Hi! I love your art, and I've noticed that you're incredibly skilled at anatomy drawing. If you don't mind my asking, do you have any art tips on that in particular? Do you use references (if so, do you have any recommendations?) or do you just practice a lot? Perhaps both? I'm sorry if this was a bother and I hope you have a wonderful day!
I feel like in the time it took me to finally respond to this you could have mastered anatomy lmao I’m so sorry OTL but! I honestly don’t think I’m good at anatomy! What I do when I’m drawing something is I draw the pose and construction pretty loosely, then reference photos and diagrams heavily for the muscles and anatomy. For every thing I draw, I use references. I don’t know how much of the knowledge actually stuck in my brain after drawing muscly bodies for all these years, but the internet has infinite resources to fill in the gaps so I don’t worry about it hehehe.
I started drawing naked muscly bodies for commissions even though I had minimal knowledge about them, but I could get away with it because of all the resources on the internet. It felt like I was getting paid to draw/study anatomy because I was learning a little bit for every commission I did, so I’d say I studied that way? I didn’t let my lack of knowledge stop me from drawing what I wanted/needed to anyway. What’s most important imo is having a good sense for forms, perspective, proportions, and being able to rotate 3d objects in your mind? Because you might not be able to find the perfect photo reference for example a certain limb in a certain position at a certain viewing angle, but if you find photo(s) with the limb in that position but the wrong viewing angle you can rotate it in your mind and draw it that way??? I feel like you’re already an incredibly capable artist in those aspects, but I’d say for beginners you’ll have to practice figure drawing till you have a good feel for forms and proportions I guess!
For finding refs I just google phrases like “muscular arm raised” or “inner thigh muscles flexed.” Or I look at porn! And when I see a ref I like I save it to a reference folder I have and name it keywords like what parts of the body it shows off well, what those parts of the body are doing, and what angle the photo is taken at so I can search for it easier next time.
Idk I feel like I’m not someone who can teach other ppl lol but the tl;dr is yes just use lots of photo references, but also diagrams! Cuz seeing how other artists interpret things helps you get a better idea for what you’re drawing and knowing about the hidden muscles under what’s usually visible helps you know where to add mass and understand what all those bumps and lumps are lol. And don’t let a lack of knowledge stop you from drawing something because there’s so much on the internet to supplement what you don’t know! If you keep drawing it for fun while using references, you can study at the same time hehehe
also! vilppu videos! helps quite a bit!!!!!!!! but might be hard to follow along if you’re a super beginner...