How to Draw the Forearm

[Music] hey everyone cycasin here and in this tutorial I'm going to be covering uh the muscles of the forearm and I'll probably cover the muscles of the arm uh the entire arm as well and basically how the forearm connects uh to both the upper arm and the wrist so the form was always super difficult for me more than probably any other part of the body um and that's cuz it's made up of a bunch of muscles and also uh the arm twists like okay so you have an arm right let's say this is our arm and in this view your arm is like you you see the back hand right here but then then you can also move your arm in a position more like this where now you see the palm and because of that twisting thing that's what made it super hard uh like what happens in here and here and it was all really com uh complicated and confusing until I saw this tutorial uh by a guy called Funky Monkey on Deviant Art and he made a very simplified tutorial and it actually made sense to me so uh I'll include a link to the tutorial he made in the description of this video um and again I have to credit him for a lot of what I'm going to show you cuz it's what I picked up from his tutorial but basically the idea is to stop thinking of it as a bunch of muscles uh in the farm and instead to simplify it to just three and okay so first let's go over uh just the muscles now we've gone over how the muscles attach to the Torso and if you haven't seen that video um and it's probably you know a couple videos back but it's uh connecting the arm to the Torso so uh just search for that uh video so when I start with the arm I almost always start with um the stick figure basis and uh like I'll start with a gesture for an arm um with the shoulder and then the wrist and then I get the elbow and it follows a gesture uh but this too um as soon as I've got the elbow and the shoulder and the wrist it's like a stick figure and then you've got the hand here right so this is how I start with the arm um okay so starting with the arm like this uh let's just do a few views so I'm going to use this as a guideline and and I make sure the elbows halfway between the shoulder and the wrist and okay so what you have is the deltoid and that's the the shoulder muscle and we've covered this in the connecting the arms to the Torso video and it's doing this so this is just more like a refresher and then the deltoid stops at uh muscle called brachialis and I actually tend to I don't know I kind of ignore this uh you could include it or you could ignore it I guess it's up to you but the deltoid goes into brachialis but more importantly it divides the biceps in the front with the triceps on the back and the triceps from the side have this kind of look and from the back they look more like this where they have this this fat um like this fatter belly portion here and then this goes down to the elbow and with the elbow I simplify it as a triangle shape and then like just like this shape and the reason why is it's cuz it's really three bones you have um or well two are the same bone so what you have is you have the humorous bone and it comes down like this right goes like this and then you have the Anna which is uh the bone that goes to your wrist and it comes down like this then it goes to your wrist and then here you have um the radius which um moves your thumb around so because of that you end up with like three points and these are ones that you can actually feel uh one here which is part of the humorus here here and then here which is the um Anna and this is called the electron it's just the elbow like this is actually when you think of the elbow what you're thinking of is this uh muscle right or this bone right here um so let me just use different colors to make it a bit more understandable so you have this part this bone and then you have this bone and this one actually ends much fatter and it goes to the thumb and then this one goes to your little finger um the Elna so the important thing I think to remember is that it's the the humorous doesn't move um like of course it will move but when you move your elbow up and down it's this part that moves the um Thea that moves and from a side view like simplified and I thought Funky Monkey did a really good job of simplifying this it's like okay so let's look at it from a side view now so you have this and then you have the Anna and it has a shape like this from the side and so from uh when you bend this up like this the El is going to come around like this and so what happens is you end up with a shape like this when this is um like it goes from here sorry from here to here and so the way you would think of it is this is one thing and this is another thing thing so these are the simplified um bones right okay so uh and then Ela I don't even like I don't want to use all the technical names really cuz it's not really that important um but you can we can just call this the the the bone that goes like the enna is the bone that go it's the elbow and it goes to the little finger little finger and then this one is the radius and the reason it's called the radius is cuz it goes around like it it swivels around the Elna and that goes to the thumb so if you can just remember radius and thumb and Anna and elbow and little finger like associate El now with elbow and Little Finger just keep not the Game of Thrones uh one but the the pinky this so so this from here to here the elbow this is the El and you can see here see here this how it's outlined here and goes here and then this is the radius and the radius kind of connects like this like it's got this part and it goes up here and this it swivels like this see so this part is Thea right cuz you see little fingerna okay so here and then but it actually didn't move see the see my this finger right let's just point this is staying still right this pen and notice Thea is not moving it's this one that moves this is swiveling around so this becomes the point that's fixed this is the um what do you call it the it this rotates around this and so this is the radius and now the radius is doing this see it crosses over so here it's these two are like that they're straight and this one it crosses over so and see the the actual elbow it's not moving moving that much when I swivel it's this that moves the thumb one okay so I hope that makes sense so once you have that things get a lot simpler so you have