Reply To: Human Anatomy HELP! What’s the right way :)
Based on your gallery, you seem to have solid fundamentals when it comes to sculpting characters. Better than a lot of people to be honest. Your question comes at an apt time for me because A) characters have always been my first love within computer graphics, B) I graduated from one of those expensive art schools, and C) I’m currently in the process of recording a [massive] human portrait tutorial course. So let me try to answer your questions the best I can!
Is there any special way by which people are taught anatomy in art schools?
The only “special” thing about art schools in my experience is that all the foundational information you need develop skill is handed to you on a silver platter. Art school students don’t have to go looking for it, sifting through the good and the bad. For a high price your learning is quick and high-quality.
I certainly didn’t learn many tricks or short cuts. That’s not how art works. Art is practice, practice, practice. At art school students practice day after day which makes them progress quicker than people outside of art school. Also people outside art school can easily run into poor information on the internet which can be a step backwards instead of forwards.
If no, then is just pure practice that is needed?
Practice is absolutely key. Personally I think it’s the most important part of skill development. Especially for someone of your skill who clearly understands the basics. That being said, I definitely understand that good instruction can be a short-cut in the developmental journey, demystifying things that would otherwise take significant trail-and-erroring to learn on your own.
I also welcome suggestions about what would be the right way to learn anatomy, for example, books or tutorials, or whatever there is.
I started my teaching career with a portrait course which isn’t that good; you can tell it’s my first course. A little later I taught head sculpting again, and again, and again, and again. However one thing I never put much emphasis on was *Anatomy*. Rather I’ve always been a bigger believe in the ability to form what I see. Anatomy is a lot of research and memorization for only one application. Training myself to sculpt what I see has limitless potential.
To conclude this novel, as I mentioned at the beginning I’m once again teaching realistic portrait creation with Blender. Here’s a sneak peak at the R&D I’m doing:
It will be the most in-depth course I’ve ever taught. The human face is that complex and I will be teaching everything I know about the subject – including, for the first time, legitimate anatomy knowledge. A knowledge that was painstakingly developed from comparing countless online diagrams, insight from a plastic surgeon, and chats with my dentist friend, resulting in this 3D anatomical reference model/tool (which will be included with the course).
I expect it still to take a year or so for me to complete recording but when published, my goal is for it to be *the best answer* to your original question 😅 Stay tuned!