How to Draw the Pelvis from any Angle
How to Draw the Pelvis from any Angle
This method of constructing the pelvis from nothing is most useful when you are drawing from imagination. That’s really the goal of this whole course - to set you up to be able to draw the anatomy of the body from the vision in your mind. You’ll be able to construct the forms starting with the skeleton and build the muscles over that.You want to get this construction down well enough that you can do it in your sleep. Ok, so let’s get started.
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Step 1 - The Bucket
Step 2 - Cut out a Wedge
I’ll start by gridding out the top plane. Put a dot in the center of the top plane. Find an angle from side to side. In our case it’s horizontal. In some cases, when the pelvis is tilted or when the horizon is above or below the pelvis, this angle will not be horizontal.
Put a line parallel to the horizontal line and now we have the ASIS landmarks. The pubic symphysis is halfway down the front plane. From there, wrap a rubber band around the bucket. Drop 2 vertical lines from the ASIS down to that rubber band. Connect those two corners, and there you go. You’ve cut out the wedge. Similar to the front edge of the iliac crest, I want to find the back edge. This one is halfway between the center to the back.
Step 3 - Draw the rest of the %#$@&* pelvis!
From this point of view the left side is very foreshortened and the right side is not. This wedge shape we found is pretty much the final shape. Just round off the corner a little bit to make some more room for the acetabulum. From there, go about a ⅓ of the way down for the height of the cartilage.
A softened triangular shape for the hole (Obturator Foramen). Let’s add the sacrum in the back. Draw a rectangular shape representing the top plane of the sacrum. This top plane tilts forward more than the bucket itself. The line from back to front will be more vertical than the line of the back to front of the bucket.
There you go! A manageable construction of the pelvis. This pelvis has accurately simplified forms, accurate placement of the landmarks, and accurate perspective. Basically, this method of construction enables you to manage the complex forms of the pelvis, while keeping everything where it needs to be.
Once we are able to do this same thing for the entire skeleton. We will be able to pose the skeleton as we wish from our imagination. Then, we can attach the muscles to the appropriate origins and insertions, and we’ll have a complete body. All from our mind. How cool is that?
Critiques
For additional help, watch my critique session on the pelvis. I go over student submitted work and provide insights on how they can improve their assignment examples.