Comparative Anatomy

ONCE you understand the underlying structures of humans, and also understand that the underlying structures in animals are cut from a similar design pattern, it makes animal drawing a lot easier to demystify. When I was an art student one of my primary mentors Marshal Vandruff told me  once you are reasonably comfortable with drawing people the secret to unlocking animals is to "pick a favorite". What Marshal was getting at is this: If you figure out how to draw horses, dogs, or cats well, you unlock the other animals as well since the are so very similar in structure!

SKULLS

Marshall Vandruff

Cats...way smarter than fish

Skeletons 

Marshall Vandruff

Muscles

Marshall Vandruff

Legs

Marshall Vandruff

Marshall Vandruff

"Arms"

"Hands & "Feet""

Marshall Vandruff

Anatomical Terminology (below)

(For an in depth breakdown of anatomical terminology including: muscle names, latin name roots, location and locomotion download my class ANATOMY PACKET--->HERE )

Figure foreshortening---->HERE

Archetypical Male vs. Female forms--->HERE

Figure Construction-->HERE

Body type variation--->HERE

Skin painting notes tone variation--->HERE

Anatomical landmarks--->HERE

Anatomy self test--->HERE

Ultimate cheat sheet! 

There are approximately 30 anatomical form (excluding hands, feet and the head), that I recommend/command you memorize...I've attempted to clearly distinguish them above. See a plane based breakdown of the figure below:

Terminology: