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Seeing The Planes Of The Nose With Anatomy

You probably look at faces everyday. You may think because of this, you would be able to draw noses without too much trouble. Noses, in my opinion are not intuitive to understand. Most references break down the shapes of the nose using triangles and circles. Instead - consider, understanding anatomy to see the basic planes of the nose.

Something that helped me a lot is buying a human skull. It helped me with drawing and better understanding of where and how everything fit together.

This blog is only about the anatomy of the external nose.

basic nose anatomy

If you touch the ridge of your nose, you have the cartilage of nasal septum. What is the cartilage? In this case, the cartilage is a fibrous connective tissue. But it can also provide a model for the formation of most bones in the body

Fun fact! Bones will stop growing, but not cartilages. So your nose will get bigger with age.

The cartilage of nasal septum joins the lateral nasal cartilages. Inferior, you have the fibro fatty tissue and the alar cartilage, What is alar? Alar is defined as the wing.

What is the difference between tissue and cartilage? Tissue is a bundle of similar cells that form a structural material for a specific function. Cartilage is a specialized form of connective tissue.

Your nose is made of veins and arteries. Why is this important for the artist? When you are painting, Think about color. Use warm colors, not cool to not only represent the underlying structure but also the warmth of the nose.

Next step is to outline the nose to understand the planes. There's a free Windows application call Zoomit. Zoomit allows you to draw on the screen.

blender model of nose

I also have 3D model I made using blender to create the structures of the nose. I can move the 3d model to different perspective and views to help me visualize the anatomy I talked about. If you think this model will be helpful to you. Let me know in the comments below. I will create a phone app.

You may download the the nose references here and here.

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