Book Review: Form of the Head and Neck by Uldis Zarins

Uldis Zarins is an anatomy teacher and a sculptor with 25 years of experience. Form of the Head and Neck is his third book after Understanding the Human Figure and Anatomy of Facial Expression. All three books are fantastic reference books for artists.

This book is the result of hard work and a successful Kickstarter campaign that ended in 2019.

This book is available in paperback, hardcover and PDF at US$54.90, $99.90 and $44.90 respectively.

The book is expensive but it's also worth the money because it's a really detailed and informative book. I'll probably recommend the PDF version because it's cheaper and easily accessible from tablet or computer, and doesn't take up space on the bookshelf.

As the title fo the book suggests, the content is about anatomy of the head and neck. There are plenty of pictures of the anatomy, the muscles and bones from different angles and close-ups.

The main thing that differentiates this book from other anatomy books is the extensive use of 3D sculpted models as examples. There would be the 3D models and on top of the surface would be schematic lines defining all the different planes or muscles. The level of detail in the 3D models and in the coverage of this subject matter is amazing.

All the examples show the human parts clearly and the captions describes the features and key characteristics. It is difficult for me to fathom the effort that went into creating all the models, examples and making everything easy to understand.

This is a fantastic book I can recommend easily to any artists looking to learn more about figure drawing and anatomy.

You can get this book from Anatomy for Sculptors and Amazon US.