Medical illustration, or biomedical visualization, is the practice of biomedical communication, specializing in visual representations of aspects of medicine and science. Common forms of expression include digital art, physical modeling, 2d animation, 3d animation and app development, among others. Biomedical illustrators are able to utilize their strong drawing skills together with their background biology, botany, zoology and other sciences. Medical illustrators draw a wide range of subjects from surgery to human and veterinary anatomy; animal life and plant life; chemical, molecular, and atomic structuress, and geologic and planetary formations.
As a student medical illustrator, I knew what I wanted to learn. I wanted to wrap my mind around the science and the drawing skills I would require in the future. I already had an undergraduate degree in zoology, and our courses in the Division of Biomedical Communications were to be shared with the medical students at the University of Toronto, so science was heavily on my mind.