Anatomy: Muscles

For this homework assignment, we had to study the muscles of the body. Using this knowledge, we had to create two illustrations of the human body without skin (showing off the muscles) from the front view and the back view, then label the key muscles. 

I started by making some notes about the major muscle groups. Here is a selection of my notes. 

After this, using the reference image provided, I started to paint on top of the skeleton I did for a previous assignment, using it as a base. At this point I just wanted to block out the shapes so that I could visualise the muscle groups better. 

 After this, I started to paint over and refine the illustrations. Here is what I ended up with.

Here is the labelled version. 

I found this assignment very challenging because I had never studied the muscles in such detail before. I found it hard to paint in all the details. Still, I think my illustrations are clear enough for the major muscle groups to be seen. I learnt a lot, particularly that areas of the body which I thought would only have one muscle, for example the thigh, are actually made up of several. The muscles work with each other and are wrapped around or layered onto each other. One part I found very interesting was the arm. I found that the muscles in the arm interlock like links. I feel like this new knowledge will help me when drawing people and other humanoid creatures, much like how learning the skeleton did.