How to Draw Pecs – Anatomy & Form

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How to Draw Pecs – Anatomy & Form

332K
Mark as Completed

Assignment: Draw the Pecs

  1. Do a tracing over a model photo of the pectoralis major and all of its bundles. If you’re not sure how to do a tracing, refer back to the “How to do an Anatomy Tracing” lesson.
  2. Invent the pectoralis major on top of photos of Skelly. Use the photos below or if you have the Skelly app, you can create your own pose and draw the pecs on top.

I’ve provided reference photos for part 1 and 2 in the downloads. Download those and start drawing!

Newest
SolisUmbra
This is my take on the assignment. I feel I need to study the demonstration videos before I move on to the next lesson. Also I want to add that I did some master studies of my favorite artists before doing the assignment and it helped me a lot to visualize the shape of the muscle.
Melanie Scearce
Looks great!
Tom Simpson
Here's part two of the assignment. I have made some adjustments after watching the demonstration video. I found the 'armpit bundle' to be the biggest challenge, as there is some curvature there even when the medial parts of the muscle group are stretched or contracted.
Rachel Dawn Owens
Looks great! Nice twisting of the different sections of the pecs!
Tom Simpson
Here's the first part of my assignment. I decided to start by drawing in the ribcage, clavicles, and humeri (?) to help find the origin and insertion points for the pecs.
Melanie Scearce
Great idea! Good work.
Giorgi Karkuzashvili
Really like the type of the assignment. The second part was really paying off!
Liu Bide
2mo
@maximilienle2d
the red ones are my first try, the blue ones were done after looking at the examples
Waner Hoogleiter
Rachel Dawn Owens
This is a nice start. You drew the 3 parts of the pectoralis muscles in the right spots. Here’s how I might draw the pecs on this skeleton. They cross over each other sorta like a fan. I over exaggerated it a bit. Maybe this helps. Keep it up!
Ronja B.
7mo
@nemuiyo
8mo
Vin
10mo
Study note. When I started the assignment, I realized that I didn’t really understand the pec muscles. So, I re-watched this video to figure out where and which muscles they are. I tried to simplify them in one photo. After this, I finally understood them a little bit. Now, I need to redraw the assignment.
Vin
10mo
I found there is a mistake, this one is the updated version.
Jonathan Mårtensson Jonsson
Here are my pec inventions. Feedback would be much appreciated.
Amy Counsell
this is the finished assignment, some poses were quite difficult to figure out. feedback is much appreciated! <3
Martha Muniz
Hello! Good work, you're getting the right idea for the pecs. There are a few tweaks that I think can help push your drawings to the next level--mostly using the lines to further indicate the pecs' fanning overlap as it twists and stretches, and more of the thickness of the muscles, especially for a more muscular figure.
Samuel Sanjaya
My pec tracing assignment. i tried to draw it on the last picture. Did I do this tracing assignment correctly ? Any feedbacks/critiques will be greatly appreciated
Sita Rabeling
Repeating anatomy is useful and fun. And I hope to up my drawing skills. I love Stan’s anatomical drawings, clean, precise and simple. I forgot to add: the line on the arm is the bicipital groove on the humerus.
Sita Rabeling
After watching the critiques I see that the clavicula section would be almost hidden behind the sternal portion. On the right arm.
Karas Rijji
Here's my assignment
Karas Rijji
Here are new adjustments to the muscle orientation of the upper pectoralis major muscle.
Sita Rabeling
Nice!
Manuel Rioja
Mi assigments ready, uff it was challenging
Jesper Axelsson
Hi @Manuel Rioja, really nice studies! - In image 5, the lines you've put down for the fibers of the sternal portion bends strangely. I did an attempt of tracing the muscle. If I've understood it right, the sternal portion twists around itself, similar to the twisting of all the pectoralis major portions; the highest portion inserts lowest and vice versa. For the sternal portion: the fibers that attach high at the origin, attach low at the insertion and vice versa. - I assume these are cleaned up drawings, but in your sketches, I would recommend drawing through to make sure that you're aware of where, for example, the abdominal portion is heading for the insertion, if you aren't already doing that. I hope this helps :)
Ezra
1yr
i wasn’t really sure if i was attaching it to the correct part on the humerus, and had a nit more trouble putting them on skelly when the arms were stretched out.
Gian Amir Calibuso
@palyo
1yr
Hi everyone! I just finished reviewing these drawings for the pecs assignment after watching the critique and demo videos. I would really appreciate any kind of critique.
Umar Khalimov
Hey, Palyo. It looks like you are attaching the Sternal section of the muscle a bit too low here, especially in the skelly drawings. From my experience, the clavicular section inserts the lowest on the humerus and the abdominal attaches the highest. The sternal portion's lowest point is either higher than the clavicular's or at least on the same level (sometimes connecting even to the same tendon. There are a ton of genetic variation on this muscle!). That means that Clav. section will overlap every other section and the sternal will overlap the abdominal. In your skelly drawings, abdominal part seems to attach lower than the other two, making the tendon very wide, which wouldn't give enough room for other muscles, like the bicep, to pass through. If you look at dissections of pectoralis major (which I would highly recommend, seeing it on an actual person is extremely useful), the tendon is surprisingly thin for such a big muscle. Good luck!
@hugpillows
Just completed the Pecs assignments Did them without the demos first (Left side), then applied what I learned with the demos (Right side). Would appreciate and critiques. Thank you. :)
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Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
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