Figure Drawing: Design and Invention

Great book, fast cargo. Thank you

Indispensable

Compared to the money I have paid for my art school, this is pretty cheap and yet way more valuable. It starts with gestures and everything you need to pay attention to when drawing these. Which is amazing because gestures are a fundamental skill, yet for the most part no one gives complete explanation how to approach them. So it can get frustrating and intimidating and it can lead to developing bad habits that will later translate into mediocre art. On about 25 pages Michael Hampton explains HOW to approach them and WHY to approach them that way. Instantly improved my gestures. Rest of the book is anatomy and it's pretty detailed too. Filled with illustrations showing different muscles, bones and landmarks of human body. Explaining how they interact and how simple volumes translate into body parts. There's a lot of anatomy books out there. The ones I have held in my hands were all pretty boring and underwhelming, until this one. It's well structured, detailed and offers not only direction but also reasoning for it, so you actually understand what you're doing instead of just doing what you're told. Which I believe is a more constructive way of learning.

O livro é um pouco menor se comparado ao "How to Draw", as quinas dele vieram amassadas por causa da entrega e na capa dele veio um liquido parecendo um creme, sem cheiro, sem cor e em pequenas quantidades (4 gotas), porém o conteúdo do livro (que é o que realmente importa) estava intacto. O livro é ótimo podem comprar sem medo, o conteúdo é maravilhoso e bem explicativo.

I can't recommend this book enough. IMO it has to be among the top 10 art books in any artists' library. The book is very thorough, accurate, concise, and a pleasure to study from and learn. Michael Hampton is an amazing teacher. He breaks down difficult aspects in figure drawing and human anatomy in an easy way for beginners to understand. Combined with his super clear color-coded diagrams, you know you are getting everything that you need to have a solid understanding of the topic. He uses references to refer to shapes of muscles (such as a goldfish or a dagger), so that students can remember easily how to approach drawing the muscles in perspective. He has enough anatomy information to aide the leaner in understanding the most important aspects that make sense to an artist. This is not a dedicated anatomy book, but it has enough information to get you started and it is such a valuable resource to get started on human anatomy for artists. Michael Hampton does the hard part of simplifying a very complex topic and he really eases it in. The information is blended nicely with how to draw the figure with amazing diagrams that will encourage you to copy and practice. During my figure drawing classes at school, our professor uses this book quite often. It is one book that is always present in class next to the overhead projector, to reach out to and use as a reference. Typically a class will be combining beginner, intermediate, and advanced (special projects) students studying the figure. This book is one of the favorite references for that range of skills. I personally have used this book extensively when I started studying and drawing the human figure and I still refer to it regularly now that I'm not a beginner. The book is filled with useful diagrams, tons of them. The text is just to the point, very focused on getting the ideas across. I have only two issues with this book: first, it doesn't contain an index. Second, it still doesn't have a volume 2! I would love to see an advanced version focusing on challenging and more advanced topics in figure drawing. Having a great teacher of Michael Hampton's caliper naturally leads to such request. If you are serious about learning figure drawing, grab this book!