80 Level Digest: Materials on Human Anatomy for 3D Artists

Character art is not easy, quality work requires proper knowledge of proportions, correct posture, and the right movement of the body. So today, we've prepared different materials, including websites, videos, and books, that will help you grasp human anatomy.

Anatomy For Sculptors

Anatomy For Sculptors is a great source of all kinds of free images, diagrams, and videos explaining how our bodies work. The website also sells a series of books dedicated to a human figure, head, and emotions. Learn how muscles and bones work on this very useful site.

Anatomy for Sculptors: Understanding the Human Figure

This is one of the books mentioned above. It deserves to be mentioned separately for its comprehensible colorful illustrations. You won't find lengthy explanations here, the information is mostly transferred through pictures.

Anatomy for 3D Artists: The Essential Guide for CG Professionals

If you search for anatomy for 3D artists, this book will be there in almost every list for sure. No wonder, as it explains how a body is made and how to translate it into 3D. The chapters show every body part structure on a male and a female forms of different body types and how to work with them in 3D.

Anatomy for Artists: A visual guide to the human form

This is another great visual reference guide with over 240 photos capturing muscle definition and bony landmarks, postures and poses. The photos are overlaid with musculature, planar, and contour diagrams drawn by figurative fine artist and illustrator Charlie Pickard.

Posemaniacs

Another website on our list is Posemaniacs – a royalty-free pose reference for artists. Its mission is "to create free learning material for all people who want to be an artist." It contains models in multiple poses, with bone and muscle shown for a better understanding of anatomy. You can turn the models, mirror them, and change the lighting.

Anatomy 360

Let's move on to this awesome source of references. The images in the Free Reference tab are 2D but given from many angles so you can fully see the model. You can buy the pose packs to use the 3D models but you can't change the poses.

Sketchfab

Sketchfab offers all kinds of 3D models you can turn and take reference from. There are not only human bodies but also statues, animals, organs, and even stylized art. You can inspect the models for free, but downloading one will cost you money.

Bodies in Motion

Scott Eaton's Bodies in Motion is a "photographic project that aims to document the power, beauty, and possibility of the human body in motion." Here, you can find high-quality photos of people in various poses, 3D scans, images capturing emotions, and even Muybridge's classic work.

Anatomy for Artists by Marc Brunet

In this video course, the founder of Cubebrush and former Senior Artist at Blizzard Marc Brunet goes through anatomy step-by-step, helping artists recreate a body better. The videos are clear and dynamic, so definitely check them out.

Proportions and shapes of the human head by SpeedChar

Nikolay Naydenov provides great video guides suitable for beginner artists. In this one, he talks about head proportions and shows how to implement this knowledge into ZBrush right away. Of course, there are tutorials on other subjects on the channel (although you will see a lot of heads there), so make sure to watch them to understand how to sculpt in different software.

That's it for anatomy materials today, we hope it was useful and inspired you to start creating. What are your favorite resources? Share your thoughts in the comments and don't forget to join our Reddit page and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.