Anatomy Quick Tips: Backs

Hey everyone! Sinix here and Anatomy Quick
Tips is finally back. This is of course my

series that seeks to help you develop a
shorthand for drawing reasonable looking

anatomy from imagination. So not quite as
fancy as Fine Arts level anatomy, but

definitely good enough for design and
illustration. Anyway, today we'll be

battling without dignity and attacking
those back muscles and related skeletal

features. Now there's actually a lot of
related content covered in the shoulder

and ab videos and I don't want to repeat
too much from those so I recommend

watching them if you haven't done so.
Alright, let's get into it, starting with

structure. On the skeletal side of things,
the main thing we'll be thinking about are

the scapulas, the spine, and the ribcage.
It's good to develop a consistent look for

how you normally draw the scapulas, so you
can either follow along with how I do it,

or figure out a simple shape that works
for you. These are going to be super

important for helping you form the
shoulder and also all of the back muscles.

The spine looks simple enough from the
back but never forget that it has a

strong S-like curve to it when viewed from
the side. Whether you're drawing a heroic

posture or horrible sloucher, that S-curve
does not disappear. Anyway, enough of that

nerd stuff, let's get to the literal and
figurative meat of things - the muscles.

I'm just going to sketch things out and
then give you some nice color coded

labels. Normally, I wouldn't be a stickler
for muscle names, but drawing the back

becomes increasingly dependent on
identifying these things. Up top in red,

we have my personal favorite back muscle,
the trapezius. I think I'm drawing them a

bit big on a lot of these drawings, but
traps are basically a little kite that

you get to give a nice little piggyback
ride to. Of course, we also have the

deltoids off to the sides, making up your
standard shoulder muscles. Diving into

the less famous muscles, we have the
infraspinatus, along with the teres major

and minor, covering up most of the area
above the scapula. If you're super serious

about these things, you can also know that
the rhomboid muscle connects the scapulas

to the spine, but it's not quite
superficial enough to warrant labeling, at

least not for my lazy anatomy. Moving
downward, the lats form another large

triangular shape along the back, and while
they can be quite thin, their overall mass

really helps define the classic masculine
back shape, just "Veeing" out from the

waist. Next up, traveling along both sides
of the spine, you have the erector spinae,

which despite being under the lats,
actually accounts for a lot of form in

the lower back, usually making a more
pronounced valley along the spine. So

those are all the muscles we want to care
about for now, but what if we want to get,

like, extra buff? It's important to
understand that muscles don't just fill

out evenly from connection to connection.
The muscle body is the part of the muscle

that actually gains mass - this results in
developed muscles tending to balloon from

the center and really rounding out the
form. The most common example of this is

of course the biceps, but it really
applies to all muscles. So if I want to

bulk up the trapezius, I need to expand
each main muscle body that exists in the

overall structure. One other important
thing to know about the traps is how they

connect and interact with the scapulas,
especially that upper inside corner of the

scapula. This is a very easy to identify
point that strongly defines the look of a

developed trapezius. I'm going to just
leave a little start for that here because

it is super important. Let's actually
jump ahead to movement for now. If you

want to see more on how raising the arms
affects the scapula, a lot of that was

featured in the shoulder video. Instead,
I'm going to focus more on how the anatomy

is affected by pulling the shoulders back
and pushing them forwards. I forgot to

mention it overtly but a developed
trapezius also leaves a bit of a

diamond-shaped gap right in the center
along the spine - sometimes I like to use

this as a useful landmark. Anyway,
bringing the shoulders back will squeeze

the scapulas together, leading toward an
overall narrower back silhouette.

