the back”, then “Construction drawing of the female figure” or “Drawing the male figure from the front”, whichever you prefer. After that take the joints one at a time, starting with the pelvis and the torso, because mistakes there cost the most. Leave the two-hour long studies until the frame stops falling apart.
The section does not promise that afterwards you will draw the human figure from imagination. This is artistic anatomy, not medical anatomy. Latin names are not memorized here; what gets taken apart is what comes up under the skin and changes form with movement. Video does not replace drawing from life either, although the reference packs are shot with live models and read as volume rather than as the flat lighting of a stock photo.
FAQ
Do I need to learn anatomy from books first?
No, and the order is usually the other way around. First you draw the figure and run into a specific place where the form does not add up, and then you go and look at how it is built. After that, books like Barcsay and Bammes read like reference works rather than textbooks you have to get through.
Where do I start if my figures keep drifting?
Almost always the cause is the proportions of the large masses, not the small details. Start with the skeleton and with the relationship of the rib cage to the pelvis, and check the plumb line and the line of support on every drawing. Muscles are better left for later, otherwise you will be piling detail onto a crooked frame.
How long does a long lesson take?
The figure lessons run from 90 to 140 minutes and assume that you are drawing alongside the video rather than watching it through. The short classes on individual joints fit into 15–30 minutes and work for a weekday evening. Timelapses exist as a reference for sequence, not as a lesson.
Does the section work for digital drawing?
Yes, the frame and the proportions do not depend on the tool. Some classes are filmed digitally, some in pencil and sauce crayon. Value studies carry over to a tablet and to paper equally well.
Are there assignments and feedback?
The Basic plan opens the archive of lessons together with their assignments. Recordings of the streams where submitted work is reviewed are collected in the Work Reviews section: other people’s mistakes make your own easier to see. Mini-courses, reference packs and the marathon are part of the Club plan.
Figure and anatomy — how Azat draws it
Works by Azat Nurgaleev on the subject of this category: not an illustration to a lesson, but what the lessons lead to.
Man in a white shirt 
Figure on a colored background 
Reclining model 
Model on a sheet 
Male figure 
Male back