The best Human Figure Art books: Reddit reviews

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

If you're serious about learning and this isn't a shitpost I would suggest reading through
https://www.amazon.com.au/Drawing-Head-Hands-Andrew-Loomis/dp/0857680978
and
https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-Invention-Michael-Hampton/dp/0615272819

You could probably find them online if you can't afford to buy them. Working through those books and practicing what they teach will help you see massive improvements. As much as people will say to just keep practicing, it's important that you practice correctly lest you get into bad habits.

This. A thousand times this.

I highly recommend Figure Drawing For All It's Worth, by Andrew Loomis.

This will teach you everything from dynamic figure drawing to perspective. This was essential to every comic book artist of my generation and before. Not so much for the artists (and I use that term loosely) today, and it shows.

Measuring! When I was first learning how to draw the figure I measured it constantly. After you do it enough you'll eventually get a feel for it and you'll measure less and less until you don't have to anymore.

I suggest looking at a book like Andrew Loomis' Figure Drawing. He shows you how to measure, even in more difficult poses.

For a simple explanation, the standard figure is about 8 heads high. Obviously, people can vary in height so I would look at pictures of people at different heights and measure how many heads high they are.

If the pose is curving, be sure to measure following the curve.

For arms, the distance from your shoulder to your elbow is the same as the elbow to the wrist, and the wrist (when at your side) lines up with the bottom of the pelvis.

Your legs are similar. The hip to the knee is the same as the knee to the ankle.

This might help with a visual breakdown lol but I hope that gets you started :D

Unclear without context how long you've been drawing, but, good on ya for posting! A couple of bits of crit:

Have you read Hogarth's Dynamic Anatomy? (US Amazon link, but I'm sure if you sail the seven seas you can find PDFs). Was very helpful to me as a teenager trying to figure out drawing bodies, even without life-drawing classes.

Your colors are all really saturated. I still have to fight this today. Part of that's a stylistic thing (your face style says "anime/comic" to me so full saturation is less of a deal?) Maybe try experimenting with slightly lower saturation though and see where that takes you?

Your colors also don't seem to be picking up any of the blue light from the water. You might want to look at some photos of underwater dance to see how the lighting is. Again, I think you're going for a more stylized manga/comic illustration look so you don't have to lean in so far to that, but it might be helpful!

There are a lot of good ones out there!

For beginners, I feel it's important to learn how to break down complicated shapes into easier shapes. A great book for that is: Morpho Anatomy for Artists it breaks things down geometrically.

When I teach anatomy, I have my students try gestural studies. These are super fast, barely there drawings that last for 20 seconds. You can do them while watching TV, or sitting at the coffee shop etc. The goal is not to create a complete or realistic drawing, far from it, the goal is to quickly identify the tough shapes and forms. A head is a circle, the torso is a quick S shaped curve to represent the spine, a horizontal line to express the tops of the shoulders, and an oval for ribs. It's basically like a glorified stick figure. But doing this will train your brain to recognize how the body moves how weight is balanced and how long the limbs are compared to the rest of the body. You can make a game of it, like how far can you get into the gesture drawing before the person moves out the TV scene changes?

Here's an excellent video on gestural drawings: (not my video) https://youtu.be/KVXOIBRdzPw

Just sketching whatever you feel like. Household objects, stuff like that. Then head drawing( This book is wonderful to start with) and/or gesture drawing. You could also look up some tutorials on drawing landscapes and do that, if you want to.

Learning gets more complicated once you become a little experienced and decide to study it more seriously, but you don't need to worry about that for now.

You have an eye for detail! Study anatomy, it will really breathe life into your work. I recommend Andrew Loomis' book on figure drawing. You can also get an ebook of it on Google Play for dirt cheap.

There's a Loomis method for the whole body. His models have easily memorable proportions and are built up over layers so you can see how he gets from each step in his thought process.

I suggest stating with those learnt o draw tutorials to understand humans faces

this book is incredible at vreating the basics. This also just takes time

Read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Complete-Guide-Facial-Expression/dp/0823004325/ref=sr\_1\_2?crid=3IRKHOJA0EI1H&keywords=facial+expression+for+artists&qid=1665435621&s=books&sprefix=facial+expression+for+artist%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship...

There is nothing in this world that I can recommend more than Burne Hogarth’s Dynamic Anatomy. This is the single most important book I have read for my artistic education. Read it, copy it, or whatever you have to do, but it will change how well you draw.

If there is one book I would recommend that teaches you all the basics of anatomy simply and easily: Morpho: Simplified Forms by Michel Lauricella

In youtube video; Marco Bucci makes quick and understandable videos, he teaches all the basics and more in terms of composition, color, strokes etc.

Study the 8 head Loomis proportions for ideal anatomy, study Proko construction models for building individual pieces of anatomy, and study a method for building gestures so you can draw people fluidly in dynamic poses. Loomis' mannequin process from Figure Drawing For All It's Worth is an okay way to learn the mannequin, but I personally find Samantha Youssef to have a far better approach with her gesture process.

You then want to draw from life, either from pictures, paused videos, or models in real life. The point of learning a gesture process is to be able to put down drawings that capture lots of information from quickly looking at a person. You should be able to capture the foundation of a person and a pose within 30 seconds of line work and major body masses. It'll look like a glorified stick figure but it'll have so much information for who you're looking at that it provides the foundation for building each form of anatomy.

If you learn a gesture system that let's you put down dynamic pose information within seconds to minutes, then you can go to a public place and observe people moving around to draw them. You can also find local art colleges / art studios that host public drawing classes where they bring in models for you to draw and study while they hold a pose for a long time.

