Arm Drawing References For Character Design

Arm Anatomy Guide

From the fingertips up through the shoulder blade, drawing arms becomes much easier with an understanding of the anatomy of the limbs. Arms are relatively simple parts of the body to understand, but knowing the general structure goes a long way toward making accurate arms in drawings. We will look at the arm as a collection of five parts for drawing: the shoulder, upper arm, elbow, lower arm, and hand.

And don’t worry, we won’t get too bogged down in anatomical terms. We’ll mention certain muscles are necessary. Here is a simplified arm anatomy reference for drawing, but we’ll break down the components further.

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The Shoulder

The shoulder is the most mechanically deceptive part of the arm, as it attaches to the front and back of the torso. For example, the shoulder’s deltoid connects to the pectoralis major, the primary chest muscle. That means that the arm’s position affects the shoulder, which then affects the shape of the chest. This is something to consider when working on an arms-up drawing, as the pectoral muscle will be lifted. Think of it like a trajectory line; the shoulder’s position carries through into the chest. This is helpful to remember, even when designing cartoony characters.

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With the back of the torso, the shoulder will have a most obvious effect around the muscle known as the trapezius, which will affect the placement of the shoulder blade, more commonly known as the scapula. You also have the rhomboids that are attached to the scapula as well. The key here is that the shape of the blade runs parallel to the spine at rest, and the angle of the arm will change that angle.

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That is a lot about the shoulder, but anatomically, it is one of the most essential parts of making convincing arm anatomy references for art. Falling into the trap of drawing an arm attached to the side of a torso without accounting for how they are connected can result in arms appearing wonky.

Upper Arm

Thankfully, most of the other parts of the arm are simpler to understand and only require knowing a couple of muscles. It’s not like you necessarily need to know their names, but rather their position and how they appear on the arm. It’s beneficial to think of them in terms of shapes, as shapes have tremendous value in character design.

The upper arm features the bicep, the larger inner muscle that runs toward the inner elbow. This is the muscle that is used in cartoons to indicate strength. This muscle is usually the most noticeable when drawing and makes a good “shortcut” muscle in arm anatomy to give an arm more definition.

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On the opposite side of the arm, connecting to the back of the elbow is the tricep, which is a muscle that looks like a puffy “Y” shape. This muscle has a noticeable divot which you can emphasize in your arm muscle reference to give it more definition.

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Elbow

The elbow is a joint with specific muscles that are too much to get into in this guide. However, think of it as the hinge on which the upper and lower arms attach. The tricep attaches to the elbow at the back, while the bicep attaches to the front.

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When drawing the elbow, consider simple angles, like obtuse, acute, and right angles. The presence of muscles will affect the range of the potential angles, but having the elbow come to a point is an easy way to draw the elbow. Just remember that an elbow has a divot in the inner arm, so emphasizing that can create additional detail that makes your arm anatomy more convincing.

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Lower Arm

The lower arm, or forearm, consists of several muscles that connect the elbow to the wrist and hand. Of the muscles, there are two that you emphasize in your arm muscle reference drawing to provide depth to your art. Specifically, we’re looking at the brachioradialis and the extensor digitorum.

While a simple line to emphasize helps give an arm drawing some definition and volume, they are most noticeable when the arm is flexing; of the two, one is more likely to see the definition in the brachioradialis, on the inside of the arm.

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Hand

The hand is a complex part of the anatomy for artists that deserves dedicated coverage, which we just so happened to have already done. There are plenty of hand references in the article to work with.

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The key to drawing a hand is to think about the key shapes: there are a lot of rectangles involved.

Drawing Male and Female Arms

Surely there must be a major difference in drawing men's and women’s arms. After all, it’s possible to search for female arm drawing references, just as for males. However, the difference is not quite as stark as you may initially think.

The differences in arm anatomy in males and females are negligible - anatomically speaking, it is all the same. The difference in artistic representation and character design in arms between the sexes comes down to proportions and muscle development and tropes.

Historically speaking, women’s arms in many cultures do not have as much apparent muscle definition. That of course could be due to any number of reasons, but in many cases, it came down to the types of work or activities expected of women. Meanwhile, in that same sense, the muscles of men’s arms were usually seen with more definition due to the type of physical work that may have been expected of them. All broadly speaking, of course. 

This led to culturally persistent tropes when it came to illustrating the sexes: women would be given softer features than men, and that of course would include the anatomy of the arm. Things are a lot different today, of course. Acceptance of body types of all sorts has grown increasingly popular in art and character design. You can have highly muscular, defined arms on female characters, and that’s perfectly acceptable because women can have those features. A lot of inspiration comes from studying people.

With that said, in art and character design, tropes are still valuable to communicate aspects of a character. Even with muscular arms, the level of definition for men and women might come down to putting less definition on one versus the other.

Arm Anatomy References

When it comes time to pick up arm reference photos for your drawing, there are a few options. First on the list is PoseManiacs, a resource featuring renders of human musculature in different poses. PoseManiacs is a resource I use in my work. Between the pre-rendered references or the in-browser 3D viewer, you have plenty of reference material to work from. We’ve mentioned PoseManiacs before as an essential website for character design.

Second, there are always human resources, such as yourself and friends. You can have someone take photos of your arm, or take some of a friend’s arm, at the exact angle, position, and pose you need to reference for your art. It never hurts to build your reference gallery and people will help if you ask kindly about it. Just be sure your photos are well-lit and oriented appropriately to get the most from them.

Lastly, finding examples of arm anatomy you like in comics, cartoons, and other art is a big help. Here are some examples that I find to be particularly helpful. Consider making your reference collages to use in your art.

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Bearing Arms on CharacterHub

Part of great character design comes from practice and repetition. You’ll likely draw a lot of art based on arm anatomy references as you master your character design, so why let all the work go to waste in a folder on your hard drive? Using CharacterHub’s social features, you can upload the work you’ve done with the community, showing off your commitment to improving your craft but also providing arm anatomy references for other artists.

Of course, there is also the finished art of your OCs once you’ve mastered drawing their arms. CharacterHub’s profile feature enables you to upload your artwork on a dedicated character profile for feedback. So at any stage of the design process, consider CharacterHub an excellent place to document your character design journey.

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