How to draw anatomy... from someone who can't.

I have drawn all my life. But it was only after watching a video by Swedish YouTuber Pewdiepie that I found myself inclined to learn to draw anatomy. Pewdiepie emerged from an era of old youtubers, and specialises in comedic content, but since starting a family, he has resorted to drawing.

In the video, he spends a year drawing every day- and the improvements are massive. However, despite this, we see through his art journey that it is not all simply one straight line. As he discovers new techniques, mediums, and experiments with new subjects, there is also a significant portion of backtracking when it comes to talent: as soon as he tries something new, it turns out significantly worse than his average drawing, yet with time it generates significant improvement to his art overall.

One particular example of this was when Pewdiepie discussed his interest in learning anatomy, but not just drawing rough people: he wanted to study anatomy, to learn how the body moves, and how each part is positioned. This inspired me to try for myself...

Similarly, I was inspired not only to learn to draw a person, but to really study and understand it. This prompted a number of different strategies.

Step 1: YouTube

After a short surf on Google images, I found myself gravitated towards YouTube videos. Whilst some where less helpful than others, I particularly found the channels David Finch and Draw Like a Sir helpful.

Step 2: Practice

And then it pretty much came down to endless practice: drawing hundreds of human figures, legs, arms and torsos. One of the ultimate goals of learning anatomy is to learn to draw without a reference, but whilst learning, you should also stick to copying images. Good places to go include Pinterest, Instagram and Adorka Stock (profiles provided). Aulthough it is helpful to draw real humans as reference (below), using others' drawings (below that) as reference is also equally, but perhaps even more helpful. Here is a collection of reference images which I found helpful.

Also, I highly recommend drawing every day, as this will help to nurture your commitment. Drawing once a week is going to take 7 times longer to improve your talent than drawing every day, and drawing 10 will speed it up by 70 times, by that logic. It is important that you stay commuted, as this is the only way that you can improve. 

I am certainly not a master at the moment, but here are some of my own personal attempts and sketches: