Everything You Need To Know About Anatomy Sculpting

Everything You Need To Know About Anatomy Sculpting

Hi everybody! My name is Dana DiGioia, and I’m a recent graduate from the Savannah College of Art and Design with a degree in Visual Effects. As part of my senior project, I completed a book about Anatomy Sculpting.

I’m excited to have the opportunity to share it with you all here on The Rookies Blog! This project was extremely fun to create, and I hope that this little bit of background info is helpful to any other anatomy lovers out there!

Inspiration

In the beginning of my sophomore year at SCAD, my professor Gabriel Teo introduced our class to ZBrush. I instantly fell in love with this software and artform, and continued to use it throughout my education.
The more that I practiced sculpting, the more I realized my lack of anatomy knowledge was not only very evident but also detrimental to my work.

After hearing many professional artists (such as Scott Eaton, Andrew Cawrse, Madeleine Scott-Spencer, and my teachers) discuss the importance of anatomy, I felt that I would need to tackle this learning curve if I wanted grow as a student. So I set out to make my book, Transdim. As I developed this piece, I discovered a few key things that influenced my learning process in a huge way.


Working from the Inside Out

I believe that one of the most important aspects of this project was attempting to learn as much as I could about the bones and muscle groups before sculpting a fully formed body part. Understanding the organization and mechanics beneath the skin made sculpting less of a guessing game and improved my efficiency and confidence as an artist.



Taking One Step at a Time

Sometimes the complexities and intricacies of the human body were overwhelming, and the sheer amount of information seemed endless. But separating the portions of the body into different “chapters” made everything a little more manageable, and allowed me to focus intently on a certain part before moving forward.

Having a variety of resources that were geared towards both the artistic and scientific communities was really valuable.




Referencing Awesome Reading Material

This project would not have been possible if it wasn’t for the amazing textbooks that I relied on so heavily. If you’re searching for some great anatomy resources, check out Anatomy for the Artist by Sarah Simblet, Human Anatomy for Artists by Eliot Goldfinger, and last but definitely not least, Gray’s Atlas of Anatomy by Vogl, Mitchell, and Drake (Shout out to my mom for hooking me up with the Atlas!).

Having a variety of resources that were geared towards both the artistic and scientific communities was really valuable. The artistic anatomy books combined beautiful aesthetics with knowledge, where as a more medical textbook delivered an extremely consistent, accurate representation of information.

Hand_Sculpts

Using Different Mediums

A large part of this project isn’t shown in the final compilation but served as the crucial foundation. I sketched a ton from the 3 books mentioned above, photography taken by friends, and live modeling sessions. Aside from the final book, I accumulated about 3 sketchbooks filled with anatomy drawings.

While doing this, I quickly realized that building a strong 2D comprehension directly influenced my 3D work. This correlation isn’t the same for everybody, but if you enjoy drawing, I would recommend incorporating this medium into any anatomy research you might want to do!

Although I still have a lot to learn, I believe this project was a big stepping-stone. If you would like to get in touch or have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected].

Thanks for checking out my post, and best of luck with your future work! ☺

You can also find Transdim on my website: http://www.danadigioia.com