Art Notes: Drawing Real Bones from an Animation Perspective

Pelvic bone (seen from below)

IN HOPES THAT others too may benefit from my experience of drawing real human bones, I share this 2012* essay.

[For examples of other bones I drew, go to Imagerium > Life Drawing and click on the “Bone Drawings” button in the anchor menu.]

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Learning Anatomical Drawing as a Basis for Excellence in Animation Drawing: A Foray into the Realm of Human Bones

FOR MANY YEARS the desire to draw well and “draw funny” has tugged naggingly at my elbow. That desire got directly in my face when I began taking animation classes, and I began to accrue a collection of books on gesture drawing, facial expression, character creation, classical drawing, and so on in hopes of gaining some ground. I also started to stretch my ability by drawing in a number of ways completely foreign to me.

When I came across Robert Beverly Hale’s clear statement that for an artist to achieve mastery of the human form it was essential to draw actual human bones,[1] I was inspired to do that in order to help build what I knew I lacked—a solid foundation in anatomy.

I approached nearby university and college science departments, and the head of one of them graciously made it available for me to draw during the drop-in anatomy lab being held three times a week for three hours all semester long. The only provisos were that I let the tutor know what had been arranged and that, like all the students, I agree not to photograph the cadaver, with which I was in full accord.

I should mention here, incidentally, that I am not a “biology type”—what I now term a “bucket and zipper” person—and, knowing this, the tutor helped me stake out a spot where my back would always be turned to the cadaver should its blue bag need to be unzipped for the students and where I had a clear shot for the door.

The Process

The media for my drawings would be 3B, 4B, 5B, and 6B turquoise pencils, a Staedtler eraser, and plain 8-1/2” x 11” copy paper rather than art paper, because I was approaching the process in terms of practice and learning and not as making art. My main purpose was to be open to whatever the bones and the process could and would teach me.

The first day, I had no idea whatsoever where to start, and the tutor opened up some cabinets under the lab tables, pulled out a couple of lidless cardboard containers, and handed me in turn a humerus and some other bones to consider. I thought about it and went with the humerus: at first glance it seemed a simple enough bone to draw.

Immediately, with that bone, and subsequently with others, I began to realize what a daunting task drawing a bone can be. Intricacies continually reveal other intricacies, as well as interrelationships between every curve, line, and facet. Gradually I would see patterns emerge from bone to bone;[2] and often something I’d been looking at but not really seeing would suddenly evince its connection with something else.

Nature’s uncompromising rules of practicality and efficiency are evident at literally every turn. They confirm that there are “no straight lines in nature,” and I could find almost no concavities of line in the bones I drew, only convexities. Repeatedly I encountered amazingly complex transitions of angle that required me to erase again and again until I “got it right”—nature’s own work on me.

In nineteen sessions over the course of four months I completed thirty drawings of bones and handled and examined a number of other bones I have not yet drawn. During each session I averaged about 2-1/2 to 2-3/4 hours of actual drawing, for a total of fifty-plus drawing-hours. The balance of the three hours was devoted to bone selection, discussions with the tutor about the bones and their placement, labeling my drawings after the fact using a lab reference book (Human Anatomy by Martini, Timmons, and McKinley), and of course setup and putaway.

Details about the Subject Matter

Either before starting or afterward, I might ask if a bone was a right or a left and which way it faced; I would also see if I could orient and place it properly in reference to my own body. Often, I had a bone completely backwards or upside down to begin with, and the tutor would show me what to look for to help me orient it properly.

The Clavicle

For example, the clavicle is shaped like an S, with one curve larger than the other. At the small-curve end, the bone attaches to the arm.[3] The clavicle’s larger curve is convex, facing outward from the body to accommodate the lungs, and that end attaches to the sternum.

It is clearly important to be able to incorporate the line of the clavicle, a “landmark” location for artists, into sketches correctly.

The Pelvis, the Spine, and the Sacrum

Because of concurrently taking an animation class (Mechanics of Movement I), I was particularly interested in how the pelvis and the spine work together: the pelvis is typically deemed the “root,” or center of gravity, in a biped’s animation hierarchy, and the spine must be articulated properly to effect torque and torsion in the upper body (in a walk or run cycle, for example).

