“I’m sorta embarrassed to put this up. XD Anywho, I’m a beginning artist and currently I’m trying to make a manly-looking woman, but mixing female and male anatomy isn’t really easy… heck, I’m not even good with my basic anatomy of regular people yet, and looking at references isn’t really helping for some reason. x.x I just need help on the anatomy.”

My recommendation (disclaimer: many people will disagree on what I’m about to suggest) if references aren’t really helping for some reason is to not do any “creative” works, like trying to mix male/female anatomy or anything and just trace for a bit. It’s the same concept as walking before running, haha. Get your basics down really solid and then when you have a stronger grasp of basic anatomy, you can start doing weirder, more creative things.  

You can find some good anatomy resources and either print them out and ghetto-lightbox (lmao) it by tracing it over a window or sliding door onto some cheap copy paper, and then from the outline/base that you’ve traced, try to go over it again and again, breaking down each area into simple shapes and using the silhouette you’ve traced as a guideline. Don’t feel guilty and don’t feel like it’s “cheating”, because you’re not claiming the work as yours, you’re just using it as an exercise. If you feel really guilty tracing, you can also do direct copies as exercises. Any of the links I posted above can help you out a lot too. While tracing/copying/practicing, really draw the skeleton and muscles underneath the skin so you understand where things are, think about them especially in three dimensions (maybe even try to draw the same pose/figure in a different angle and see how well you do) and then from there, move to copying images and using references without tracing. Obviously tracing is not ok in the long run, but if you’re really having difficulties using reference, tracing is a great way to start, as long as it doesn’t develop into a habit later. You can move from tracing, to copying, to properly creating your own works with references.

This link in particular would be very helpful to you —-& human proportions

As for specifically manly looking men, the Olympics are going on right now and there is an abundance of sexy, muscular “manly” women with big awesome muscles and broad shoulders. The trick to making women look manly is really in the shoulder imo, since women can’t really help having larger hips than men… the female pelvic is just a bigger bone. A manly silhouette is often defined by the upside down triangular silhouette, so by bulking up women on the upper body, they will appear more masculine. Conversely, you can slim down the torsos of men to make them appear more feminine, though I personally will argue that appearing masculine/feminine also has a lot to do with body language and posture. 

Try searching for photos of female olympic athletes!! The swim teams are mega-toned, or the javelin throwers/uneven bars/any arm-heavy sport would be great reference for really top heavy athletes. Actually just all of the olympics is any anatomy-reference-seeking artist’s dream come true because they all keep their bodies in amazing shape.

Let me know if you’d still like me to redline your piece with some manly-lady anatomy! Hope the tips help! And sorry I’m so long winded…. lmao :X

Asked by Aurasong

Answered by Finni.