Conversely, pushing the shoulders forward
spreads the scapulas outward and leads to

a very wide looking back. This stretching
of the width means that things will

flatten out a lot and you won't have any
extreme form shifts. In other words, you

don't need many lines to show this pose.
On the other hand, with the scapula

squeezed back, every muscle and tissue is
condensed into a smaller area, leading to

lots of lines and aggressive plane shifts.
So you can really crank up your sense of

ambient occlusion for this pose. Overall,
in any pose, it's still a great idea to

pay attention to that scap-trap connection
to really help guide your anatomy

placement. All right, I feel like we're
doing pretty good so far - I think it's

time to lighten things up a bit with some
good old Weeb Facts. If you've ever heard

of the manga/anime Grappler Baki, you may
know that it's quite famous for its

obsession with muscle anatomy. The most
notable example of this comes from the

series' toughest character, Yuujiro
Hanma. His back muscles were so perfectly

developed that they were said to take the
form of a demon's face. I'm drawing an

example of how this is generally
represented in the art and I'm curious if

this could actually be considered
realistic in terms of anatomy. So I'll be

doing my best to block out the different
muscle groups with different colors. For

the most part, the muscles are represented
properly; however, the amount of

definition in the striations of each
muscle is well beyond what anyone could

consider realistic. This is probably most
notable in the lower lats, which certainly

can become striated in certain cases, but
I don't think they can ever cleanly

defined in such a structured way to
resemble something like abs, or in this

case, an evil grin. So you'll probably
never see anything like this outside of

some questionable body modification - who
knows? Anyway, let's start condensing all

of this information down. You're probably
not going to be drawing giant muscles most

of the time, so let's figure out a more
realistic and common approach to backs.

We need to know when to show muscle and
when to show skeletal features on an

average figure. On a skinny frame, the
only notable feature that will probably

stand out will be the inner sides of the
scapulas and the spine. The erector spinae

is also one of the few muscles you might
notice still affecting the form around the

spine and lower back. Just remember, the
skin and flesh will mass in different ways

depending on the pose - but always keep a
sense of gravity and looseness in mind.

This becomes even more apparent as we
tackle a more average build; at this

point, the traps might have enough subtle
mass to them to start influencing the way

the skin is falling and creasing along the
back. The scapulas can also still have an

influence on how the flow of the flesh is,
but not quite as notably. You're really

going to have to logic your way through a
lot of these poses and figure out the flow

of things based on the traps and the
scapulas. A simple proportional grasp of

the scapula, trapezius, and erector spinae
will get you through probably 90% of the

figures you draw - well, probably with a
hint of lats thrown in also. Real fast,

I'll mention some common mistakes.
Without a doubt, the most common issue is

a straight line for a spine. Please put
some curves in your backs and continue

that flow all the way up and through the
neck. The next most common mistake is

probably one that we've all been guilty of
and that's using the same iconography and

lines on the back regardless of what the
poses or what angle we're seeing it from.

Remember, lines are indicating forms -
they're not just texture details on a flat

surface. Every time you see a complex form
from a different angle, the lines you use

to represent it should be different.
Approach every drawing situationally and

dynamically; you're solving 3D puzzles
here, not playing with stickers. And with

that, I think we're done with the main
talking points of this video. It's time to

have some fun and see if we've learned
enough to make some realistic looking

backs from imagination. I'm not gonna lie
though, I feel like some of these poses

I'll be drawing are just kind of silking
through my memory of things I've drawn

before figure drawing. I think I've just
drawn too many naked people. Anyway, I'm

trying to get a nice casual mix of muscles
and non-muscley backs; I think these 4

will do. The right two are a bit similar
but I guess my brain is just kind of

giving up on me. I know a bunch of people
will ask, so I'm just going to repeat

this stage yet again: painting over
saturated orange lines will lead to less

muddy colors later on, so I'm going to
add a lightened layer above my black line

art and fill it with a strong orange tone
and then merge those layers together.