here the three muscles of the upper arm which I think are important are um the deltoid here and then you have the B bicep biceps and the triceps and then in the middle you have the Brach radi uh brachialis sorry so this is the bicep triceps deltoid and then the same thing here deltoid here and then the triceps from the back look like this and they've got like this kind of see gets fat here and then you have this sheet going down and it goes to the Elbow so I was talking about the three the the reason I simplify it as a triangle is because of this this shape see these two here here and here I think of that like connect those and you've got this triangle shape and then extend that all the way down to uh the little finger and you've got this type of shape and why that's important is cuz now it's like okay so what connects here well the tricep connects like this so you've got the tricep here and now you have this division here between muscles so you've got muscles and and this would be the you know the the Palm or the the hand would be down here okay so this is really important and then you have the the deltoid coming around like this so you get this type of uh shape with the elbow here and let's just color the elbow in red and then I think of it including this bone all the way down to the the pinky and the reason is um because you do see that right you see it goes here and like you can actually see that bone whatever here there whatever I have no not much development of muscles but um yeah so you see that and then yeah you've got the and then tricep and the delto okay so let's move on so the next important thing is how the three muscles connect to the top part so let's start with again an arm okay and I guess I'll just do a few versions so this is going to be um side so start with a basic arm and I'm gotten to the point that for me sketching this arm shape is not hard and maybe for you too it's not as hard to sketch the arm shape as it is to know what's going on inside um so this it's kind of just been reduced to a bunch of um shapes really this this and then let's do this and I always try to keep things very um loose and also thinking about the big the big picture all the time like what does the arm look like you know when I draw I'm not thinking about well there's this one muscle here and then it goes like this and then you have another muscle here and then you have another muscle here and that's going to get hidden like this and then you have another muscle here and then you have this coming over like this and then this splits like like no that's very disjointed and I think this is the problem uh that I was facing when I was looking at anatomy books is because there are so many muscles and even sometimes uh I've heard people say like well you just learn it one at a time like you learn this and then you learn this and then you learn this and then you put it all together um the problem with that for me is you lose proportion and you start viewing the muscles like they're they're individual but they're not they're all together like um all these muscles function as one and let's do another view of the back view because we've got we've got this is like side this is the other side wait no this is like front 3/4 3/4 and then this is side and this is front and then this would be back sorry again if my style is creeping through uh with all the sharp things um I've been asked uh you know not to do my style thing really the thing that's good about um style is it shouldn't affect um the actual bones and the anatomy and the structure so even if I had a crazy style like even if I had you know the deltoid looks like this and the biceps really small and triceps are really small and then you know there's a huge arm and it does this and then you have this tiny hand or something even if I did this if my anatom is correct you still could look at this and learn proper Anatomy just because the muscles aren't changing like it's just their size and their proportion changes um but the muscles themselves remain the same so don't worry too much about style and if you are someone who thinks well because this is heavily stylized I can't learn from it uh I don't know what to say um Good Luck uh anyway so let's go to this view okay so we have the deltoid and it comes around and remember it divides the bicep from the tricep that's what I really think about like the deltoid it's pointing and it points to the brachialis muscle but more than that I just think like I simplify it as just one Division and then on this side I have triceps this side I have biceps okay and then you have a muscle the muscle itself is divided into three one part goes to this point and then one part goes in the middle here and one part goes like that so that's the deltoid okay so you have bicep now here is where we start to split things so the first thing I do is uh because I maybe because I'm not that good at this yet but I look at where the where I'm looking so this is thumb side so it's like okay so thumb okay now with the thumb we have the the radialis right so I'm thinking okay so this goes to the th what goes to the thumb well it's a muscle here and it starts like this at the border of the bicep and tricep and it comes around and it connects to the thumb now this isn't one muscle see I'm simplifying it as one muscle but it's very important that you understand that this is not one muscle this is a simplified version of this muscle okay and then let's color this in as Pink So forever now this is going to be pink and this is what I would really recommend um for people trying to learn this cuz this is how I learned it is um get some colors it doesn't have to be pens it can be colored pencils um and I was using these three colors the teal and and these are uniball signal um pens u151 for anyone who is curious okay so you get these colors and then start shading them in uh so that you have an idea so this pink and this is just ripped off from uh funky monkeys thing but Pink goes to the thumb so remember this goes to the thumb and that's going to be pink okay and this is a combination of some flexors and extensors but we're not going to worry about that let's just forget about the technical names of what the muscles are called so we have goes to the thumb then we have goes to the palm and also uh I also think of it as little finger but mostly palm and that is going to be this color and so let's look at this arm and think okay what's so you have a muscle here right and where does it go oh it goes to the Palm so the Palm is hidden in this view right palm is underneath so we just draw this going to the palm and we can shake shade that okay so now we have that and then the final one goes to the top of the hand goes to the top of the hand and these are the extensors now you also have extensors here and extensor just means it extends the arm and flexors means or it extends the hand like okay so a flexor does this it does that that's a flex and this like this is flex and this is extend when you do this it's extending so when you extend all these get activated and then when you Flex these get activated so this is the extensors or these are the flexors cuz they pull it in and these are the extensors up here so we have these extensors and they go all the way down to the fingertips and so like when I do this when I open this uh it's the extensors that are getting used so okay goes to the fingertips so there we go goes to the top of the hand is going to be this orange color and sorry it is not neat I will try my best to neaten it okay there we go all right so now keeping that in mind so see see the things we had to pay attention to what is the Border uh bicep and tricep and I can just color in biceps and triceps I'm not going to do that all the time but that would be red I guess that would be blue tricep fine okay so now we have a side view so what's going to happen well we have the bicep coming down you have the tricep here you have this um the going to the thumb the flexor so okay so this comes around and now you have the elbow here okay so you have this coming around and this see how this works I think if it like this like this flexer um let's do the back view okay cuz this is going to make more more sense okay so you have the back view you have the elbow here okay and the elbow I simplify again as this triangle form and it comes down to where to the little little finger remember that the elbow goes to the little finger side so we get this shape kind of like this like a I don't know like that thing you put on the you put the golf CL the golf ball on it then you hit it the t is that what it's anyway never mind I don't know golf um so that goes down okay so that's dividing these two things now with this part part that goes to the thumb part what happens is it starts up here and it goes like this it goes around and to the thumb so from the front view yeah I guess that's smarter to just do each part sort of separately from the front view it's like this it just goes around like this and it goes to the thumb and it looks like this okay so let's fill that in and then from the back view it's doing this it's going around to the thumb now this part that goes to the top of the hand is going to top of the hand so okay so we have this the orange part Here and Now where is that in this view in the front view well you don't see it cuz it's behind here but see how this creates this kind of like it looks like this is going underneath this which probably is so you get this type of thing where you get this shape and then this shape and then you have this part which is going to the palm and it's also on the little finger side and that is this and then on the back view you see it here and what I like to think think of is this this thing the elbow part the T the this triangle that goes down this is really dividing um on the back it divides the orange from the teal so the Orange is this and it's divided on the back by the elbow the the Anna and in the front it's the bicep I feel that I use as a marker so you have the vi bicep and then this splits down the middle except it's more favoring this side so it's not like this is right down the middle CU this part the extensors uh or no the flexors they connect to more of the hand and this red part or the pink part connects to the thumb more so it's not exactly split but kind of okay so that's that so this and this are the same and this are the same and this this and this are the same and then from a side view okay so what we're going to do is you get the elbow and the elbow goes where to the little finger right so that's behind Okay so now this is going to the thumb you have all this going to the thumb and then this is now going to be the orange part going to the top of the hand and this is going to be the teal part so [Laughter] teal pink orange okay so pretty much that's my it in terms of what I think um but now how do you get good at it um well the way I do it is I just start by drawing a bunch of arms and then I fill in uh the the muscle so let's just put arms in different views let's say this one is bent and again I start with the stick figure first you know so I get the proportions and let's say this one maybe this one's like I don't know bent this way this is the the fingers the thumb is back here okay so we'll have that and we'll have one that's coming maybe coming towards us so some for shortening something like that and then uh we could have one that's like in a pose as if it's holding something maybe it's holding a sword it as if the arm so you have like a holding sword pose um and we can just have a relaxed hand sort of doing nothing maybe resting on a table or something okay um and that'll do so let's let's build These Arms now Okay so deltoid comes down here right divides it so now we've got biceps and we got triceps so biceps come down here and now we have the flexer and the elbow is going to come around and do this thing and it's going to go to where it's going to go to little finger so here is that triangle right triangle going to little finger so now we know little finger is here so this is going to be the top of the hand okay and then you have the teal part is going to be underneath going to the Palm right so hey we have teal here so that's our first guy he's done okay now we have the triceps back here let's not forget them okay and the flexor um or the pink part goes like this and it goes it's going to the thumb right and the thumb is back here so this is now going around and to the thumb okay like so so we have the pink part going to the thumb here and then we have the orange part going to the top of the hand here and it's divided by that um the elbow the Ona remember that's the divider between the orange and the teal so we've got that and it goes up the top of the hand so there it's our first guy and then this one I guess was doing something like this which is kind of weird but okay well what's he doing okay if this is the top of the hand okay so this is the elbow going to the little finger goes here and it does get tricky for me as well like I have to think about it a lot and this is going to the top top of the hand okay and then this is the triangle and this is the tricep coming down here this is the bicep here okay then we're going to have this dividing this like this and this is the top of the hand and so we're going to get something like this with the teal here going to the palm then you have the orange here and this is why I say I'm not that good at it cuz it's still quite challenging to think of where all these things are going you have this here that's that looks very painful um but anyway let's do this one so you have the deltoid coming around here bicep this one's actually easy here um you have pink part going towards the thumb the top of the hand part here you have the elbow and so you'll see a little bit of teal here and this comes like that okay so that one's pretty easy especially compared to this one which I think I confused myself on it um so orange and then pink oh yeah we can get the triceps back here and then two it's just a little bit showing maybe okay and now this view oops I can just keep all my pens open makes more sense okay this view we have biceps coming here and that divides the arm down the middle and so holding the sword or whatever it is can put that in first where that would be and we can get that hands going around that form whatever I'm having trouble drawing straight lines and then deltoid dividing this little bit of triceps maybe and there we've got that so again this part going to the thumb and this part going to the palm and now let's do it from this view so again deltoid triceps coming down like this biceps going around here and then the pink part coming around going to the thumb so that's going towards the thumb and then you have this part going towards uh the top of the hand and I guess you wouldn't see the teal part in this cuz the elbows right on the like let's say this is a table the elbow is right on it like that there's Knuckles and simplified we get this and we get this and this right the triangle for the elbow remember that so you with the triangle for the elbow and then this comes around like this so now we have this going around like that now one last thing that's sort of important is that you learn the muscles this way like oh how to um how to detail them I guess or where they go like this but that's not how you actually draw them um and so again I'll invoke the power of DB Meer and when you draw them remember that it's it's going to be much more subtle so what you're going to have are things like this so yes we'll get the outer form and so we can keep that but then where the muscles themselves go it's a little bit more uh subtle you're not outlining all the muscles just what's important and get the hand there and so it's going to look more like that right like you're not going to be outlining everything and I like to use this type of um I don't know I guess it's because I'm using pen uh I sort of have to use a comicy comic book way of doing it with like a line and then I sort of have it dash out like that or I'll put forms in things like that so okay let's just do this one I guess we could do even though I'm having a lot of trouble with it it's probably not a good idea to do this one because I'm very confused as like it keeps making me have a brain fart which just means I need more practice but something like that I guess and then with this one just sort of outlining not the whole thing but just things that overlap I'm I'm showing those like where the overlaps are um and where sort of the divisions are and with all these like the orange one in particular um there's a lot of muscles that are getting represented by just a few um so when you look in an anatomy book for instance you'll see a ton of muscles not just um one but that's why I really like this uh method uh this tutorial um because it's makes it just much easier and let's do this one okay so this one we're going to get maybe Shadow from the deltoid to the bicep and this is still like super ripped you can go much much more simple you don't have to be this crazy um but you know it's up to you how crazy or sane you want to be and I like to include the tendon here in the uh here at the wrist um like this thing here I like that like to include that um and then this one pretty straightforward get this and get this kind of thing going around like this and I sometimes suggest like the muscle and also the the direction the muscles are going um I don't think that's a bad thing to do and get the thumb in Okay so pretty much that's it like of course you can do this you know with a lot more care um it's very weird how I'm drawing this cuz I'm like drawing in a very I have my hand here up here and then my pencil's doing here where normally I would be here but then I keep hitting this side anyway not important the important thing is the colors and ain't they pretty and practice this like just find these um and then outline like draw different poses and also draw poses from life like or maybe not life but photographs right so let's say you see a person and their arms sort of looking like this and it's like okay um and this is more you know what you'll actually see uh instead of like crazy muscles everywhere so let's say you see that start looking at okay so what's actually happening and you look at it and you can start to say okay so this is the biceps here and then you have this dividing part this is going to the thumb and then this is going up here and this is the rocki Alis and there right and then you can do your little colors and then this one is the pink one and stuff like that okay so that's a farm hoped it help hope hope it helped I I hope it helped and thanks for watching

Channel: Sycra

Views: 222,164

Keywords: how, to, draw, draws, traditional, paper, pen, pencil, sketch, sketching, forearms, forearm, for, fore, arm, arms, wrist, flexor, carpi, radius, radialis, biceps, muscle, muscles, anatomy, anatomical, reference, guide, help, drawing, dbmier, lightbox, light, box

Id: 894PGlFUr6E

Length: 40min 31sec (2431 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 28 2015