The WHY of Figurative Anatomy

[Ashkitty]

I need help. (Not 100% sure if this is the right forum for this... erk.)

I would like to know if anyone has any suggestions or references to help me out with this. To start off, I'm taking an anatomy class which is basically focused on rendering. Find a picture of a skeleton torso and render it perfectly, ect. While this is... um, okay, I don't think it's the right method for teaching anatomy for me. I need to know how muscles move when in this or that position, and why. How they connect, twist, bunch and stretch. Is there a good book or any instructional material on the mechanics of the human body, preferably with lots of pictures?

I have several artist anatomy books, but they mostly amount to pictures of models to reference. I also have some medical ones, which are good at showing the inner workings of things but notsogood from an artist's point of view, as I'm sure yall know.

I feel like I'm missing a big puzzle piece here, and putting it in place would really help bring my figures to life.

[Nam]

Well, if you don't have them already, get George Bridgman books (you can find them really cheap on amazon). His book, 'The Human machine' should be along the lines of what you're looking for.

[Elwell]

Which books do you already have?

[Ashkitty]

I have [access] to these books via roommate:
-Complete Guide to Drawing, Bridgeman
-Anatomy for Artists, Sarah Simblet
-Artistic Anatomy, Richer
-Loomis pdfs
-Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters, Hale

I've looked at most of them, though will be taking a closer look at the Bridgeman one.

I think what I'm really looking for is a good illustrated thing of muscles in flexed vs relaxed and maybe some on origin/insertion points, though my friend pointed out that it's not too hard to see them if you look in Richer's book.

Actually, I just went out to Borders and picked up "Strength Training Anatomy" by Frederic Delavier. It's a kind of unexpected source, but it seems to illustrate the flex/relax aspect, as well as a whole lot of information on what moves what.

And I can get buns of iron if I practice it! Bwahahaha.

[FlameDragon]

I think a great book for you would be "Anatomy: A complete guide for artists" by Joseph Sheppard

[dose]

If you want origins & insertions, get "Human Anatomy for Artists" by Goldfinger. That's pretty much all that book is.

It's difficult to get the flex/relax mechanics from a book. I'm awaiting the day there's a worthwhile interactive anatomy program on the computer. Until then, you'll have to piece a lot of it together from various sources. The most important piece to the puzzle is to start with the skeleton- learning the muscles means nothing if you don't understand how the skeleton is put together and how it functions. In one of the many, many catch 22s in learning art, you can't totally understand how the skeleton functions without understanding how the muscles fit into the puzzle- but the skeleton is definitely the starting point.