Study: Drawing the Male Torso (Sideways)

Today I'm sketching a logo image for The Longest Sojourn. So here's another grand opportunity for a study of the male anatomy again.



This is based off a reference picture, but some fun things to notice. End of the shoulder muscles (deltoids?) line up with the bottom of the breasts in an arc. You'll also notice I used the symmetry grids from the first study to draw the muscles in. The way of drawing the pelvis and leg-bones is a technique I picked up from Loomis' Mannikins. (Incidentally, Loomis' Figure Drawing For All Its Worth is an amazing book I'd recommend to anyone. You can learn loads off it if you don't mind the textbook approach.



We'll ignore the muscles in green and red, since those were the ones we studied in the Man-Chest tutorial. What we want are the muscles in blue and purple, which are the side view ones.



One thing you'll notice is that from the side, the arm mucles sort of resemble a braid. From this angle the triceps are visible, and the lower arm muscles (It's actually a group of several muscles) stretch over from the end of the bicep to the elbow. This is not really anatomically accurate, but very much simplified. You want detailed muscles Loomis has a very detailed chart.

Another good thing to notice is the huge neck muscle stretching all the way from the nape of neck to the shoulder muscle. Memorise that one.

So from this study, we can summarise the visible muscles from the side as such:



And turn them into a chart for easy reference in the future.



Hopefully that makes it easier to draw the male figure from sideways.

Incidentally, for those of you who wondered what was the outcome of this study:



This is the imagemap logo I got after I finished, which hopefully will feature on the next incarnation of the TLS website.