In this lesson you will learn how to draw the
spine in motion and 3 assignment to practice drawing the spine.
We're going to draw the spine as a simple cylindrical shape. This will help us focus
on the motion of the spine rather than trying to render the details. Rendering the details
of the
spine will help you get better at rendering, but that's not the priority of this lesson.
Let's stick to learning the mechanics of the spine. That will be much more beneficial to
your
understanding of the human body and how to draw it. It will help you invent poses from
your imagination.
Proportions of the Spine
Before we get into posing the spine we need to learn the proportions. So, let's start
with a drawing of the side view. I measure out 4 equal units. The Lumbar section is 1
and a ¼
units. The Cervical section is ¾ of a unit. And that leaves 2 units for the Thoracic section.
I know that's kind of technical, so you can remember that the cervical is a bit less
than 1 unit, lumbar is a bit more than 1 unit and thoracic is exactly 2 units. Everybody's
individual proportions will vary a bit anyway.
A thick curvy cylinder for the lumbar section. This section is not tilted forward or back
in the neutral position. The top and bottom will be aligned vertically with a forward
curve
between. Now, of course this is only in the neutral position. When the spine moves, they
won't be aligned vertically.
The thoracic section however is tilted backward. So, the top will be farther back than the
bottom, resulting in the backward lean of the ribcage. And again, this is for the neutral
position. The thickness of the cylinder will get thinner as we get closer to the top.
Finally the cervical section. It's the thinnest and straightest of the sections.
So, that's the side view, now let's draw it in ¾ view. The proportions will stay the
same, because I'm going to keep the neutral pose. But now, we need to draw the cylinders
as 3-
dimensional shapes, rather than the flat shapes in the side view. To draw a cylinder you have
to imagine the ellipses of the top and bottom caps. If we were looking directly at the
caps, it would be a circle. But since we're drawing a ¾ view, the circle will be an elongated
ellipse with an angle perpendicular to the direction the cap is facing. The bottom of
the lumbar section points forward like this.. So, the angle of the ellipse will be perpendicular
to that. Draw the length of the cylinder with the forward curve. And now the ellipse
for the top cap will angle this way because the cap points backward. There's some basic
ellipse perspective for you guys.
That should be enough to draw a cylinder in perspective. I'll do the same thing for the
thoracic section. It has the backward curve. Now, notice how the curviness is just a tad
straighter in this angle than from side view. The closer we get to front view, the more
it will become this straight line. As we rotate the spine, the curves go from straight line
in
front view, to very curvy in side view.
Again, same thing for the cervical section.
If you really want to challenge yourself, draw the spine in various positions. This
is really helpful to imagine the spine moving in space. If you don't have experience with
perspective this will be a challenge. But it's a good challenge. Keep that in mind and
do your best. If you struggle with it, the best way to improve is to keep working at
it.
Now, let's add a sacrum to these spines. The height of the sacrum is about ¾ of the Lumbar
section. The bottom is farther back than the top. In fact the whole pelvis has this same
tilt. Since the ribcage has the opposite tilt, the torso has this curvature in the neutral
position. The sacrum is very curvey. It starts thicker at the top and thin at the tailbone.
From ¾ view, we have to add some width to the top of the sacrum. It's not a cylinder
like the rest of the spine. It has a triangular shape. Starts with this thick top plane and
comes
to a point at the bottom.
The 3 major masses
One of the most important things about the spine is that it moves the 3 major masses
- The head, rib cage and pelvis. So, it makes sense to include the 3 masses while you practice
drawing the spine.
For this lesson, let's simplify the pelvis into a cylinder, which is narrower at the
bottom. I like to start with an ellipse for the top plane. Again, remember that the pelvis
is
tilted forward, so you will see the top plane more than if the cylinder was vertical. The
width of the pelvis cylinder is about the same as the length of the thoracic section
of the
spine - 2 units. Find the sides, and then another ellipse for the bottom plane.
In the next lessons, on the pelvis and rib cage, I'll show you how to construct more
descriptive volumes. For now you can just stick to a cylinder for the pelvis and an
egg-like
shape for the rib cage.
Finally, let's put a head on this guy. I'm a big fan of the loomis method, so I'll put
a loomis head on there. If you don't know what that is, check out my video called “How
to Draw
the Head from Any Angle”
Now that we got the basics, let's go over the 3 assignments for this week - “Draw
Skelly”, “Trace Models” and “Draw Models”. I recommend doing them in that
order because they get
progressively harder. You can download the assignment images at proko.com/how-to-draw-the-spine.
The link is in the description.
Exercise #1 - Draw Skelly
Let's do an example of the first exercise. In the assignment images, there are 5 images
of Skelly in various poses. The challenge here is to simplify the bones into the simple
volumes that I just showed you. This will help you get familiar with the shapes and
their relationships.
Exercise #2 - Trace Models
Moving on to the second assignment - Photo Tracings. This is very much like the Anatomy
Tracing assignment we did earlier in this course. Except this time, instead of analyzing
the
surface anatomy, we will be finding the skeletal structure underneath all the surface anatomy.
So, in Exercise 1 you got familiar with the shapes and relationships of the Spine and
the 3 major masses. Now, with the real models, those shapes are not so obvious. You have
to
think a bit. Figure out where they are.
Exercise #3 - Draw Models
Aaand Exercise #3.. Very similar to Exercise 2, except this time we're not tracing! You
have to find the masses while keeping track of proportions and gesture. Do you remember
those
from the Figure Drawing course?
This exists under the surface of this. But can you see it? Well, probably not at first..
It's not going to happen on your first try. You need to keep trying, keep searching for
those
masses and slowly your ability to see under the surface will improve.
Alright guys, so now it's your turn. Go ahead and download the assignment images from the
link in the description. Post your drawings in the anatomy facebook group at
facebook.com/groups/anatomy4artists. And check out proko.com/anatomy for extended anatomy
lessons and more examples of the assignments. That's proko.com/anatomy.
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Buh Bye!