Lifelike Heads: Discover your "inner artist" as you learn to draw portraits in graphite: 8 (Drawing Made Easy)

This book is excellent. It's very detailed workshop in a book and worth at least twice the cover price. It's also a very handy size measuring 16cm by 24cm, so one could easily carry this with them as a useful reference. The book contains an Introduction from the author Lance Richlin, who immediately lays down his teaching style, and is both inspiring and motivating. "Here's some good news. There's no such thing as talent. Talent is actually developed by combining good technique and practice. In the 25 years I've been teaching, I've never had a student who didn't learn to draw after following directions and practicing. Of course, regular beatings are also essential." Lance goes on to say as a beginner you are 60 heads away from being a good draftsman and about 100 away from becoming an expert. This book is a must have for any aspiring artist who wants to learn to draw and paint portraits. The book continues with the same approach with chapters on Materials & Basic Techniques, Shadows and Highlights, How To Light The Model, Anatomy of Faces, Planes of the Head - "I once knew a boy who didn't use Steps A and B, and he was carried away by a troll.", General Proportions, Facial Features - ears, eyes, noses, mouths and hair, and Facial Expressions. This is followed by four specific projects - Man, Woman, Young Girl and Young Boy. Further chapters include Improving Your Work, Including a Torso, Working Within a Limited Time, Laying a Profile, Drawing Babies, Drawing Older People and Drawing Different Races, followed by the author's Artistic Philosophy and a section Beyond Portraiture.

I have several books on drawing people and all of them teach you how to draw from photos and using the grid method and I have had very good results so I thought I would try drawing lifelike portraits free hand. I have just finished reading the book which was very informative however I have not yet had time to try any of the lessons yet. One thing worth mentioning the author Lance Richlin recommends, starting with photos before asking someone to sit for you! In my case as a pensioner it takes me between twelve and eighteen hours over several days to draw a portrait from a photo anyone willing to sit for me would need the patience of a saint! This book is well written and easy to understand

I've now got quite a collection of these fantastic books, the price is great !!! I can't get away how cheap they are at times, especially the drawing made easy ones, the above I love like all the the rest I have. I'm a student artist and these books are just brilliant to compliment my studies. I'm doing portraiture at the moment so this will be great. The pages on tools is great and the steep by steps are so easy and well thought out. Of course you still need to do your practice and more practice but with this book and others in the Walter foster library you know you are getting really good advice & lessons on some of the best artists in whatever genre you want. Buy this book and others, you will not be disappointed

Great for the beginber, there are plenty of exercises to try out in this book. Good service and delivery.

I draw portraits as a hobby, and sometimes they come out pretty decent. However I always struggle with getting proportion and realism. Lance is pretty good at pointing out how to observe anatomical structure, and defines several steps to take to get a decent drawing from laying in a plumb line to measuring negative space and shading. There are around 7 different kinds of shadows that I learned about from this book. I would recommend it as a useful guide to better portrait drawing. It's not expensive but is very helpful. Lance's drawings shown in this book demonstrates how good an artist he really is.

I have a Number of Full Print Copies of these Style Books. This is Tiny and a ramdon collection of photocopied portaits and random objects like an Egg,showing a muddied rendition of shading techniques on top of (also Blurred) Master Class Anatomy Perspective of the Human Head. It lacks the addition of detailed information contained in the Full Content of authentic Print Copies. Not for Beginners Wanting to Learn Concise Drawing Skills. Poor Quality Presentation

Excellent price used, quite concise and helpful, but it's well worth checking out the Loomis method (e.g. Youtube) as well.

I've not dug that deep into this, I admit, but from the books I have and have used and looked at this one looks very professional very comprehensive. Focusing only on heads there are many examples and explainations of the component parts of the face such as the ears eyes nose and the most crucial element the spacing and proportions of the head. I can see I will learn a lot from this and considering it was £4.99? I think this deserves to be a best-seller I am going to investigate any other books in the same series now!

Love the book!!..I got it as I had improved from it lot in my past practices which I did from renting it from friend...glad got it!!

This book has helped me so much. I’ve always had trouble drawing portraits and the detailed instructions taught me how. Very easy to read and follow. When I was done with a project I was amazed at how easy, fun and good I drew.

I guess there are at least two major approaches to drawing. One that drawing is to learn to see accurately and then put it down on paper. An approach taken in books like drawing on the right side of the brain by Betty Edwards. And the other approach that learning to draw is to learn thousands upon thousands of details. Learning where muscles are, the bones, tricks and technics. If that latter is your idea of drawing this is a book for you. If you think a more relaxed approach is what you want I say avoid this book because it will just confuse you, not give you any confidence, no happiness and definitely not teach you to draw on the right side of the brain. So, if you are the type of guy that thrives on details (and there are such people) I say buy this book, it is filled with details, it is overflowing on its small pages with details. If such a flow of details is difficult for you, you will just feel frustrated when you cannot remember - or understand - them all. So then avoid this book. Unless you want to browse through it to find perhaps some gem. Butyou will not have fun like when following a book such as Mark Kistlers book "You can draw in 30 days". Which is a book without the depth of Drawing on the right side of the brain, but you learn some and have fun. I liked that book by Mark Kistler. But books in the "for the absolute beginner" series such as Drawing nature for the absolute beginner are more inspirational to me. More what the "art" in drawing should be.

The book is very good; It has lots of useful portrait, drawing and shading tips and instructions in such a somewhat small book to help an Artist, (Like Me) re-learn and refresh their confidence and skills in pencil portraits and portrait drawing in general.... thank you!

Cet ouvrage est conforme à sa description, les commentaires positifs sont vrais et fiables ! Je voulais son alter ego en Français mais il n'est plus disponible pour l'instant ! Compte tenu des dessins et d'un niveau de description correcte l'anglais n'est pas forcément un souci ..... Il vous obligera peut être à reprendre votre dico Harap's shorter des familles mais c'est pour la bonne cause ! A mon sens un peu plus de modèles n'auraient pas nuit ..... DONC un peu plus de pages mais bon.... C'est du concentré.... et de bonne facture ! Petit message pour le ou les détenteurs de ce livre qui veulent le vendre d'occas à un prix prohibitif...... J'ai vu 120 euros..... Là je vous dit NON.............. Arpagon sort de ce corps..... Faut quand meme pas exagérer ! Néanmoins, un bel ouvrage qui vous contentera et vous fera surement progresser !