First, it is a marvel to me how very simple and “small” a support framework the pelvis is—much of it being just “open space.” There is very little to it, really.

Second, the spine articulates surprisingly little in its lower region. In adults, the five bones of the sacrum, beneath the lumbar region, are in fact fused.[4]

In first getting acquainted with the spine, I selected a bone out of a box of vertebrae and guessed, totally in error, at its expected location. The tutor then showed me how in the lumbar area the “wings,” or demifacets, “hug” toward the center and in the thoracic area are more spread. I compared bones from the box to those on a skeleton and can now identify which type of bone I am looking at, whether cervical, thoracic, or lumbar, and the approximate site.[5]

The bones of the lumbar area and the sacrum articulate much less than those above, which means that in an animation program (such as Maya) their rotational angles (their Rotate X, Y, and Z values) are going to be smaller than for the vertebrae above them, where most of the “action” is. This observation is important in terms of getting naturalistic torso rotation correct, over time, for a character.

The cervical vertebrae, which in the neck area form a kind of small C curve on top of the larger S curve of the rest of the spine, are “free” and capable of lateral as well as rotational motion—hence the use of “translate” values (Translate X, Y, and Z) in addition to “rotate” values (Rotate X, Y, and Z) for a human character’s neck in an animation rig.

The Skull

I found it very challenging to attempt to draw a skull in its entirety, ended up erasing everything several times during the session, and did not have time to limn an entire drawing in the time remaining. Consequently, I did a couple of simple line drawings to see if I could at least capture the contours properly.

Sometime soon after, I learned that in a practicum (a form of test where the student must demonstrate knowledge, in 3D as it were), anatomy professors sometimes require students to identify bones by feel only and to specify whether the bones are lefts or rights, or to identify all the bones of the skull without benefit of assembly. With that as a prompt, I endeavored a series of individual skull bones, which I can now easily identify, orient, and place, probably “blind” as in a practicum.

These included the temporal bone, the sphenoid bone, the occipital bone, the mandible, the frontal bone, the maxillary bone, the vomer, and the ethmoid bone.

Of particular note is the complex, sphenoid (wedge-shaped) bone in the middle of the skull which articulates with every other bone in the cranium and several others underneath.[6] This bone was of sufficient interest to me that I drew two different sphenoid bones on successive days, and when I met the department head in person near the end of the semester, I was surprised that the first thing he asked me was if I had drawn the sphenoid.

Miscellaneous Facts Gleaned

• As a convention, anatomical plates in reference works are done with the palms facing forward.

• “Muscles only contract.” The “origin” of a muscle is the nonmovable part; the “insertion” is the part that moves. Anatomy’s “stretch and contract” is a cousin to animation’s “squash and stretch.”

• “Form follows function.” We don’t start out with the two small bones that comprise the “ball” of the foot, for example: they are formed out of necessity. Also, people who do a lot of muscular work have bigger bones because the muscles used are always pulling on the bones to which they are connected. A weightlifter or someone pushing a plow would have bigger bones as a result.

• Parturition lines on the pelvis indicate how many children a woman has borne.

• It is possible to determine whether a patella is a right or a left by finding the apex, the “arrow” of it; pointing the arrow away from oneself; and setting the bone on a flat surface. If it’s a right, it will fall to the right; if it’s a left, it will fall to the left.

• Standing on two legs is apparently not a given for humans and may be dependent on a mother’s interaction with her child at an early age.

• In the arm, the ulna stays put while the radius turns.

• The ribs attach to the spine at three points, which may lend stability and strength to the connection. (“Three points determine a plane.”)

• The big bone sticking out at the base of the neck is known as the “vertebral prominence,” or “C7” of the cervical spine.

• Thinning in the scapula (translucency) is an indicator of calcium loss.

