The Abstract Locomotive Figure

[holland]

This is the mannequin I personally use when teaching and studying anatomy, especially in the context of how it affects the body's ability to move and forms altered in response to movement.

It is explicitly NOT a proportional model nor design system, unlike mannequins intended to be used to produce finished works. The sole goal of the abstract locomotive figure is to increase student comprehension in anatomy lessons.

There are multiple levels-of-detail that can be used depending on what the student's previous knowledge level is or the context of the lesson. Ideally, irrelevant parts of the body will be drawn very simply, while relevant ones are brought up to the minimum level-of-detail needed to communicate the motion at hand.

[holland]

Table of Contents

I'll drop links here to navigate the thread with, so you can jump to the section of interest.

Underlying Logic

• Why simplify to this extreme?

[holland]

Why simplify to this extreme?

This model was developed in response to my own difficulties with learning and teaching anatomy.

I achieved believable figures at a pretty young age with an early version of Hol's Human, which was a simpler ball-jointed doll idea at the time. But actual anatomy would go in one ear and out the other, so the smaller details of my work suffered, especially when I got around to shading my figures and posing them in perspective.

There was always too much information being presented at once to digest or practice any of it. For example, an art book would be talking about a particular joint movement and yet insist on drawing both bones in detail. That's great for reference as an advanced artist, but for a beginner, it meant there was no starting point to practice that particular concept.

If you couldn't draw that bone's complex organic forms in perspective, you couldn't practice that joint type without making a lot of mental leaps. And in not being able to practice or simplify these concepts, there was nothing for more advanced ideas to attach to in the brain.

By developing a model that abstracts away the details that aren't relevant, I found anatomy much easier to pick up on, explain to others, practice, and assess.