The point is, learn how to build the body parts individually, learn how to set up a loose, quick gesture wire frame that let's you get your whole mannequin down as fast as possible, and then sculpt that mannequin to fit your model with as much detail as you want.

If you only have a small amount of time to practice then spend a lot more time studying. Examine the things you want to improve on for a couple of days without practicing, then spend a whole session trying to draw and paint that out.

Like if you wanted to improve on hands you could study the proportions and characteristics that make hands look like hands one day, then the next day draw and paint out a ton of hands according to the study session from the day prior.

Drawing doesn't actually teach you anything, it let's you work out the ideas you've spent time studying so that you can remember them. If you're drawing from a reference then you're going to get better at drawing that particular reference, but if you study construction models, planes of forms, painting techniques and processes, etc. that are larger than a single reference I find growing is faster.

For example, when I bought Figure Drawing For All It's Worth I read the entire book in one sitting. It took a few hours but when I was done I had a much more robust understanding of what I was missing and that helped me practice with more focus on my weak areas.

Allow me to introduce you to my man Loomis. There are grids in there with front, side, and back views for male and female proportions. I'd recommend getting the book, reading it, and drawing those poses out in 8 headed grids until you memorize the anatomy markers. If you want to understand the three dimensions of an object, then draw all three of the faces. Your brain will bitmap that together when you start drawing things in odd rotations. Then study individual body parts that give you problems.

I have various folders on hard drives and if I need them on the go I will upload them to someplace like imgur. I will reference physical books as well but it is not something I always bring with me. It is why I like the little Morpho pocket books.

I do find constantly looking at a computer for my reference to be distracting due to how easy it is to click and look at something else. It is why some people recommend not having your work computer be connected to the internet.

The head and neck are too small for the body. Also proportionally, thighs are almost never same size or larger than the waist. There are some incredible old school art books that teach about proportion and anatomy, it'll make drawing figures much easier for you. https://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Anatomy-Expanded-Burne-Hogarth/dp/0823015521

Get Gary Faigin's Complete Guide to Facial Expression. I picked up the book years ago and it's invaluable for identifying the key components of facial expression. You'll still need to be able to draw features and forms, but I took a look at your work and you'll be just fine.

Here's a video that does a quick flipthrough to give you an idea.

Your linework is really good and your shading is solid, but you know that already. If you'd like feedback on something that will give your work more comic-style "pop," itvs the perspective. I'd love to see someone with your natural talent use some of that Kirby-style dynamic perspective.

When I worked at an LCBS, we had a lot of established comic artists come in and I'd ask them a million questions. One of the foundational texts that they mentioned, other than How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way was Dynamic Figure Drawing by Byrne Hogarth. There's a lot of great stuff in there that will help you find the angles that work best for your style. The other trick they all said was to steal as much from Jack Kirby as possible.

If you are creating character art from imagination you should learn sketching first, and then move onto painting. Many of the artists you see blocking in silhouettes have already practiced the fundamentals of anatomy and form through sketching. "Figure Drawing for All It's Worth" by Andrew Loomis is a great place to start. Proko also teaches the Andrew Loomis method if you prefer videos.

I agree. The more you draw the better you become. Sara Tepes said in one of her videos that "practice makes progress" ... and that struck a chord in me as I had always believe that 'practice makes perfect" and I had not seen any type of perfection in my drawings. But, the more drawings I made the more I saw 'progress' and my drawing started to become better. So, the morel, is to draw and draw and draw and draw.

I would suggest "Figure Drawing for all it's Worth" by Andrew Loomis. It is probably the foundational drawing book.

You probably won't ever be in a life threatening draw-off, but I do have some resources if you are actually trying to learn.

The best place to start, in my opinion, is with Loomis "Figure Drawing For All It's Worth". He has about 5 pages that you can study and meditate on that will really get you off and running with the figure.

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https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986

No worries! The loomis method is a way of breaking up the face into components to make it easier to draw. It was created by Andrew loomis Drawing the head and hands . This is an example video of someone drawing faces using this method loomis example . I started using this method for some of the darling drawing I did on this subreddit and it make it easier to plan out the portions a bit more realistically.

If you don’t have the ability to go to a life/figure drawing class, there are some good books like Figure Drawing For All It’s Worth by Andrew Loomis can be a great help!

Sorry for the delay, but the anatomy book I used was just a general old booksale type of medical book.

But I have read about recommendations of this one, from older reddit posts.

Classic Human Anatomy

I can't seem to find the clothing book at the moment, but I'll get back to you if I find it.

No, they are not; they won't be in the US until 2029, I think, which would be 70 years after Loomis' death.

Here's Figure Drawing For All It's Worth brand new on Amazon; just scroll down on the page and you'll see links for the rest. They're about $25 each. Figure Drawing and Creative Illustration are the best of the lot; you can safely skip Successful Drawing, I think, as it's mostly about perspective and there are better books out there on the subject.

Start with a pencil and large drawing pad. Get the cheapest you can find because your drawings will be garbage. You need to learn the basics that you think you already know. Drawing an egg with a good shadow is tough.

Intro to drawing https://youtu.be/ewMksAbgdBI

Figure drawing book https://www.amazon.com/dp/0823015521/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_i_TummFbARSCP2Z

Right here is the 2011 edition (It's the one I use and I highly recommend it.)

And here is the sequel that focuses specifically on the proportions of the head and face. Also highly recommended.

If you were the only one who struggled with hands and faces, there wouldn't be books like this one dedicated to just hands and heads.