• The dictionary is a wonderful tool for learning etymologies that help make good mnemonics. It has helped me associate “vomer” with the tiny plowshare the vomer resembles (in Latin, “vomer” means “plowshare”); “cribriform” (Latin) and “ethmoid” (Greek) with “sieve” (for the “colander” of tiny holes through which the olfactory nerves pass in the ethmoid bone); “calcaneus” (the heel bone) with “calcetines,” the Spanish word for “socks”; and so on. (A lexicon for the drawings is included in Appendix A [not included in this blogpost].)

Transformation

A number of transformative changes occurred in me as a result of this entire process.

• I now have a new “place to come from” about drawing. At least ten elements contributed to the “safe environment” that made that possible:

(1) I was the only person present who was drawing.

(2) I was not drawing to impress anyone, but to learn.

(3) The students who came to the lab tended to be of an “objective,” “scientific” bent and, like me, were there to learn.

(4) No one interfered with my process.

(5) I was there by choice, was not under any deadline pressure, and was able to focus intently on the drawing in a relaxed way.

(6) Other people were present, so it wasn’t just me alone with my blank piece of paper.

(7) My auditory channel was filled with multiple conversations on the subject at hand, so I was learning all the time from people who were busy studying and grilling each other for the tests and practicums.

(8) The tutor, a former U.S. Army medic in his 50s who had returned to school himself, was knowledgeable, encouraged self-reliance in obtaining answers, and infused the information he gave us with humor and a sense of fun.

(9) There was no criticism or expectation from anyone, including myself.

(10) I had the blessing of the department to be there.

• I have a better idea of the importance of “thinking ahead”—whether to preplan so that I don’t run off the edge of a page or whether to do a preliminary outline so that I get my scale correct.

• I have more confidence in my abilities, and less concern about “what other people think or say,” in that a lot of that anxiety is gone and I now find it very pleasurable to relate to drawing as a learning/discovery experience.

• I happened across a very useful tool to help me with positioning of elements within a subject, what I call “personal facial-recognition software.” Except for extremely rare cases, we as humans all have the ability to process a huge amount of information in order to recognize other people’s faces and to know the difference between people who look fairly alike to us. I found myself using that tool in doing the bone drawing, finding faces or other recognizable forms in the subject. This made it very easy for me to check the relationships of a bone’s features.

• I discovered by chance the answer to why I had always had a problem with vertical scale in my drawings: my own personal idealism and enthusiasm want to “add extra.” The “instant feedback” from the drawings helped me “tag” that “adding extra” so that I can use it when I need it (intentional exaggeration being a stock-in-trade of animators) and turn it off when I don’t (such as scaling realistically in a drawing).

• I am confident about a number of “mistakes I won’t make” because I now know more of the actual mechanics of the human body.

• I am prompted to revisit the shading methods of the masters now that I have a purpose and a need for them.

• This process has opened up an area of interest I plan to continue with in the future. In addition to drawing the bones I have not yet drawn, I am eager to learn the nuances of musculature and to bridge into drawing animals, based on that foundation.

• I discovered that this type of drawing, although a universe away from gesture (the essence of the very best animation drawing), is an exercise in consciousness that (a) has added much to my body of drawing experience and (b) has afforded a perhaps better “concentrated practice” than that extolled by Ernest W. Watson (of Watson-Guptill publishing fame):

By way of emphasizing the effectiveness of concentrated practice, I am tempted to offer my own learning experience during my first six weeks of art study in the Massachusetts Normal Art School in Boston (now the Massachusetts School of Art).

The first day of school we were ushered into a large studio, in the center of which was a disordered pile of wooden grocery boxes of assorted shapes and sizes. . . . We were directed to draw the boxes. That was our only instruction. . . .

We assumed that this exercise was merely a device to keep us occupied during the confusion of the opening day, and we looked forward expectantly to the morrow. . . . Imagine our dismay to find the situation unchanged except that the boxes had been knocked about a bit. . . . The next day it was the same, and the next. . . .

This went on for six weeks without any theory whatsoever! . . .

When, years later, I began teaching . . . I remembered this grueling and uninspiring six weeks, and I was critical of the method. . . .

