How to Draw Legs – Bone Anatomy for Artists
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Anatomy of the Human Body

Legs(107 Lessons)
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Leg Bones

How to Draw Legs – Bone Anatomy for Artists

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Mark as Completed

How to Draw Legs – Bone Anatomy for Artists

258K
Mark as Completed

Assignment

Your assignment is a 2 parter. For the first part you can use the skelly app to pose the leg bones, or just use the images I provided in the downloads tab. Draw the leg bones as simplified forms. Don’t copy the contours, study the form and break it down to geometric forms that you can remember.

I’ve also provided some leg photos of models. Do anatomy tracings over those to find the leg bones. Look for subcutaneous landmarks to figure out where the bones go. Try to do both of these exercise on your own, before I post my answer videos.

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@bannidm
Leg selector structure
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@bannidm
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Samuel Parker
Leg Bones Anatomy Tracings.
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Samuel Parker
Leg Bones Skelley Drawings
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Ben Kruck
Really liked the way Sam (one of the artists below) rendered his simple form so I tried it out with assignment 2. I found it challenging to get clean line, but I did my best to not get bogged down in perfectionism. Any critiques are welcome
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Mark Manthorpe
Studying the legs for the first time. So far focusing on just the bones and I think these three are the first decent versions at an attempt of simplification. I haven't yet looked at Proko's assignement examples yet. Wanted to try before looking at them. If anyone has any comments I'd appreciate it. :)
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Michael Mendiola
Day 001 With a fresh Artist's Loft 5.5"x8" sketchbook, a tri-pencil Faber-Castell set, kneaded eraser, and a set of goals for the coming year: I am possessed to walk this journey. The kick-off is observational sketches of the simplified 3D model.
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@younchen
2022/11/28 Here is my attamption without tutorial. Have nice day
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CHARLES DEIGHAN
Hi Folks, back again, here to finish off the rest of my anatomy course . Here's my leg bone assignment, sorry for the faded quality of some of my drawings, I just drew them with a regular hb pencil. It's been a while so I'm a little rusty, so please keep that in mind if you have any critiques. Thanks.
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CHARLES DEIGHAN
Thanks Jesper, I always appreciate your insightful critiques. I'll keep your remarks in mind when I go over these drawings again.
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Jesper Axelsson
Hi @CHARLES DEIGHAN, great to have you back :) I think you did a nice job with perspective, especially in drawing #2. Feels really solid💪 - In #4 I think the femur of the leg closest to us, should be closer to the front surface of the thigh. - In #6, the femur of the leg furthest from us, should be drawn more to the right, so that it runs through the center of the form of the thigh. - I think you would benefit from studying how the leg bones, especially the femur, relate to the major forms of the leg. Try some drawings from imagination, using simple forms (maybe a cylinder for the femur and a cylinder for the thigh), then check how close you were with 3D models or images . You might have to open models from further down the course to see how the leg bones relate to the major form of the leg. I don't mean that you should study individual muscles, just look at the simple form that they make together and how the bone is placed with in it. This might seem overkill, but I think it will help. When I do a tracing, I rely much on what I think it should look like. I don't see where the femur runs through the thight, but I know where it "should" be, based on my understanding of it. Together with visible landmarks, you can place it quite accurately. Hope this helps :) Keep up the good work!
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@lahetkan
Hello people, my go's at leg bone assignments.
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James Paris
Okay, final stretch for this course ( before going at it again ! ) For context, I did these a while ago, I remember struggling with the back view of the bones And again, it still a struggle to come back to digital after a while :D
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@abrahan13
Any feedback is appreciated
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Samuel Parker
You're focusing too much on the contour, try and draw the shapes as simply as you can, like a croquet mallet for the femur - make the forms simple shapes and then you can start blending them into eachother. I would reccomend reading how to draw my scott robertson because I believe you would benefit from gaining a clearer understanding of basic perspective principles. One of my instructors said, the more technically you are trained - the less technically you draw, which basically means that after studying enough, you're going to be able to draw contours that look like they have perspective because you will get a feeling of what is right - and you have the knowledge of construction to help you out of any pitfalls as you draw. Keep drawing and have fun, it's a marathon not a sprint!!
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Tsotne Shonia
I have chosen to simplify the bones more than Stan. I don't really intend to ever draw those bones as fnished illustration, but to use the knowledge to draw full characters. It's still a bit of a struggle and I can already tell I'll have to come back to this later but, for now, I'm okay with where I got.
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Jesper Axelsson
Really nice studies @Tsotne Shonia! Good strucutre, and the anatomy looks pretty accurate. I'll try to look for things to improve on for whenever you choose to revisit the leg bones. - In 4 and 6, the lower end of the femur feels a bit too large. - In 4, I think you misplaced the head of the fibula. I think it should be a little higher up, at the crease, where the biceps femoris inserts. - In 4, 5 & 6, the femur feels like it's a bit too close to the front surface; compare with Stan's examples. Hope this helps :) Keep up the good work!
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@viny
drawing the rotation on the bone is difficult but also fun
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@viny
my past self studied better than I do now
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Thieum
Hi everyone! My attempts for the leg bones assignments.
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@xander
Here's my attempt at the assignment. Interesting to finally learn about the knees. They were always a mystery to me. Any feedback is appreciated.
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Matt Abery
Here's my second attempt at the bone tracing section of the assignment
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Sadie Ward
These are my go at the assignment. I would really love some help on this because I really struggled with these
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Matt Abery
Here's the 2 parter of the assignment with the bone tracing
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Matt Abery
Here's my fist attempt at the assignment
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Kianna Peppers
Finally got to finish the Leg Bones, onto the feet!! - - - All previous and current assignments are available on my FB page here. Critiques are always welcome, thank you! https://www.facebook.com/saved/?list_id=4730838993696368&referrer=SAVE_DASHBOARD_NAVIGATION_PANEL
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@hiflow
Bona fide legs
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Jesper Axelsson
Nice drawings! I like how you managed to get gesture into the drawings from the bone references. - There are some convergence issues here and there. Double check so that lines that are parallel in reality appear to converge to a common point. Particularly the x-lines (horizontal lines). - I find it difficult to trace the leg bones. It gets easier as you learn the surrounding muscles, which will support you with more clues. I did a few paintovers with suggestions on changes. One of the keys to be able to find the bones on a model, is to be able to draw the bones from imagination really well. I can't really see the bones in the reference, only a few landmarks, but as I imagine where they would have been based on my knowledge, I can place them quite accurately. Really nice job with the 3rd tracing :) Maybe just change the placement of the head of fibula and the patella. Hope this helps :) Keep up the good work! (PS. As I did the paintover of your 2nd tracing I struggled with the top of the tibia. I checked with the 3D model and noticed that I usually draw the top of the tibia to large. You never stop learning XD)
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Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
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