Bones and Muscles: The Foundation of the Human Body

To continue on the subject of anatomy, we’ll compare the male and female skeleton and muscles of the human body. Most artists will eventually be challenged with drawing a human figure or portrait. Figures are added to landscapes to depict daily life, record events in history, display symbols of religious faith, and to simply make a statement. Well before photography became popular, portraits provided a historic record and a status symbol of a person’s worth. Then as today, a well-done portrait captures the personality of the subject. As an artist, it’s important to understand the underlying structure of the body and its proportions before you tackle figure or portrait drawing or painting. When you gain this understanding, you will have a strong foundation that will look original, natural and convincing.

The Human Body

Capable of performing all types of tasks, flexible and strong, renewable, and self-governing, the human body has the resilience that is unmatched by any manmade machine. Cartilage and muscles are the glue that hold bones together and upright and aid in movement, with the bones bearing a body’s weight and acting as protectors for the eyes, brain, inner throat, heart, lungs and other organs.

Differences Between Male and Female Skeletons

Though men and women share a few structural similarities such as bone types and muscular shapes, there are quite a few differences.

The male skeleton’s shoulders are set wider while their hips are narrower. The jaw is more prominent than a female’s, and the neck thicker. The arm muscles in the male are larger and more evident than a female’s muscle structure. The hands are larger, the muscles and bone structure of the fingers more prominent.

 

The wider hips, longer waistline, lower and larger buttocks, along with more defined thighs and a wider pelvis of the female are designed to support the extra weight of carrying a child. Other than the thighs and buttocks, the female’s muscles are generally less noticeable. Additional shapely differences between a female and male body, besides the obvious ones such as hair and breasts, are the female’s thighs, which are flatter and wider, and the female’s feet, calves, ankles and wrists, which are smaller and more delicate.

Abstract drawing of the proportions of an ideal female figure.

Proportions

When drawing the male figure, the ideal proportions are at least eight heads tall, with the navel and the elbow landing on the fifth head position. The waist is slightly wider than one head unit, and the space between the nipples is one head. The male figure is two and a third head units wide. The ideal proportions for the female figure are from seven and a half to eight heads, with the navel falling below the fifth head slightly, and the breast nipples centering at the sixth head. The waistline is one head unit wide, and the wrists are even with the crotch. The width of the female figure is two heads.

“It is impossible to draw the clothed or draped figure without a knowledge of the structure and form of the figure underneath. The artist who cannot put the figure together properly does not have one chance in a thousand of success-either as a figure draftsman or as a painter.”

- Andrew Loomis