Hello! I'd like to start adding a few pieces of anatomy to my gesture/perspective sketches. My question is, which are the best muscles or bones to add first? Like, what's the bare minimum for torso, arms, and legs each? I'd also love critique on my gesture and perspective. Ignore my scratchy line style; we workin' on it :)

Hey, @Crystal Blue (she/her)! Great work looking for long flowing lines in your gesture sketches! I really like how simplified they look and how you were able to abstract details and focus mostly on the motion rhythms. One thing I’d recommend would be to look out for areas where you could use more S-curves. I’m attaching a little draw-over on two of the poses where I find this can be more easily noticeable. Sometimes, you may find an S-shaped rhythm fitting nicely as the main line of action (as in number 6); other times, you might try to break it down into various C-curves that flow through one another in an S-like type of movement (number 2). In the case of number 2, since it’s a standing pose, finding curvy motions can be a little trickier than with more dynamic poses, so, in order not to make the gesture straight and stiff, we can look at the natural curves of the anatomy for visual flow: the curvatures of the spine, neck and buttocks; the muscle volumes of the thigh versus the ones of the lower leg and how their curves oppose to one another. Stan mentions a long “wavy” flow from top to bottom of the body in How to Draw Gesture, so perhaps taking a few moments to review that lesson might help. Two little extras: remember to consider the areas of more relaxed flow on the body (where the curves will certainly fit) versus areas of tension (where you can use more straight lines and sharp angles); and, whenever possible, remember to try and push the exaggeration! Hope this helps. Keep up the good work!

Hi Lord! I'm right there with you and still working through the anatomy myself. It's exciting when it comes together, but it sure is tough! The advice I'll offer is color coding muscles. Like, once you have the sketch down, color the traps different from the infraspinatus for example. That's helped me continue to differentiate and also more easily track where the individual muscles are going in complex poses. Your sketches look awesome! I like how tidy the shapes of the different muscles and bones are - I can really see where one stops and another starts, which is tricky.