Figure Drawing For Dummies

If your just starting out in your figure drawing journey, read this book first. This books provides a very good foundation which you can build on.

How typical. The art community, as inefficient as expected. A whole chapter on drawing materials - in detail! So overkill. Who cares about prices, sheesh, who's unable to search prices on line for art material prices themselves? Two or three pages would've sufficed, or just a table with websites to look them up on yourself. The anatomy parts, like the one on the human skeleton are woefully short. Many more pages have gone into explain in small detail how you shouldn't get too used to one brand of pencils. Because the company that makes them could go out of business, and then you might need to find pencils of a different company! Who would've thought! That's going to make you the next rembrandt to know!And much text on lamps, setting up a studio. For pete's sake. That's information that isn't relevant until down the way. People buy the book because they want to learn to draw, not because they're dying for info on what kind of drawing pads there are, and which one to get (almost anything will do in the beginning anyway). The skeleton is shown from 3 angles, and the 3/4th view is only talked about. Much is just talked about through text. Some chapters are better than others though, but still lack in detail - just not as much as some of the others. For instance, the part on rendering the figure by putting together simpler shapes is far, far, shorter than that on how drawing pads can be expensive, and how it's bad to use a flat desk! Or how pencils are relatively cheap, duh. What's explained by author is that it's not recommended to use square shapes, but instead use angular shapes to represent the body parts. But no details or recommendations on which shapes to use for the what body part, not even which the author favors, and why. How is a beginner supposed to know? Ok, don't use squares, use angular shapes, but for what, what muscles? Apparently, most of that energy and page estate went into details on what rubbers, pens, lamps, ergonomic chairs, desks etc to use! A fat chapter on that alone. Whereas, just a few pages on each anatomy topic.Also, some things are explained in text, that pretty much demand complementing pictures. Like a list of technical skeleton bone names, and text descriptions on where they're located on the body, and where they join with other body parts, without picture references!Example (not saying this is accurate) "The femur holds up the body and is slightly angled, and then connects with the ulna". But where's the picture reference? Nowhere, what a joke. Drawing is a visual subject.

yep... so I bought the exact same book to replace it. I haven't study the book carefully to talk about the techniques but seems like it is a fun book for you to learn the basic principles of figure drawing.

i bough this thinking i should learn to draw on my free time but then my free time was cut in half so i havent really picked up the book in a while. i have the kindle version so i dont have bunch of books laying around. it has great instructions though

Great for novice artists. Fun book.

Before I bought this book, I didn't even know that I could draw! But it has helped me to much! Easy to understand without confusing the reader! I love drawing a whole lot more!

This was a gift and they really enjoyed it

Quick source for reminders.

Bought this revised edition of Figure Drawing for Dummies after borrowing it from our local library. It's a brilliant guide for anyone taking those first steps in anatomical drawing and painting, and a real boon if you are put off by big thick anatomy books full of biological terms and long latin names when really all you want to do is get better at drawing people.Each chapter is chock full of drawing exercises, handy tips and notes to give you inspiration and direction in your work. Even if you're a fairly accomplished artist, you'll find this book helps you lose your built-in preconceptions about figure drawing.

This book was extremely useful in helping me to begin to draw figures. Figures are notoriously difficult to do so I wanted a book that would take me through it step by step, this book did it and did it in an interesting way with many techniques demonstrated with drawings that were easy to follow. I would recommend this book to all beginners who wish (like me) to learn to draw well. This is definitely the book to get if you wish to understand figure drawing. Figure Drawing For DummiesFigure Drawing For Dummies

I suppose, unless one has gone to Art School, most people will find difficulties in drawing figures. This practical book will certainly close the gap. In addition, various drawing techniques and methods of producing modeling are covered. This book contains art tuition that can be used far more extensively than just figure drawing, but the core coverage is tuition to an excellent degree. I am delighted with this book.

Good

bit too cartoonish for me but will help with the basics of figure drawing, just got to do the watercolour wash now