Media: graphite, photoshop
It’s ironic that the baby’s head is never shown, when the surgery is all about getting the full term fetus out, but it never became necessary to show the head.
Cesarean section surgical illustration, with emphasis on suture layers
Chicago’s International Museum of Surgical Science is calling for exhibition proposals for the 2010 year – the deadline is April 19! They are looking for medically related art (more than figure studies with anatomy), 10-15 in number.
It looks like they prefer highly conceptual pieces more than the stereotypical medical illustration work, but this is nevertheless a unique opportunity.
Currently, the following is showing from January 30 – April 17, 2009:
Dominic Paul Moore, “Put This in Your Mouth”
Laurel Roth, “Hope Chest”
Details about the exhibitions in general: Anatomy in the Gallery
Details about submitting proposals: Exhibition Opportunities at the IMSS
Final comps for the porcine surgical piece – in this case, the removal of both the ovaries and uterus. Steps were limited to 3-5 within 1 or 2 plates, plus and image for orientation, and minimalism in content was pushed. This kind of illustration would be in a journal, accompanying an article, and the idea is that those readers would have the background knowledge to be able to recognize these relatively abstract tissue shapes.
Media: crowquill pen and ink, Illustrator, final format in bitmap.
Porcine ovariohysterectomy, page 1
Porcine ovariohysterectomy, page 2
I tried rendering a few of my heart sketches on foam board – I’ve heard some fine artists get great results on this media, but they ended up being much looser than what I was going for. Not bad in and of themselves, but not great for the current project.
External view of normal heart anatomy, classic AP view
A cutaway view of the same heart
internal view of a heart with persistent ductus arteriosus
The last one is the most interesting – ductus arteriosus refers to the merged aorta and pulmonary trunk that’s present during normal heart development. Problems only arise when the heart doesn’t finish fully developing. Notable is the single great vessel feeding to both systemic circulation and pulmonary vessels, the ventricular septal defect, and the hypertrophic right ventricle, which needs to compete with the left for output. In these situations oxygenated and deoxygenated blood is mixed, the lungs are flooded, and all other circulation doesn’t get enough. There are sugeries to fix this that force the plumbing to be what they should, but unfortunately survivability in the long term isn’t great.
Unless you use a lot of surgical instruments often, it can be difficult memorizing/learning the myriad instruments common in surgeries. There are lots of surgical instrument catalogs online, but they’re not designed for educational uses and can have 100′s of variations. So here are a few sites online that clarify the more common ones, each with images that at least get the job done.
