Anterior and Medial Muscles of the Thigh
A grayscale illustration of a cadaveric thigh specimen from Grant's museum
Type
Anatomical Illustration
Tools
Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator
Client
Prof. Dave Mazierski (MSC1001Y)
Target Audience
Anatomy students and undergraduate students learning anatomy
Date completed
December 8, 2021
Goals
To depict the muscles of the thigh as in a live specimen
Anterior and Medial Muscles of the Thigh
A grayscale illustration of a cadaveric thigh specimen from Grant's museum
Type
Anatomical Illustration
Tools
Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator
Client
Prof. Dave Mazierski (MSC1001Y)
Target Audience
Anatomy students and undergraduate students learning anatomy
Date completed
December 8, 2021
Goals
To depict the muscles of the thigh as in a live specimen
Process
This illustration is based on a dissected specimen in Grant’s museum (University of Toronto). During our dissection class, I found the muscles of the leg so beautifully arranged. Their volumes intertwined with one another and all of it seemed to fit perfectly functionally. I wanted to depict these muscles in an illustration so that others could also appreciate these anatomical structures.
Sketches
I first started with a few sketches of the specimen. In these roughs, I focused on the muscles’ overall shapes and relations to one another (left) along with the directionality of their fibers (right).
Render
Taking the sketch into Illustrator first, I traced each major structure using the pen tool, giving them different shades of grey so that it would be easier to differentiate. Then the overlay is imported to Photoshop where basic soft shading in clipping masks is utilized to give the muscles volume. I focused on keeping the muscle tone even throughout the illustration (since they are of the same cellular structure) while increasing the contrast between the muscles, bones, and ligaments.
Detail and adjustments
As I continued to build the muscle structure, the directionality of the lines was very important. Using very subtle tonal gradations through a soft brush, I was able to create realistic depictions of muscle fibers and volume.
Then, using a harder brush, I added specular highlights to the muscles to simulate top-left lighting. Using Dodge and Burn tools the tonal variation of each material was adjusted further to keep it even throughout the illustration.
Finally, the text overlay was placed in Adobe Illustrator.
References
- Agur, A. M. R., Dalley, A. F. (2017). Grant’s Atlas of Anatomy (14th ed, pp. 491-493). Wolters Kluwer.
- Majid, A., Majid D. (2016). M&M Essential Anatomy (3rd ed, pp. 55, 174). Pearson Learning Solutions.
- Netter, F. H. (2019). Netter Atlas of Human Anatomy (7th ed, pp. 482). Elsevier.