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If you already have a very good understanding of the human body, you may find this useful for very specific poses. You can't learn much about basic anatomy when your references are all squished up so that the shoulders look giant and the legs are half an inch long.
I needed to learn a lot about anatomy and don't exactly have the space or means to hire models for my own reference photos, so I figured something like this would be perfect. I was pretty excited about this book when I first checked it out.
Many shots are, as one reviewer said, at extreme or odd angles instead of more natural ones. However, after owning it for a while and attempting to draw from it, I realized this book is not good for beginners.
If you're just starting out and are not adept with anatomy yet, you'll probably find many of the poses useless. Plus, the models are pretty short, considering the references are intended for a comic artist.
The most positive thing about this book is probably the lighting, which was done very well.
This book is truly a good idea but between the selection of models and less-than-good photography it falls short. The female models in this book are beautiful, but unless you are looking for short and slightly thick this is not the book for you. Comic artists rarely draw women of this body type. The one positive thing I can say is that for the money you are getting quite a bit of content.
Even the ones on the enclosed CD-ROM. There's a lot of important detail in the tendons/bones/toes that is completely missing from half the images in this book.4) The lighting creates strong shadows. BAD) things about the photograph are as follows:1) The images are SMALL. I'll list the GOOD, then I'll list the Not-So-Good (aka. Frankly, I wouldn't buy it again. It may seem like a small thing, but not showing the feet is kind of huge.
And two of them don't take their socks off.
Seems like the largest they get is around 700-800px on the longest side.2) The camera's focal length causes the subjects to look distorted (ie.
Good because you get some nice play of light across muscles/tendons.
BAD).The best two things about this book are:1) A decent amount of images therein show the models in clothing (cloaks, some street clothing).2) There's some decent reference of models holding weapons in "battle" poses.That's it, really.The *not* good (ie.
This could be good or bad.
Huge hands close to the lens, tiny feet far away).
For example:http://is.gd/21M03) Only 4 models total.
Bad because sometimes parts of the model cast shadows on their face/etc, and obscures expressions and such.All in all, it's OKAY.
I'll keep it now that I have it, but my recommendation is to look elsewhere for a good reference book.
The book would be ideal if it was wire-bound, and you could flip to a certain photo, then lay the book flat to draw from it. Otherwise, it's hard to keep it open to one page without clips, clamps or otherwise incovenient tools. While the CD is helpful, leaving the computer on the whole time to draw from it wears your eyes out quickly.
The "extremely positive" reviews here are no doubt either people who fall into this newbie category or friends of the author looking to help him out by placing positive reviews. The content is average at best and the CD doesn't even contain ALL of the images found in the book which I thought was very misleading to the customer - you have to scan the images not on CD that you want - what a waste. I was very disappointed after purchasing this book. Pass on this one or get it used / discounted somewhere. You can do better by finding image references through Google Images and those are free. This book has some value, perhaps if one is just starting out, but hardly a top resource for anyone else. Not worth the full price that's printed on it. I was suckered.
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