How to Draw Legs – Bone Anatomy for Artists

Lesson by

292K

Mark as Completed

Assignments 53Lesson NotesDownloads 3

How to Draw Legs – Bone Anatomy for Artists

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

in Anatomy of the Human Body

292K

Mark as Completed

Assignments 53Lesson NotesDownloads 3

Assignment

Your assignment is a 2 parter. For the first part you can use the skelly app to pose the leg bones, or just use the images I provided in the downloads tab. Draw the leg bones as simplified forms. Don’t copy the contours, study the form and break it down to geometric forms that you can remember.

I’ve also provided some leg photos of models. Do anatomy tracings over those to find the leg bones. Look for subcutaneous landmarks to figure out where the bones go. Try to do both of these exercise on your own, before I post my answer videos.

Ezra

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3mo

Leg bones! The more you know :) finding it difficult to locate the femur on the surface

@kevin_dung

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4mo

I started learning ZBrush a month ago and thought I might as well do my anatomy studies in 3d now, hope this is ok as a form of assignment. On the right are some of my thoughts about the shapes, the greater trochanter and lesser are vague in form, but i kinda associate a hand with it, the thumb being the lesser trochanter and the fingers and palms being the greater. The top part of the fibula, reminds me of a spear/fountain pen nib, though not 100%, thinking of that helped me get the shape down. Feedback appreciated!

Macario Lopez

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1mo

Here my (model of the) Femur. Any criticism is appreciated. https://skfb.ly/pqZXT

Macario Lopez

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1mo

I wanted to do the same, and then I saw this post. I think drawing and sculpting compliments each other. I think it is a fantastic way learning/memorizing forms.

@kevin_dung

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4mo

the images are orthographic just in case you're wondering

Samuel Sanjaya

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10mo

My leg bone tracing and sketch. the triangle of the tibula is hard to visualise.

@bannidm

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2yr

Leg selector structure

@bannidm

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2yr

Samuel Parker

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2yr

Leg Bones Anatomy Tracings.

Samuel Parker

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2yr

Leg Bones Skelley Drawings

Ben Kruck

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2yr

Really liked the way Sam (one of the artists below) rendered his simple form so I tried it out with assignment 2. I found it challenging to get clean line, but I did my best to not get bogged down in perfectionism. Any critiques are welcome

Mark Manthorpe

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2yr

Studying the legs for the first time. So far focusing on just the bones and I think these three are the first decent versions at an attempt of simplification. I haven't yet looked at Proko's assignement examples yet. Wanted to try before looking at them. If anyone has any comments I'd appreciate it. :)

Michael Mendiola

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2yr

Day 001 With a fresh Artist's Loft 5.5"x8" sketchbook, a tri-pencil Faber-Castell set, kneaded eraser, and a set of goals for the coming year: I am possessed to walk this journey. The kick-off is observational sketches of the simplified 3D model.

@younchen

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2yr

2022/11/28 Here is my attamption without tutorial. Have nice day

CHARLES DEIGHAN

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2yr

Hi Folks, back again, here to finish off the rest of my anatomy course . Here's my leg bone assignment, sorry for the faded quality of some of my drawings, I just drew them with a regular hb pencil. It's been a while so I'm a little rusty, so please keep that in mind if you have any critiques. Thanks.

CHARLES DEIGHAN

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2yr

Thanks Jesper, I always appreciate your insightful critiques. I'll keep your remarks in mind when I go over these drawings again.

Jesper Axelsson

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2yr

Hi @CHARLES DEIGHAN, great to have you back :) I think you did a nice job with perspective, especially in drawing #2. Feels really solid💪 - In #4 I think the femur of the leg closest to us, should be closer to the front surface of the thigh. - In #6, the femur of the leg furthest from us, should be drawn more to the right, so that it runs through the center of the form of the thigh. - I think you would benefit from studying how the leg bones, especially the femur, relate to the major forms of the leg. Try some drawings from imagination, using simple forms (maybe a cylinder for the femur and a cylinder for the thigh), then check how close you were with 3D models or images . You might have to open models from further down the course to see how the leg bones relate to the major form of the leg. I don't mean that you should study individual muscles, just look at the simple form that they make together and how the bone is placed with in it. This might seem overkill, but I think it will help. When I do a tracing, I rely much on what I think it should look like. I don't see where the femur runs through the thight, but I know where it "should" be, based on my understanding of it. Together with visible landmarks, you can place it quite accurately. Hope this helps :) Keep up the good work!

@lahetkan

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2yr

Hello people, my go's at leg bone assignments.

James Paris

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2yr

Okay, final stretch for this course ( before going at it again ! ) For context, I did these a while ago, I remember struggling with the back view of the bones And again, it still a struggle to come back to digital after a while :D

@abrahan13

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2yr

Any feedback is appreciated

Samuel Parker

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2yr

You're focusing too much on the contour, try and draw the shapes as simply as you can, like a croquet mallet for the femur - make the forms simple shapes and then you can start blending them into eachother. I would reccomend reading how to draw my scott robertson because I believe you would benefit from gaining a clearer understanding of basic perspective principles. One of my instructors said, the more technically you are trained - the less technically you draw, which basically means that after studying enough, you're going to be able to draw contours that look like they have perspective because you will get a feeling of what is right - and you have the knowledge of construction to help you out of any pitfalls as you draw. Keep drawing and have fun, it's a marathon not a sprint!!

Tsotne Shonia

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2yr

I have chosen to simplify the bones more than Stan. I don't really intend to ever draw those bones as fnished illustration, but to use the knowledge to draw full characters. It's still a bit of a struggle and I can already tell I'll have to come back to this later but, for now, I'm okay with where I got.

Jesper Axelsson

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2yr

Really nice studies @Tsotne Shonia! Good strucutre, and the anatomy looks pretty accurate. I'll try to look for things to improve on for whenever you choose to revisit the leg bones. - In 4 and 6, the lower end of the femur feels a bit too large. - In 4, I think you misplaced the head of the fibula. I think it should be a little higher up, at the crease, where the biceps femoris inserts. - In 4, 5 & 6, the femur feels like it's a bit too close to the front surface; compare with Stan's examples. Hope this helps :) Keep up the good work!