Muscle Building

The process I used for building the muscles was looking at the photo and rolling out a piece of clay that is bigger than the muscle. I would use a clay knife to cut out a shape similar to the shape in the picture.
While I was building the muscles I learned how intricate the muscles are placed. I was surprised at how muscles interact with one another in the body. I didn’t realize all the wrapping and twisting muscles do around each other.

The frustrating part of the muscle building was figuring out the interaction between the muscles. To get beyond the frustration I had to study the pictures in the book and also look at outside sources (websites) that showed all the muscles on the skeleton at once. This was the biggest problem I had to solve when working with the clay.

Another problem I encountered was knowing how thick to build the muscles. I was able to solve this problem by again looking at the website sources showing all the muscles together. I was able to see all the layers need to fit and therefore could better distinguish how thick or thin to make the muscles. These frustrations helped me to learn the muscles in better detailed because I had to consult multiple sources.

The next clay assignment I plan to take more time shaping and placing the clay on the manikin. I also think it would benefit me to look at the function of the muscles more and try to feel that within my own body. This may help me place a visual with the feeling and understand the muscles better as a whole.

Tips I would share with my blog group members would be to look a long time before modeling and placing on the manikin. It is easy to look at something quick and think we know all the information to do the job. It helps to look at the book and where the muscles start, and stop and then to look at the manikin and find those spots before even touching the clay.

This understanding of muscles will greatly improve my drawing ability of the figure in class. Now that I know how the muscles are laying under the skin I can better see the curves and form of the model. It helps me to realize and remember that skin is thin and it is the muscles that create the plane differences on a figure.

Anatomical resources
Innerbody.com
Google Images Muscular System