hi i just wanted to say im genuinely obsessed with the way you draw thighs + hips + butts + the crotch region in general. thank you for your service and if you have any suggestions or resources id adore them
hi, thank you! i have a lot of fun drawing those bits so i'm glad the fun comes through :)
i can def take a crack at some notes on how i construct stuff, but especially with this general pelvis area i think a lot of how i draw it is very much individual stylization -- so what i'll go over is definitely not any kind of anatomy tutorial or step-by-step or anything like that, and i also wouldn't even really call these notes suggestions on how to draw this stuff. my real suggestion is what it always is, which is to get into anatomy studies/figure drawing first, then decide how you want to stylize starting from that foundational info! also, while i don't usually lean into this a lot in my own style, the musculature of the thighs is a lot more complex than you might expect, so it can be useful to look at more detailed anatomical diagrams in addition to just studying from models. but i hope seeing how i often do it myself is still helpful in some way!
so, for starters, and i mean this totally seriously: a lot of what i get complimented on in my art is stuff i specifically draw with horny intent, lmao. i'm not at all saying you have to be horny to get good but i think you get results from fun + fixation, because when you care a lot about the details and when you care about capturing specific stuff that you're excited about (in any way), that comes through in your drawings. so when ur deciding on how to stylize, pay attention to what little details about ur area of focus are really cute/interesting/appealing to you, and find ways to emphasize that!
honestly part of that means focus on posing as well as whatever you're doing with anatomy/stylization -- i have a thing i affectionately call the "ira neck thrust" that my friends are constantly calling me out for and it's basically just the tits and ass back arch that i'm so fond of. of course u end up noticing how i draw this area when i'm constantly drawing attention to it and making things cheesecake-y specifically to show it off, lol!
beyond that i think the summary of the rest of the notes is just to find ways to lay things out so that it's easy for you to place the shapes and details you want to stylize/emphasize. i like drawing thighs with pronounced upper muscle; i often stylize the lower half of the torso + hips with multiple repeating curves to emphasize that shape. i love hip creases and visual cues on how the thighs are moving, so i usually don't miss an opportunity to draw those in (and to pose/costume in a way that specifically shows it off, again). my anatomy in this area is usually so stylized and unrealistic that, while of course i make a lot of these decisions from a foundation of figure drawing, a ton of the actual impact/final look is just coming from style choices!
(i also only have time to throw together one example, but these things should still generally ring true for bodies of any type/size; "bony" landmarks exist regardless of weight and will show up on larger bodies as areas where tendons + muscle anchor to the bone, which can have a lot of influence on folds + the shapes of body fat, and it's always a good idea to study reference and decide from there how to stylize. "morpho: fat and skin folds" is a great anatomy book for this.)
i feel like this is all i have energy 2 throw together at the moment and it's so specific to how i draw that i'm not sure how helpful it'll be lol but!! maybe i will come back to this another day if i think of anything else. also i guess here is one final summary of why i think this method works for me