How to Draw the Calf - Anatomy for Artists

Anatomy of the Human Body

Legs(107 Lessons)
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Calf Muscles

How to Draw the Calf - Anatomy for Artists

131K
Mark as Completed

How to Draw the Calf - Anatomy for Artists

131K
Mark as Completed

Assignment

Your assignment is to do tonal studies of the calves from the photos provided in the description below. Start with a linear layin making sure you’re tracking everything where it should go, and then add clean tone on top to study the planar structure of the calves. Make sure to post your assignment to the community at proko.com/groups if you want to be featured in the critique video. Alright thank you guys for watching. Leave a comment below if you have any questions about the calves.

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Lenserd martell
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@viny
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@younchen
Here are my assignments. any critiques appreciate .
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Jesper Axelsson
Hi @younchen, nice studies! The anatomy, shading and forms look pretty good! And nice shape design. - Try to be more aware of space. Before you start drawing, figure out which part of the body is closest to the viewer, and which one is furthest. In your 2nd drawing for example, I don't really feel that the left leg is diving into space. It feels a bit like everything in the drawing is on the same picture plane. Having a clear understanding of how things are oriented in space, allows you to communicate depth clearly. Use the tools at your disposal to communicate depth (size, placement, shape, soft/hard edges, wrapping the shading around the forms, directional hatching, value, etc.). -The underlying drawing isn't very strong. The overall shape of the leg doesn't correspond well to the reference (you tend to make it too straight), and the proportions are a bit off (you tend to elongate the leg). I think you would benefit from doing some drawings where you break down the leg into very simple shapes, and try to design them with gesture. Kinda similar to what you might see @Mike Mattesi doing. As a complement to your anatomy studies I would highly recommend practicing some timed figure drawing, where you get to focus on the figure as a whole. I think you would benefit from mimicking Glenn Vilppu's work. I like his approach of starting with a flow, then containing it with forms. He explains this at 21:00 in this Drawing Demo by Glenn Vilppu. If you do some figure drawings, feel free to tag me (@Jesper Axelsson), if you want some feedback :) Hope this helps :) Keep up the good work!
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Phattara Groodpan
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Samuel Parker
Calf shading exercises.
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@lahetkan
Hello, here's my assignments.
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Richard Barkman
Hey all, please critique my calf assignment. Having just looked at Stan’s work again, I see I could have spent more time on line and shape design (straights vs curves, assymetry, etc). Thanks
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Mike Karcz
I think these look great! If I could offer any critiques - mostly a personal taste - I think some harder edges in the shading of the quad(?) - the first image where the guy is squatting.
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@abrahan13
any feedback is appreciated
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Jesper Axelsson
Nice! - I would keep an extra eye out for proportions. I think you would appreciate this video Measuring Techniques. Starting with an envelope, to make sure the big picture is working, will really help I think. - Try to give the drawings more gesture. Just like with the envelope mentioned above, this could be something you do in your lay-in, before thinking about the anatomical detail. Start by drawing the legs, just thinking about creating shapes that have good gesture, then add the anatomical details on top. You might appreciate this video How Asymmetry and Anatomy Go Hand in Hand. - Before shading details, first think of the shading of the primary forms ( How to Shade a Drawing at 0:45 ) At the moment, the primary forms don't ready very clearly. - To show the roundness of the forms, soften the edges where the form turns; either by using a softer brush, or by adding a transitional value. - When I did my shading paintover I noticed that what looked like shadow in your drawings was actually light halftones. Was it supposed to be light halftone? Try making it lighter so that it looks like being part of the lights. I think you used the value of the dark halftones. Hope this helps :) Keep up the good work!
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James Paris
This is my assignment, I didn't do all the studies with Tone, I figured I wasn't so good and that it was damaging the undestanding/readability ! But ! I will soon train myself in tone/shading, because this is a real struggle for me
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Alexis Riviere
Tried my luck with calves before going further with the videos. Not sure about the anatomy I decided to exaggerate, since the forms are really blending into each other on the references sometimes. The one leg seen from the front got me especially puzzled about how much of the calves are actually showing.
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Thieum
Hello everyone! My calf muscles assignment.
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Thieum
Thank you very much Steve! And thank you also for all the advice and explanations you give on the forum. Always very clear and informative! I love it, and your work too!
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Steve Lenze
Your drawings are really nice :)
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Marco Sordi
Solid, concrete and clean. Very professional. Excellent shading. Fantastic.
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Sadie Ward
Here is my go at the assessment. Shading is something very new to me but I didn't want to skip this one just because that isn't something I was good at yet. Would really love some critique as I was pushed out of my comfort zone with this (which I liked).
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Steve Lenze
Hey Sadie, I like your drawings, I think you captured the gesture and the anatomy pretty well. You mentioned that you were not good at rendering yet, so I thought I would show you a few things that I think will get you started. First of all, rendering is meant to give volume and show form. The easiest way to begin is to start with the core shadow that runs along the length of the form. Then softly transition into the light side with half tones, and into the shadows with dark half tones. Notice that each form gets a core shadow and half tones I did some sketches over your drawings to show you what I mean. I hope it's clear and you understand what I am showing you :)
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Ria Kumo
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@hiflow
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Thieum
Good job ! Nice shape design and shadow mapping !
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David Gutmann
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Jesper Axelsson
Great job with these! Nice shading and good structure! - In image #1 you might want to indicate the upper tendons of the gastrocnemius and the two "tubes" created between them. I find those details to add a lot to a drawing of the calf. - In drawing #3 it would be nice if you used the shading to show more nuanced anatomy. Of course, the main forms are more important, and for many drawings enough, but for a specific anatomy study I think more nuance is appropriate. - I think the feet might be too small in all of these. Hope this helps :) Keep up the good work!
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@gldnghosty
Hi, I'd love any advice on these. I did try to construct the muscles first before shading. I am also having a hard time identifying how to draw the sartorius and gracilis in different positions. Thank you!
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Mario Sanchez
Assignment before the demos
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Jesper Axelsson
Nice!
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Iiiik
Been a while since I haven't asked for criticism since it's a bit harder to get any for this course than with the gesture one, but this exercise was basically my entryway to shading since I was too chicken to ever try it before, so oh well, I'm a beginner at this so I must at least try and get feedback! Gotta admit that I perhaps experimented way too much over the second assignement and it ended up looking... Peculiar to say the least. But I'd say I'm fairly satisfied with the other three, while I can still obviously see a lot of areas to improve. Any feedbacks that might help me towards that path are very much welcome, thanks in advance!
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2yr
Hi Liiik, from a shading point-of-view your 3rd drawing works best. The others feel somehow flat. Maybe rethink the core shadows on them? Just at thought. Cheers!
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Mathew Patterson
There were originally 3 attempts, I didn’t include the first one but because I haven’t done the gesture course proper it suffered from no gesture syndrome. I went in the opposite direction and really tried to push the gesture while containing the anatomy, after receiving some criticism on Facebook the third attempt is basically re-pushing the anatomy and some reinterpretations from what I was seeing. I thought I was seeing the tibialis anterior despite what proko showcased but upon further attempts to decipher the image I decided to go with the consensus and remove it lol. Watching proko’s video around design and gesture as a means to both stylize and contain the anatomy through the most useful phrase ever, “is it anatomically possible?, mentions the boringness of symmetry juxtaposed to the tastefulness of asymmetry, I feel like asymmetrical design is still something I need to work on, does this seem boring?
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@josejosejuanjose7
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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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