Book Review: The Complete Guide: How to Draw and Paint Anatomy

You might have heard of a book called Anatomy Essentials (out of stock already) that was released by ImagineFX some time back. That was a 224-page anatomy drawing book that has since gone out of print.

After that, ImagineFX released another book on anatomy drawing called How To Draw and Paint Anatomy: Creating Life-Like Humans and Realistic Animals which has only 112 pages — missing half of the pages from the original. A quick look at some preview pages showed me that the content inside are roughly similar, except for the missing portion. (Update: See reader comment below.)

It's now 2013 and that 224-page book is back in stock. This time printed by printed and distributed by Basheer Graphic Books. It's called The Complete Guide: How to Draw and Paint Anatomy.

The book's divided into several sections, namely Gallery, Draw, Muscle, Move, Animal and Digital.

The Gallery section has several artist profiles such as Donato Giancola, Marko Djurdjevic, Brom, Brian Froud, Aleksi Briclot and others. The profile covers briefly on their careers, nothing on anatomy, strangely, even though this is an anatomy book.

The next section on Draw covers drawing tips such as posing and postures, light and shadow form, and even includes drapery.

Muscles section talk about the muscles in different parts of the body. The Move section covers the body in motion. Animal section is handled by Marshall Vandruff. The last section Digital has some digital painting tutorials on human characters.

Much of the content are written by Ron Lemen and they have appeared in the ImagineFX magazines. All the anatomy tutorials and lessons are conveniently collected in this single volume. Other guest artists include Chris Legaspi, Justin Gerard and a few others.

This book is not structured like other anatomy books that go from head to toe. Instead, it picks out all the different parts of the bodies and talks about them. The more technical details are missing, details like the width of the head is five times the width of the eye, names of muscles, bones. While it's not structured, the content is still really insightful. The instructions are clear and the illustrated examples are great. The pages are packed with lots to learn.

And a CD containing the videos and workshop files is also included.

This as a good book that complements other anatomy books that are already out there.

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This book was borrowed from Basheer Graphic Books for review purposes. You can order the book from them. Check with Basheer on Facebook or visit their website.

This book was borrowed from Basheer Graphic Books for review purposes. You can order the book from them. Check with Basheer on Facebook or visit their website.