A Good Reference Book Overall First off, I have to say I was very impressed at the beginning of this book. The starting chapters, covering some perspective and posing, detailed skeletal and later muscular structures were very well done. The skull, hand and feet sections were in depth and very helpful and detailed.
However- when they started into full body poses I was remotely annoyed. Most of the poses and references they gave for men were in action. Throwing something, or starting to run- pictures that neatly expressed the male body in motion. That's all very nice and well, but I would have enjoyed seeing more relaxed forms as well. Not all my work and other people's work with men is drawn in motion! Quite a bit is still.
And when we move into the woman, there's no action at all. Mainly references draw for woman who are stretching, or reclining and a lot of these poses are from 'suggestive' views. It's also slightly annoying to find 10 different views from which to draw a female crotch and the male subjects mysteriously elude this area. While we're at it, not all female's breasts are aroused 24/7. It's not truly necessary to draw nipples on every figure.
This whole extra fascination with the female body is perhaps more annoying to me then others since I originally got this book hoping for help on male anatomy- since if I truly need a reference for a female form I can simply go into the bathroom.
It would have also been nice to see more variations in the male/female models. In general a nice reference book, though it could have covered a lot more in some areas and a lot less in others.
Excellent for Animation students I've collected many anatomy books, but what makes this one unique is that it shows both the simple (shapes) and finished drawing in several camera viewpoints, and illustrates muscle changes (like when raising an arm), again both in simple (rough animation) and finished work. This is perfect for animation so we can study how the body shifts in a clean illustrative format. I particulary like how they illustrate the diffrences in gender proportionately. Made my life much simpler. Once you know how to draw the anatomy correctly yet cleanly, it's easier to adapt it to more complex or more cartoony forms. A must have!
not really manga the artsyle on the cover is Extremely Missleading~! It Will only show how to draw "realistic" style manga anatomy. The women model is also rather man-ish looking. So its not what i expected at all and i'm kind of Dissapointed. There is also a very Weird p2 page spread of up-crotch shots that i can only imagine are there for H-manga refrences.
How to draw manga The entire experience was amazing. Shipped earlier then expected, in pristine condition, no hassles no worry.
The product itself is great. The guide truly helps with the basic structure of drawing characters anatonomically correct. It's always better to learn how to draw something right first and then learn how to break the rules later.
what are we, children? This is a decent book that shows how to draw the human form. Not necessarily from a cartoony, *manga* perspective but the way the body actually looks. If you don't see how that could improve your skills as an artist, well...
The main reason I wanted to post this review was to comment on the juvenile attitude of many of the other reviewers. This is an anatomy reference. That means pictures of the human form in different positions without clothes. I wonder how serious these artists are not to know that. It may shock them to know that life drawing classes often hire nude models to sit around in the middle of class just so the students can get a better understanding of the human form. This is NOT PORNOGRAPHY and is no different that the photo anatomy references you can find in the art section of any major bookstore. The breasts are shown but who cares? the genitalia is not shown, just a bare patch. For some reason they drew shorts on the guys but not on the girls, but naughty parts are not visible on either so really who cares? This kind of panicky, knee-jerk conservatism makes me ill.
Sorry for the rant but really, this is an totally decent book that has been much maligned for no good reason.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
