Big Sur fine art

artistic anatomy / drawing course update for May 19

turtle — Mon, 20 May 2013 01:13:50 +0000

The personal art project I am working on is still taking a lot of my time, however I am working every night in ZBrush creating content for the drawing course.

A free webinar tutorial ” Introduction to the muscles of the head and face” was presented last week. Additional webinars are being prepared. if you would like to attend future action anatomy webinars there is a contact page at the following web site. http://www.actionanatomyblog.com where you can send a message to let me know you are interested. I will get back to you with details.

artistic anatomy / busy with personal art project / no new posts for a while

turtle — Tue, 07 May 2013 05:11:15 +0000

I will be busy for the next ten days or so after which I will commence posting again.

artistic anatomy / ulna bone / function of the elbow

turtle — Sun, 05 May 2013 17:09:01 +0000

The elbow joint consists of the articulation between the humerus and the ulna. I leave out the radius as it is not involved in the bending of the arm. Artistically it is part of the forearm with considerable effect on the wrist joint.
The ulna functions primarily in flexion of the forearm and is incapable of lateral or rotational movement. This has considerable effect on how we represent the arm in action through the application of artistic anatomy.
Consider that the shoulder and wrist joints each have a wide range of possible motion that facilitates our ability to manipulate things in the 3D world we live in. The elbow, that is the articulated joint between the ulna and the humerus acts as an adjustable fulcrum that enables us to leverage, magnify and fine tune the work performed by the hand.
Starting at the proximal end of the arm, any movement of the shoulder also moves the whole arm. The ulna inevitably follows any movement of the humerus. And on the distal end of the arm any rotation of the wrist involves movement of the ulna which being solidly attached to the humerus causes it to move also. Think about how this effects the way we position the arm/shoulder system in any action pose.

artistic anatomy / bones of the arms and legs / hands added / ZBrush model

turtle — Sat, 04 May 2013 05:31:12 +0000

Skeleton of the arms and legs with the hand bones in place. The right arm is in pronation and you will see that the arm has moved away from the trunk a little and the humerus has rotated slightly. So, here’s the story.
When the arm begins to go into pronation the muscles that rotate the radius, pronator
quadratus and pronator teres for the most part, flex. The radius begins to rotate medially; the humerus rotates medially but to a lesser degree, carrying the proximal end of the ulna with it. The distal end of the humerus moves away from the trunk carrying the whole arm along and the arm bends slightly at the elbow.

Thus; pronation of the arm is an action that involves the shoulder girdle and the entire arm. It is not a simple rotation of the radius over the ulna. The significance of this for an artist is that the shapes of the masses involved all change together to produce the characteristic appearance of
the arm in pronation.

The palm area of the hands show only the metacarpals so there is no “palm” there at the moment, just a small mass for the carpal bones.

artistic anatomy / skeleton / upper and lower limbs / ZBrush model

turtle — Fri, 03 May 2013 06:38:02 +0000

Skeleton of the upper and lower limbs. radius and ulna, tibia and fibula in a ZBrush model.

artistic anatomy / bones of the lower limbs / ZBrush model

turtle — Thu, 02 May 2013 05:45:41 +0000

Composite image illustrating several views of a ZBrush model of the bones of the legs.

artistic anatomy / ZBrush models / tibia and humerus bones

turtle — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:25:14 +0000

These models illustrate the relative sizes of the tibia and humerus bones. The tibia in the middle is the anterior or front view of a right leg. The model on the left is the posterior view of the humerus of a left arm. the model on the right is the anterior view of the left arm.
I have scheduled a free webinar for Tuesday, the 7th / that is next Tuesday / at 6:30 Pacific Daylight Savings time. I will be showing a tutorial video that walks through the muscles and bones of the head and face using both a skull and ZBrush models to identify bony landmarks and the placement of the muscles. To attend the webinar send me an e-mail from the contact page and I will send you the link you will need to log in.

artistic anatomy / ZBrush model / tibia four views

turtle — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:41:51 +0000

So, the tibia, modeled in ZBrush.
Right leg four views. Second from the left is front view.

The blue line is pointing out the medial malleolus so the view on the right of the blue line is the medial view. Far right posterior view green lines indicating notch for the tendon of plantaris muscle. Far left red line is where the fibula will be. You can see a notch at the bottom where the tibia and fibula are joined by some seriously heavy duty ligaments that allow for the leg / body / to move in all directions by stretching allowing the joint to spread apart then close up again, It’s like a spring that stretches then pulls back. Physics, it’s truly amazing.

artistic anatomy / ZBrush model / femur close up

turtle — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:21:16 +0000

ZBrush model of the femur bone. The model on the left is the anterior view of the left leg and the model on the right is a posterior view of the right leg.
The demo tutorial “Introduction to the muscles of the head and face” is finished. If you would like to attend a webinar use the contact form on the actionanatomyblog.com website to send me e-mail.

artistic anatomy / ZBrush model / femur

turtle — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 06:41:50 +0000

I’ve been modeling bones in ZBrush to populate the basic mass figure I modeled. This one is the femur.