This piece was done for MSC2001: Visual Representation of Medical Knowledge. The assignment was to create a full colour rendering of an anatomical structure in a non-standard view that couldn’t be seen in a museum or atlas, with part of it cut away to reveal an aspect of its internal structure.

After deciding to draw the right lung from an anterolateral view with the superior lobe cut away to reveal the bronchi, I looked at specimens of bronchi and lungs under the supervision of Dr. Anne Agur. I took reference photos and did a sketch of the trachea and bronchi to get a better understanding of the structure.

I initially downloaded models from Anatomography for both the trachea and lungs, though after importing them into Cinema 4D, I found the lungs weren’t separated into lobes and the bronchi and lungs didn’t fit as well as I wanted them to. I used the Visible Human Model from Kristen Browne instead, which had separated lobes and more detail.

While I initially had only planned to do the right lung, I found having the left lung beside the right gave more context and made it more obvious that the viewer is looking at the right lung with a missing lobe.

I brought the lung and trachea models into Zbrush and removed the superior right lobe. I increased the poly count and smoothed the surface of the lobes to make it more organic.

I brought this cleaned up model into Cinema 4D and added lighting from the top left and reflected light from the bottom right. I gave it a somewhat glossy material to emulate the shininess of the pleura.

After considering my initial maquette, I decided to change the positioning of it. I wanted to make the bronchi look more separated in the vertical plane, as well as to hide the diaphragmatic surface of the lungs, which was distracting from the part I wanted to be most salient—the bronchi of the missing lobe. I also reduced the cast shadow of the trachea and bronchi.

I made a rough initial sketch to get a better idea of the forms. I traced the shapes in Photoshop, blocking in with colour, and cleaned up the shapes in Illustrator. I overlaid these over the maquette to reveal the form beneath.

In consultation with my professor, I revised the sketch to make the trachea rings more even, adjusted the position of the bronchi in the hilum of the left lung posteriorly to make room for the pulmonary vein, and added some outlines to more clearly delineate the bronchi.

I consulted with Dr. Anne Agur, an anatomy expert, and made a new sketch with some modifications so that the trachea didn’t bulge, the fissures of the lobes were in the correct places, the cardiac notch was higher, and there wasn’t as much of an outward edge on the right lung.

I traced the new sketch in Illustrator and filled all the shapes in with light grey. I rendered the image in Photoshop in greyscale and lightened the lines to make them softer.

While I experimented with copying a texture from a photograph of a lung, I ultimately decided to do the Voronoi pattern by hand to make it feel more natural. I made the outline of the lung less smooth to match the pattern.

I then painted over the greyscale rendering in a new layer with a colour blending mode. I painted over the colour layers with a brush to create more variation in hue and added strong specular highlights to make it feel more natural. I redid the Voronoi pattern to be more even.

Objective: to create a full colour rendering of an anatomical structure in a non-standard view

Audience: anatomy students

Format: 11x17” print

Client: Prof. Michael Corrin

Medium: Zbrush, Cinema 4D, Illustrator, Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint

Year: 2019