ANATOMY (for the artist)

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Kiwifarmsuser100001

Kiwifarmsuser100001

kiwifarms.net
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10 de Sep, 2025
Nobodies posted anything like this, but it's really useful thing to have for fellow redditors since anatomy resources are kinda hard to come by for artist, unless you wanna corpse snatch like a medieval doctor.

This thread is basically just like an anatomy general, but also artistic anatomy too. Sharing anatomy tips is really helpful. Making fun of bad anatomy is also funny.

I will post some resources which I found cool and helpful for learning. I'm not like a doctor or anything, just some retard interested in anatomy.

GRAYS ANATOMY (old)
I got this for cheaper than the new edition (since it's like 1 trillion dollars). It's pretty cool. I haven't read much though. It's the original from I think 1900s.
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DRAWING LESSONS FROM THE GREAT MASTERS
This books pretty dry and HARDCORE since it's originally from some dick head in the 1900s who was really good at artistic anatomy or something. It's got all the fundamentals for specifically figure drawing which I found helpful anyway.
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VISIBLE HUMAN PROJECT
This is something pretty popular. I haven't looked at it much but it was advertised in an anatomy book I was reading. It's like a cut up person, and you can make 3d models out of it which is pretty cool.

RANDOM ANATOMY BOOK I FOUND IN A LIBRARY
I found this book in my local library. It's got a chapter on cells which the greys anatomy book I referenced does not. I've only gotten through the cell chapter tbh.
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BIODIGITIAL 3D MODELS
You can get (for free) some of their models online by just messing with the address bar. I managed to find the complete female anatomy by sheer luck. I've posted the link below.
https://human.biodigital.com/viewer...e&dk=edac91d2443ff104ab74174b3047b00937a21960

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I love figurative art and doing anatomy studies, I've got a few resources saved that other people might find useful:
Pose Archives on DeviantArt
Reference Angle, a site that will pull up headshots from various positions and gives you a 3D head to work with.
Female Anatomy For Artists which has a buttload of reference pictures.

People-watching in general is a great way to learn poses and gesture, I sometimes take my sketchbook to a busy area and quickly sketch interesting people I see.
 
After spending a LOT of time learning anatomy and separating the wheat from the chaff, these are my personal recommendations for books.

"Anatomy for Artists: Drawing Form & Pose" by Tom Fox
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My #1 anatomy book. Not overly technical, but the drawings are amazing and the book covers nearly everything you need from an artistic anatomy standpoint. The author demonstrates anatomical forms using planes and simple lines, about as clear as you can possibly get with 2D drawings. The author's style is also clearly inspired by Kim Jung Gi, so definitely check out this book if you're a fan of Kim's work.

"Human Anatomy for Artists" by Xiao Weichun​

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Extremely kickass book that explains the structure of every body part in detail and how to approach drawing it. Like all Chinese artists, the author is anal-retentive as fuck, resulting in an anatomy book that more closely resembles an instruction manual on how to construct a humanoid replicant than an artistic guide. As far as I'm aware the book was never properly translated to English, so here's a machine-translated pdf from the perpetually doomer-maxxed fags at /ic.

"Stonehouse's Anatomy" by Jeong Hyun Seok​

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This is a pretty cool book that covers a lot of obscure anatomy topics, like joint articulation, body language, and sexual and ethnic differences. It's also very fun and readable. However, DO NOT read it cover-to-cover. It has a ton of barely relevant tangential information (the first chapter covers the origins of life and evolution). It also has a surprisingly sparse amount of usable technical information, like muscle insertions, skeletal structures etc. When the book first came out I was extremely excited, as it was advertised as the definitive guide to anatomy, the last and only art book you'll ever need. I don't think it lived up to the promise, but it's still a great book that's worth checking out.

"Morpho: Anatomy for Artists" by Michel Lauricella​

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This is not a straight technical manual for anatomy, more like a pocket reference for anatomy. It has almost no text, with 90% of the book consisting of drawings and the other 10% being extremely brief summaries of muscle groups and functions. The drawings are very organic, clear, and illustrative. I use this book often when I have to refresh my memory on some specific muscular structure. There are also Morpho books for more specific subjects like faces and hands.

"Anatomy for Sculptors" by Uldis Zarins​

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Similar to Morpho in that this book is almost all show and no tell, with almost no text besides occasional short descriptions. However, the book is surprisingly technical and detail-focused, covering very specific topics like fat distribution and muscle striation patterns. Obviously the book is primarily aimed at 3D artists, but it's still incredibly useful for 2D work, especially if you're focused on realism. And like Morpho, there are other books in the series that cover more specialized subjects.

Hope these are helpful.
 

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Kiwifarmsuser100001 dijo:
idk I don't want to be near naked people in real life.
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You don't have to draw nude models, just go to the park or on your local commune and sketch some rando in your line-of-sight. Maybe ask some of your peers if you can just sketch their hands or eyes or something. I once did an entire day at school where I just drew my classmates' eyes because I felt like it. I drew like 20 eyes, I think.
 
Hey Johnny Bravo dijo:
Studying straight anatomy books, like medical anatomy, is also very helpful.
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True, but medical anatomy books can be tricky for learning artistic anatomy. They just provide raw information with no priority given to one aspect of anatomy over another. Every muscle and bone is given the same didactic weight no matter how visible they are on the body's surface form. I would recommend focusing primarily on art-specific anatomy books, and referring to medical anatomy books as a supplement if you need clarification on something.
 
Marzipan Apple dijo:
True, but medical anatomy books can be tricky for learning artistic anatomy. They just provide raw information with no priority given to one aspect of anatomy over another. Every muscle and bone is given the same didactic weight no matter how visible they are on the body's surface form. I would recommend focusing primarily on art-specific anatomy books, and referring to medical anatomy books as a supplement if you need clarification on something.
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even though I haven't read them a lot, I find them really useful for understanding. And that's whats been drilled into my head by that figure drawing book and a bunch of other shit I've watched on YouTube. Plus they're just really interesting.
Thanks for posting those books btw free stuff is always sick.
 
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