Drawn

Cartoonist and Dreamworks storyboard artist Rad Sechrist has a how-to blog, rich with drawing tips, anatomy lessons, and and other bits of wisdom. It’s a fantastic resource, and I’ve already bookmarked it for future visits. Link: Rad How To

Here’s a rather basic but fun Flash tutorial on how to draw the human head from the people at the Academy of Art University.

Pose Maniacs appears to be a site devoted to human pose references… it’s primarily in Japanese, so it’s hard to really know for sure (its motto is the humourously mistranslated “Finally, you’ve been ready to show a variety of creativity”). There are many pre-posed human models that you can rotate in 360 degrees would make excellent reference for sketching if you don’t fancy traditional artists’ dummies or own a copy of Poser. The models are all sans-skin to show the muscle structure, so it’s a bit like attending a BodyWorlds exhibit. (via Excentris)

Canadian comic book artist Stuart Immonen has penned an interesting article for Comic Book Resources on building an arsenal of tools and reference material in order to make drawing comics efficient and productive. His toolbox includes everything from 3D modelling software to old-fashioned paper photo and reference archives. And to those who think this is “cheating” he says:

Face it, deadlines are murder, especially when they come around every thirty days or so. The sheer volume is astonishing; even with a lowball mean estimate of four panels per page, the typical monthly superhero comic boasts nearly 90 separate drawings each issue– that’s over a thousand a year! I don’t think there’s another job in the commercial arts field which is similarly demanding. The comic artist’s motto might very well be “by any means necessary.”

(Thanks, Jashar!)

While the title of this “book” suggests it is only for animators, the lessons within are valuable to anyone itching to be better at drawing expressive people. Walt Stanchfield was Disney animator who taught drawing at the studio. His handouts have been passed around and circulated for years, and Leo Brodie has organized them (based on the 60 handouts shared on animationmeat.com) into a book that Stanchfield might have written: Gesture Drawing for Animation.

That’s right — a gazillion! Okay, maybe not a gazillion, but pretty close. The Structure of Man blog has links to 178 video tutorials on YouTube by artist Riven Phoenix (not to be confused with River Phoenix I’m sure) that range anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes long. This first episode, shown here (which, admittedly, I haven’t watched in its entirety), is kind of weird in that it’s a lesson on method, rather than one that results in a practical end result, and Riven teaches this episode with a strange “creature contraption” metaphor that’s a little hard to follow. But I’ve skipped ahead a few epsiodes, and it’s a great-looking resource, and pretty amazing that they’re all online (although you can also buy a DVD set of the tutorials if you don’t like the craptastic quality of YouTube).

The Anatomia Collection comprises approx. 4500 full page plates and other significant illustrations of human anatomy selected from the Jason A. Hannah and Academy of Medicine collections in the history of medicine at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.

In addition to being able to search the collection by keyword, the site also offers a great highlights section, showcasing some of the more outstanding pieces, like this (somewhat disturbing) etching of a fetus in utero from 1774.

Artnatomy is a very cool online, interactive resource that teaches all about the anatomical structure of the human face. A great feature allows you to click on a particular muscle and see its effect on a person’s face (click on “actions” to see this).

More skeletons, you say? Well okay! Watch as a live drawing of a skeleton comes to life before your eyes…

This link made its rounds across the blogosphere earlier in the year, but people keep sending the link in, so it’s worth another look, especially for those who haven’t seen it yet. Artist Michael Paulus presents the skeletal systems of 22 cartoon characters/