When drawing the human figure, artists look for various surface landmarks. These can be soft surface forms, such as muscles, tendons, ligaments, and fatty tissue, or hard surface forms, which are places where evidence of the skeleton can be seen on the surface of the body. Hard surface forms are also known as bony landmarks— parts of bones (ridges, bumps, depressions) that are positioned close to the skin, creating visual landmarks on the surface form.

The following drawings provide a general guide to where the main bony landmarks are, as seen from both the anterior and posterior views. Whether you can see these skeletal clues on a live model will depend on both the pose and the model’s body type. On some figures, fatty tissue may obscure much of the evidence of the bones, while on leaner figures it will be easier to see bone definition at several places on their bodies.