There was much talk about making fetuses (or feti as some like to call them) and babies this past week... As a warm-up for our medical-legal course, we were asked to choose an image of a full-term fetus from Williams Obstetrics textbook and rotate it by 90 degrees. This "mental gymnastics" exercise proved to be quite challenging and headache-inducing! Our professor wanted us to practice looking at reference images and drawing them from different perspectives - an important skill in medical-legal illustration.
Here are both the original image (left) and my transposition (right):
Fetus!graphite on paper, 8.5x11"
Process: I began blocking in the major shapes on a photocopy of the original image. I then pulled lines across the page to mark important landmarks. Once all the major landmarks were in place, I eyeballed it from there. The foreshortened legs gave me a ton of trouble (note evidence of excessive erasing at the fetus' left foot...) so I decided to make a crude plasticine model. I also referenced another image from William's Obstetrics for the fetus' back. After I was reasonably happy with the sketch, I traced over it and scanned the lineart into Photoshop to fix more errors (pointed out by a friend I hassled)! My digital rendering looked terrible so I printed it out and shaded it with graphite instead.
There was some debate during critique about how I portrayed the legs. The legs in the original look rather bendy (our perhaps my distorted perception was influenced by my love for Hyung Tae-Kim's illustrations lol) so although incorrect, I decided to keep them bendy in my interpretation as well lol! There are some other issues with my fetus but I think it's time to move on from this assignment and tackle the next ones!
7 comments:
oh man that looks like a lot of work for one image.. but I totally feel your pain.
This is very cool and it looks like you did a great job! I like that you always post your process, it is really helpful in forming expectations about my future assignments :)
This is not one I look forward to...
@ Helen: I think I've gotten used to doing many iterations and revisions after entering my program. Doesn't make it any less painful though, haha! Do you do art as well? :)
@ Andreea: Thanks! That's true - I'm giving you a sneak peek of what's to come! Our profs always emphasize "process" so I'm trying to get into the habit of keeping track and verbalizing it. :)
haha psychedelic is right XD I'm sure you have heard of OCAD? That's where I go lol making a typography poster for a wine so we have to taste our wine first ^_^ It's funny how last class people just whipped out their wine in class and started drinking LOL!
Wow, that's sooo awesome! Quit getting so good :P
looks great :) the rendering is awesome.
@ Helen: Oh yes, I often pass by OCAD when picking up stuff @ Aboveground. We're quite close to each other then! :D
That class sounds like a lot of fun!
@ Geoff: Haha thanks! Now if only I could somehow leech your Maya talents (which I have none of). I thought we were supposed to be the same person, damnit! :P
@ Peter: Thanks! I had fun rendering traditionally. :)
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