Monthly Practice Challenge #1

Humans/humanoids are not my drawing area of expertise. I believed up until around my sophomore year of college that I had no real use for knowing how to properly draw people (a lack of anyone telling me otherwise both in and out of school did not help me, nor did the lack of figure drawing in highschool help promote my wanting to learn).

I've practiced a bit over the past few years but there are some things that still aren't quite clicking. In hopes that I'll be able to churn out better proportioned figures in the near future I have taken it upon myself to set up a challenge.

Within a month's time (I started a day ago, this will be until a month from then) I am going to draw the human skeleton everyday. Each day I will focus on one particular body part and draw it from multiple angles multiple times until I have a basic understanding of the structures and am able to replicate them on a basic level without the use of a reference. I will move from structure to structure and learn how each area connects to the rest of the body until by the end of the month I should be able to draw a basic human skeleton without need of a reference.

I have started with the human skull and have only gotten a handful of sketches done for 3 angles.

(I hastily took these with my laptop's webcam so they appear more lopsided than they already are  C; )

For the skull reference I am using the photos given in Facial Expressions A Visual Reference for Artists by Mark Simon. I plan to use an anatomy book I picked up in a bargain section in Borders before they closed for the other skeletal references.

Hoping by the beginning of next month I'll have a better grasp of human anatomy and proportion!