Figure Drawing For All Its Worth

55 reviews 28 followers

Edited June 18, 2008

This is awesome. Okay, it's from the 50s, includes its share of -isms from the day and some of that overexburance of mine comes from the fact that this is available free of charge online (and what's better for a wanna-be struggling artist?). But the mathematician in me is also just bowled over by the attention to proportion ratios and visual guides for such (is it a freudian slip that I kept accidentally writing the letter k instead of h in the word such?). I am quite sure that there are many other books that will delve into the fine details of ratios and proportions and tell you the magic numbers you need to make you hero look...heroic and everyone else dumpy, fashionable or whatever fits your fancy. However, I stopped looking for a basic art textbook after I found this. My characters may not all need to look like the 50s pin-up women or Arian comic book men, but as long as you have a great foundation, you can go anywhere/draw anything. Afterall, no book is going to teach you to be creative and think outide the box/book.

56 reviews 11 followers

Edited January 8, 2018

I love this book. It's old fashioned but that's okay, especially when it comes to a book on drawing. I can't think of anything that would stop being relevant fifty years from now... The figures may be a little idealized in proportions but you can learn just as much from it. Andrew Loomis writes to the reader like a friend. This book is perfect for reading with a cup of coffee and your sketchbook nearby.

432 reviews 60 followers

Edited February 15, 2017

Enticing contours that will stir up your desire to try drawing few lines to see if you can replicate the shape of the woman or man you might like. Drawing is nothing else than a dance of the couple hand- pencil on a piece of paper- a mesmerizing one if you take your time and do not rush. The book has good explanations, and you never know, if you like how your combined lines look at the end, you might try few more times and eventually develop a new skill or advance the ones that you are already pretty good at. Inside the book you will find pictures with so many examples for the proportions to be used in drawing, face and limbs' muscles (p 60-65), projections in space of a body's mechanics. There is lots of very good help.
Here is the link.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/compressed.p...
Drawing is to me a way of having good time. I hope you'll feel the same. This book is a wonderful collection of drawings of the human body in the context of statics and dynamics!

54 reviews

Edited June 5, 2020

My manga illustration teacher introduced me to this book for basic human figure drawing and i've been using it ever since. Although this book is very old (first published in 1943), it is still a great reference book for figure drawing in my opinion. Check out my full reference books collection here: http://korpannita.wordpress.com/2013/...

October 7, 2014

When I got my hands on the original 1940s edition I felt immensely lucky.

It even came with an authentically quaint handrwritten message inside.

Put simply, this is the single biggest influence I have had on my artistic efforts (freelance for a number of years). The language is dated but the sentiment is not - Loomis wants you to succeed and he wants you to be hardheaded in achieving it.

The effects of light and shade, the anatomy of the human body, and the intent of the artist...are all explained in full.

I'll treasure this edition always, I make sure to flick through it at least once a year.

33 reviews 1 follower

Edited August 16, 2017

This will only make some small sense if you have a basic grasp of perspective drawing. It seems to be 90% Mr Loomis showing us what nice things he drew. We get it, he can draw things. There is almost no actual instruction that can help you when you draw something on your own instead of copying examples. I'd strongly recommend "Figure Drawing: Design and Invention" by Michael Hampton instead.

Loomis' "Successful drawing" was much more informative.

132 reviews 14 followers

Edited August 4, 2016

As an intermediate artist I found it overwhelming. I was hoping for more how-to's and less actual complete drawings. Also the ideal human figure got tiring after 50 pages. You definitely won't learn how fat works here. He spends a page talking about complicated subjects like the dreadful Box and a page on something trivial like advertisements.
I definitely loved the style and some of the things were explained pretty well, but there must be better books out there.

319 reviews 1 follower

March 9, 2018

Comic book & animation proffesionals seem to bring up the same names when they recommend books that are essential for an artist's library and those names are George Bridgeman, Burne Hogarth, & Andrew Loomis.
Alex Ross was made famous for his life like paintings depicting iconic comic book heroes and has stated that Andrew Loomis was his biggest influence in art. The influence on Alex Ross was so much that not only is he an alumni of the art school in which Loomis was once an instructor he was also involved in adding text, producing, and printing Andrew Loomis' unfinished 5th and final book "I'd Love to Draw".
"Drawing For All It's Worth" is filled with beautiful drawings and detailed instruction on both the male and female form which include mannequin frames, proportions, foreshortening, movement, bones & muscles, light & shadow, weight & balance and clothing & drapery.
Highly recommended.

169 reviews 9 followers

November 25, 2012

This guy is amazing- if you want to be able to draw the figure, either from life, or purely constructed from line and imagination- then this is the guy to read.

This is a sumptuous re-print of the original classic and well-worth buying- however all his books a brilliant and are readily available as downloads because they are out of copy-write

This book and 'Drawing on the Right side of the Brain' are the best books for any one contemplating figure drawing

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546 reviews 8,222 followers

Edited October 27, 2007

This book would teach you how to draw advertisements for the 1950s, but perhaps we have lost something of the diligence required. Photoshop has helped to even the playing field, but one cannot but wonder what a man of Loomis's drive and knowledge would be doing today.

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