Anatomy for 3D artists

An aspiring character artist might ask: “How is anatomy important to my work?” The emphatic answer is that as a character artist, anatomy should inform every aspect of your work! Anatomy is the structural foundation that grounds characters in the physical world and makes them believable, even if they are cartoons or imaginary creatures.

Of course, every CG artist needs to know how to use software applications, but what really separates an accomplished artist from a mere operator is artistic vision and a firm grounding in the fundamentals of human form. Artistic vision can’t easily be taught, but the enterprising artist will find that there’s a wealth of resources available that will help them discover more about anatomy.

Fortunately for us, the fundamentals of artistic anatomy have been known for thousands of years. Unfortunately, there’s little opportunity to learn these anatomical fundamentals in art schools today. Like most of the knowledge of the great masters, the subject has fallen out of favour in education and, as a result, there are currently very few people who are qualified to teach the subject. This makes finding good instruction difficult and it transfers the responsibility of learning anatomy onto the artists themselves.

This collection of tips will help you on your way towards the mastery of these fundamentals. Once you’ve finished, why not check out the list of recommended books on anatomy so you can increase your skills even more?

These tips are intended to provide a foundation for your own learning. Some relate to muscles, some to bones and others to proportion. If you can assimilate these principles and combine them with your own anatomy study, your character work will go from strength to strength.