What is a good figure drawing text?
Asked by
nashish (
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March 17th, 2010
I am trying to improve my figure drawing skills and am looking for an excellent text to study from. I have looked at some books by Andrew Loomis and thought his work was very useful. However, I don’t like how he uses vague units of measurement like “heads” and, at times, just the plain word “unit.” His lessons would make more sense to me if he would just use inches or meters!
Anyway, if you know of any texts with step-by-step directions on how to draw human figures, please list them here.
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10 Answers
“heads” are the traditional unit measurement for human bodies, to get the proportions right.
But—I’ve found the only thing that can improve figure drawing is to take a figure drawing class. Spending hours and hours and hours drawing people (from figures) is about the only thing that’s going to make it better.
@grumpyfish I have taken a figure drawing class already and was wanting to continue practicing. I don’t think it’s impossible to learn from books so I was hoping someone could suggest some.
Anyway, thanks for the input.
I agree with grumpy. Best way to learn figure drawing is to draw live figures. They don’t have to be naked, but that helps too. If you already took a class, take an advanced class.
I laugh at the very notion of learning drawing from a text. You may as well learn to read by studying painting and sculpture.
What you might want to find, OTOH, is a book of photos of figures. I’ve seen one or two of them around (don’t remember names).
Rather than a book on HOW to draw figures, it’ll just give you the practice without the cost or time of going to a figure drawing class.
I’ve also done “drink & draws” with friends—just hang out and draw, taking turns doing 2 minute poses.
The only thing that might be helpful from a book is learning the various proportions… How many heads in a body, hands to a face, length of arm relative to legs, legs relative to body. Other than that… practice makes perfect. Good luck Leonardo.
I only draw anime/manga style. I just draw whatever comes to me…...
I took a figure drawing class a few summers ago and we used a book called “Anatomy for the Artist,” (I’d help you with the ISBN and such, but I haven’t seen it in years).
Like the others have said, you should take an advanced class since you’ve already taken figure drawing.
But if you absolutely don’t want to, I would recommend that book.
However, in all honestly, what I find helps me the most is just practicing drawing poses/bodies that you can find in magazines, etc. The benefit of a lot of practice is more than any book could offer.
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