I soon changed my opinion. I discovered that my own students very readily mastered the theory I was offering them, but still they couldn’t draw. That was because they lacked the very attitude that was forced upon me by that six weeks’ grind which taught me so well how to use my eyes.[7]

While I found communing with a single bone for nearly three straight hours at a time nothing like Watson’s “grind,” it has certainly given me “the very attitude” that has taught me even better how to use my eyes.

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[1] From Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters, pp. 142-143: One thing that Leonardo had—and every artist in this book had—was a nice collection of bones. . . .

You cannot learn the true shape of bones from pictures, however accurate. You must have the real, three-dimensional bone. . . .

It is better to [have] the separate bones, rather than the whole skeleton (which is often put together by ignorant mechanics). The shape of the important ends of the bones is forced by places where they touch each other; these places cannot be nicely observed in the assembled skeleton. [2] One particular pattern I observed, for example, was where tiny nodules seemed to be forced outward in succession in forming the surface of a bone. [3] When a pro-football player gets a broken clavicle on the field, he immediately uses his other arm to hold the arm up, because it has no other means of support. In light of this vulnerability, deadly-serious martial-arts opponents aim for the clavicle first. [4] By observing the gaps between the sacral bones it is possible to estimate the age of a subject. Age falsification has been an issue at the Olympics because younger gymnasts tend to win more since, among other things, the five bones of the sacrum are not yet fused. [5] A mnemonic for the spinal column is “breakfast, lunch, and dinner” [“breakfast at 7” (seven cervical bones), “lunch at noon” (twelve thoracic bones), and “dinner at 5” (five lumbar bones)]. [6] The tutor had me pass two round laboratory “applicator” sticks through the two optic canals in the sphenoid through which the optic nerves pass, and the sticks crossed in an X, demonstrating the angularity of the canals. [7] In Creative Perspective for Artists and Illustrators, pp. 12-13.

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*In 2012, when I was enrolled in a digital-animation certificate program, I had been piecing my course credits together on weeknights for a couple of years. This was (forgive the pun) not a straight-line process.

In order to fulfill my curriculum requirements, I often had to wait many months for higher-level classes to be offered. The big challenge for the department was both to find instructors who could teach these advanced courses (usually working industry professionals who were moonlighting) and to be able to enroll enough students to fill them (typically only a small handful).

This particular semester, one of my classes was a one-unit course to be held on a Saturday toward the end of the semester, but late that Friday the instructor emailed to say he had canceled the course.

Which immediately put my educational future in jeopardy. Without that last unit of credit, I would fail to meet the semester’s financial-aid requirements and would have to interrupt my studies to gather additional funds. Suddenly, at semester’s end, I needed to come up with a fast answer.

Fortunately, the department gave me the option to design a one-unit independent-study course and submit my proposal for review and approval.

As it turned out, weeks before, as noted in the essay, I got permission to do bone drawings at College of Marin's anatomy lab (not as an enrollee, but simply on a drop-in basis); I had been going there all along. So it occurred to me to incorporate my bone-drawing adventure into my proposal. While I was assured that the drawing (my doing all that drawing), and the drawings themselves, would have been sufficient, I also tasked myself with writing an essay. I wanted to make sure, between me and me, that I really earned the unit of credit.

My proposal was accepted, and the administrator found a department instructor who, on short notice, agreed to oversee my independent-study plan and receive my coursework. My thanks and appreciation to both of them—Shelley Blockhus, the very kind, on-it administrator who helped me navigate the process, and to Billy Burger, one of my former instructors in the program—a magnanimous human being who is a truly skilled artist, animator, neon bender, and teacher—who stepped up to make sure I got to keep on keeping on.

I acknowledge that I drew the bones without benefit of my current understandings of “mass conceptions” (artist-perceived shapes such as cylinders, cubes, spools, doughnuts, and the like) and deliberate lighting (what the artist chooses to add, independent of what might be visible to the eye). However, handling real bones and going through the drawing process was very valuable to me. I now have a reliable experiential reference—learnings incorporated forever into my point of view—that continues to help me actually see what I’m actually seeing.