Understanding the Human Figure
Hardcover

99.95 $

Visual artists are visual thinkers

Book specifications:

Cover-type:
Page count:
Author:
ISBN:

Brand:
Publisher:
Release date:
Edition:
Shipping:

Hardcover
222 pages
Uldis Zarins
978-1-7350390-3-9

Anatomy For Sculptors ®
Anatomy Next, Inc.
(1st January, 2014)
3rd Edition
Worldwide

Companies with
our books in their
daily workspace

Professional
reviews and their
personal experiences

Yuri

Arda Koyuncu​

Art Director

– Riot Games

I highly recommend incorporating this resource in your workflow even if your preferred medium is not sculpting…

Tiago Rios

Tiago Rios

Character Artist

– Santa Monica Studio

The book gives literally hundreds of easy tips for new and experienced sculptors interested…

Erick Sosa review photo

Erick Sosa​

Senior Character Artist

– Marvel’s “What if?”

All I can say about this amazing book and the rest of the series is this: Do yourself a favor, and get these books…

Yuri Alexander​ review photo

Yuri Alexander​

Sr. Staff Character Artist

– Sony Bend

Anatomy for sculptors is the clearest and most comprehensive anatomy reference material that I have seen…

Customer reviews

Tobias​

This IS the droid you are looking for!

Buy it. Period. If you’re looking for a definitive anatomy reference tailored to the visual minds of artists, this is it. I’ve gone through many references and none come even close to how well this one is put together. It gets right to the point in a visual art form language that most artists will get the most out of. I was apprehensive at first because of the price but considering how many other references seriously fall short, it’s worth every penny. I suspect it will be used for many moons to come. I wouldn’t hesitate to get it again if I needed to.

a book that would help me decipher this riddle of emotions expressed through miniscule muscle movements. this is the book i was looking for my whole life. i highly recommend it to anyone interested in animation and comics as both those fields require often a knowledge of anatomy that abandons overreliance on reference photos and requires actual understanding of anatomy in motion suffice to say, this is a five star review and i’d give it a ten if i could! kudos!

TJP​

This is the best

I have a shelf of books on figure drawing and anatomy. This is the best. Color throughout with the figure shown in drawing, photographs. computer generated overlays and detailed anatomy of muscle and bones. The best part is that there is very little text – just enough to explain the illustrations. This is the go-to book when looking for clarity on an issue with artistic anatomy. Don’t be put off by the price. It is worth every penny.

SMG

Great book for ALL artists, not just sculptors

This book is brilliantly designed. The authors do an amazing job of breaking down the human form into simplistic shapes, and then building on those shapes into the more complex forms. Previously, I’d bought a lot of medical anatomy books, but those mostly use photographs and are hard to distinguish the muscles. And they seem hell-bent on identification rather than motion of parts. Conversely, anatomy books I got for artists relied on illustrations instead of photographs.

So I found I was limited to the skill and focus of the artist who illustrated the book, instead of being able to form my own focus. But this book combines all of the views… it has photographs with graph overlays so you can see the depth of the shapes, and color variations to distinguish or chunk the muscles.  Honestly, best anatomy book I’ve ever had and an amazing lesson on outstanding Instructional Design or design in general. I was worried about the price, but I’ve been really pleased with this purchase.

Frank R.

Is it worth it?

I like that the book is straight to the point. The colors used in the illustrations are easy on the eyes. You get an A+ for that. I like that it uses 3D scans instead of boring pictures of statues. There are also illustrations with nudity that I wish I could have shared because they give perfect examples in drawings showing how weight and mass distribution works.

Now..In MY opinion. Is the book expensive? Yes. For that price I would’ve been happy if it was a hard cover. Do I regret paying that much for it? No. It’s straight to the point. Every single page is interesting. Would I recommend it? Absolutely.

Yuri

Arda Koyuncu

Art Director

– Riot Games

Regardless of your skill level, there is always something to learn and better when it comes to anatomy. Whether you are sculpting a character yourself, or giving feedback to your teams, finding good visual reference can be challenging.

Anatomy for Sculptors books are a great reliable resource that will make this knowledge easy to understand and accessible. There are a wide range of breakdowns from simple, isolated forms to more complicated, from young to old, from human to animal anatomy. Not only do they make the process easier, they also provide new ways of looking at shapes, structure and flow.

I highly recommend incorporating this resource in your workflow even if your preferred medium is not sculpting.
arda-koyuncu-magni-productionstill-02
Tiago Rios

Tiago Rios

Character Artist

– Santa Monica Studio

The book gives literally hundreds of easy tips for new and experienced sculptors interested in pursuing their anatomy studies but not sure how to begin.

To me, the most helpful section was the head and legs, the head for its complexity and amount of very tiny muscles composing it; the legs for its shapes and silhouette. 

The book doesn`t only teach you the name of the muscles but more importantly shows you how the muscles interact to form the big forms.

tiago-rios-crop-scorpion
Erick Sosa review photo

Erick Sosa

Senior Character Artist

– Marvel’s “What if?”

All I can say about this amazing book and the rest of the series is this: Do yourself a favor, and get these books, I have been in the toys and collectibles industries for three decades, never have I seen a book with better anatomy reference. My understanding was expanded greatly just by perusing through the books. 
 
These books explain the ever complicated human anatomy in such a simple way that even a child can understand the intricacies of the human body. I literally have all three books sitting on my desk for study and reference. 
 

This book does a remarkable job helping us understand, see and feel the human anatomy from this perspective. There can’t be an endgame book about shapes and forms but this one should definitely be part of anyone’s early development.

erick-sosa-venom

Yuri Alexander

Sr. Staff Character Artist

– Sony Bend

Anatomy for sculptors is the clearest and most comprehensive anatomy reference material that I have seen.

Their topological drawings, anatomy diagrams, and kinesiology examples do a better job of simplifying and breaking down the human body into understandable forms than any other resource available.

I use their work as reference to help clarify anatomy on every human I sculpt.

yuri-alexander-shot-1