This week I’d like to talk about a book that was recommended  to me a year ago and I still go back to for reference. Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth by Andrew Loomis is a pretty well known book being reprinted multiple times, and among illustrators is highly regarded as a tell-all beginning to understanding anatomy. Andrew Loomis was an American illustrator whose realistic style has influenced countless artists. This book was recommended to me by a comic book artist, I wish I could remember his name, at a convention last year, and I wish I heard of this book sooner.

The way Loomis interprets the human form and breaks it down is easy to understand but, difficult to replicate. For example, Loomis’s analytical, sometimes geometric break down of shapes and planes is a much easier to understand when trying to approach a more complex figure.

There is so much more to this book than what I’ve described and show here below. It is truly a crash course in every aspect of figure drawing from composition to drapery. I highly recommend this book as a reference and wish it was shown to me sooner.

Images: Loomis, Andrew. Figure Drawing for All It’s worth. New York: Viking, 1943. Print.