what is the only bone of the skull that moves

WHAT IS THE ONLY BONE OF THE SKULL THAT MOVES HOW TO

The lower side walls of the cranium, in the region of the ears, are formed by the temporal bones. Viewed from the top, the skull is broader at the back, with prominences on either side known as parietal eminences. The temporal line arches back across the parietals, marking a distinction between the side and roof of the skull. The upper side walls and rear roof of the skull are formed by the parietal bones, which meet in the middle on top of the skull. If possible your subject should be a real skull, not another artist’s interpretation of one. (The squiggly lines that look like cracks are the sutures where different bones join up.) You should draw or paint these views of the skull too. Here are two digital paintings of mine, a front view and a side view. Almost all of them are fused together with sutures: rigid, fibrous joints found only in the cranium, which look a bit like stitches. The skull is composed of 22 bones, not including the teeth. The mandible is the only bone in the skull that moves, for example when you’re chewing or talking. The skull has two main parts: 1) the cranium and 2) the mandible, or separable jaw bone. (My personal recommendation is Classic Human Anatomy by Valerie L. There are plenty to choose from and they cover similar ground. I will try to cover the most important aspects here, but if you want to study the skull and muscles in detail, you should get hold of a good book of artistic anatomy. If someone has, for example, a steep forehead, or high cheekbones, or a receding chin, you need to grasp that it is their skull that defines those features.

WHAT IS THE ONLY BONE OF THE SKULL THAT MOVES HOW TO

We will explore in due course how to draw convincing heads of men, women and children of various ages and types – but first things first. Here we shall look just at the skull, and follow up with a look at the head muscles. These facial characteristics are rooted in the individual’s skull. Some people have wide heads, some have narrow heads some people have prominent cheekbones some have large protruding chins whereas others have hardly any chin at all. Anyone who has seen forensic reconstructions of faces of long dead people or even Neanderthals, based upon skulls alone, will have an idea of the importance of variations in the bony architecture in defining the individual features. Realist artists need to study the skull’s parts and how the muscles fit over them, and understand how these underlying structures define people’s heads and faces as we see them. Skulls, and the muscles and features built upon them, vary greatly, across ethnicities, the sexes and individuals, but the basic structures are the same for everybody. In the more practical world of artistic anatomy, the skull is the hard bone structure that gives form to the head. The skull has been a very powerful symbol in human cultures, whether to commemorate ancestors or as a warning of our mortality.

What is the only bone of the skull that moves