After this, I create a new multiply layer
above the orange line art and start

painting in base colors. My only goal here
is to use different skin tones for each

drawing, although I quickly realized that
I made them all a bit too dull and

yellowish. But don't worry, I'll fix them
up more as I start painting things. The

base color stage is also a great time to
focus on a lighting idea - since these

colors are all from imagination, I'm free
to choose any lighting map that I think

will complement the forms well. Anyway,
everything has now been smashed back to

one layer and I'm just freely painting at
this point. I tend to talk about my same

painting method a lot, so instead of just
talking again about blending and defining

forms with hard and soft edges, let's talk
about something different. One popular

subject that always comes back around is
"What is the point of being able to

construct anatomy or paint realistic skin
tones from imagination?" The industry

standard is basically at a point where
using reference for anatomy, posing, and

colors is just considered the normal,
effective way to do things - especially in

a production-based field where the outcome
is the only factor that matters, which is

kind of my audience. So if you were
trained to work in the game or movie

industry, chances are you'll just be
Frankenstein-ing photo plates together and

painting on top of them, using color
palettes borrowed from other sources.

These types of methods are all as old as

art itself; old masters used camera

obscura and any trickery they could to

assist their paintings. Golden Age

illustrators generally staged every

painting first with photography and now

anime pinup artists use basically every

trick afforded to them by Photoshop in

order to create appealing art on a

consistent basis. It's all product based

art - the only limit in the past was

technology. Now that that limit is gone,

people spend more time questioning the

legitimacy of artists using these methods.

Historically, art was never really about

the process, just that result. So things

haven't really changed - we're just a

little more squeamish because of how

great the technology is. Anyway, I'm

rambling a bit, so let me refocus; I think

there is nothing remotely wrong with

producing art through whatever means are

available to you, as long as you're

obeying standard copyright and ethical

rules. So then, why am I doing things the

hardest way possible? Well, it's simple:

I fell in love with the idea of art. I

have a highly romanticized view of the

process, to a point where I don't actually

care about results. Let's be honest, my

body of finished work has not been

terribly interesting or had any real

mainstream appeal over the past handful of

years. It's a little lame but I'm fine

with it because my obsession is with the

journey of a painting and not really the

destination. In many ways,

"paintsploration" can be considered what

my actual idea of art is, a process to be

enjoyed, not a result to be enjoyed. I do

ask myself, though, "Will I ever switch

back to being a product based artist?"

Probably. There is a separate enjoyment

that comes from making hyper-appealing

finished products that bring joy to

people. Will I be able to do it in a way

that stays true to my romanticized view

of art? Well, one would hope, but probably

not entirely. Then again, the gods of

design and shape appeal might provide the

true golden path forward. Sorry, more

rambling. In short, I should really just

get back to doodling tons of cute girls

and robots and none of us should judge

people too harshly for choosing product

over process or vice versa. Hey look,

we're almost done with the painting

process! I tried to use some different

standard lighting gimmicks on each one -

the rim lighting on a couple, the direct

light and desaturated shadows on the top

one, and plenty of hue variation to go

around on each of them. Now, does anyone

here remember the main trick for painting

darker skin tones? No? No one? Well, the

forms on a light skin tone are defined

primarily with shadows, while the forms on

a dark skin tone are defined primarily by

the highlights. That might sound confusing

but try to associate it with the

difference between a matte surface and a

reflective surface - dark tones will

showcase a lot more environmental

reflected color and light. All right, I

think this painting is done so let's just

wrap this video up. Now you guys did bug

me a bit about not doing animations in the

previous videos, and I honestly just

haven't been in an animating mood lately,

but I'll give you guys 45 minutes of

animating to see what I can rush out.

And there you go - so it's lame, it's

messy, but that's about all I can muster

for this video. I want to thank you all so

much for watching this video. I hope you

got something fun out of it - maybe some

knowledge, maybe just some amusing

nonsense. Regardless, thanks for

supporting this channel. Feel free to let

me know down below what anatomy topic you

want covered in the next episode. Will it

be hair? Hips? Skulls? Skin? Elbows? Who

knows? We gotta finish this series

eventually, though. As always, the biggest

thank you goes out to my generous Patreon

supporters - you guys are continually

amazing and appreciated. And I know I'm

late again on updating the Patreon Discord

assignment. All right, see you everyone!