Artist's Guide to Human Anatomy

It really answers all the questions that an artist needs to know about anatomy

Honestly it's an alright book, but not worth your money. Go for Complete Guide to Life Drawing instead.

Fantastic book. My friend is a body painter so I have shared this with him, he finds it fascinating as a lot of his work involves different human organs painted on the body. This is a great educational book and will be great for my daughter also for when she is older xx

This has a wide of male and female references as well as intricate lessons

This is a great book to progress your life drawing skills. The book contains student drawings from exercises carried during the author's courses so contains examples of different styles and media. The main focus is based around drawing the figure based on the underlying structure without getting into a lot of anatomical detail. The book is good to train yourself into drawing the figure as a 3 dimensional object rather than just a 2 dimensional outline. There are 2 minor things I can fault the book for: Some of the text does not work too well when translated from German to English and the drawings are not numbered which makes it tricky on some occasions to determine which one the text is referring to. In summary a good book that I would recommend.

Bammes' "An Artist's Guide"is an adaption of the German "Arbeitsbuch der Kuenstleranatomie", which is an abridged version of the monumental "Die Gestalt des Menschen": in my opinion the best existing book on artist's anatomy. If you are an artist and you are able to read German, I advice you to buy the German version(s). If not, this guide is a wonderful replacement and surely still the best guide to the basics of anatomy for artists.It learns you understand the construction and movement of the human body and how to draw it.

I was introduced to this book by my life drawing tutor and found it to be one of the best books on anatomy that I'd seen. Out of print at the time I had to search hard for a copy so it is great to see it available again.Whereas most anatomy books have technical/objective drawings or photos of different parts of the body this is far more inspirational in that it is packed with drawings produced by students on Bammes courses. Not just painting and drawing students but students of sculpture, set design, graphics, restoration, etc. so there are many different types of drawings made for different purposes (form, movement, etc.).Therefore it is inspiring in a way that is possibly unique for an anatomy book. If you are at all interested in life drawing and painting (or sculpture, etc.) then buy this book. It was a revelation to me when I first saw it. It also still covers anatomy very well although you may want to supplement this book with a slightly more conventional anatomy book e.g.  Anatomy for the Artist  by Sarah Simblet.

I bought this book on account of reviews, plus the accompanying text that said, quote: "Invaluable to beginning and advanced students of life drawing, the text also includes practical exercises that will help develop visual imagination."Not one exercise is contained within. Also, this book is frustratingly lacking in practical information, with texts like: "Measurements that are less than one head height can be expressed by fractions of it: neck length c. 1/2 - 1/3 H, height of ankle 1/3 H, and so on."Well, the "so on" part is what I'd also like to know.Now on the brighter side, I bought a couple other books on anatomy, and returned to this book after a few months of studying. I now find it easier to read and have no doubt I'll enjoy it and learn more from it in a year or two, after I'm finished with the more thorough and technical approach.To sum it up, though this book must have value to those who are already familiar with human anatomy, those of you who are just starting will probably find it frustrating and discouraging.