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Anonymous10/18/25, 18:45No.7763706Books you find acutally helpful or not
If you have tried any of the usual art instruction books recommended to begs. Please share your experience so begs can figure out if they are worth studying.
>Jack Hamm's Drawing the Head and Figure
What it teaches you is very concrete and specific. Many step by step example, which is only useful for drawing for example a head in a specific position.
Also shows how different body parts can be simplified and how to handle proportions. it tries however to teach you to follow certain rules to make it look right.
While not bad per say, some oft the tips were helpful. Since it not abstract, it's difficult to apply it to usage outside of the example the book shows you.
Why this book is hyped by the comic crowd is beyond me.
>Keys to drawing
The teaches is abstract and can be used to draw anything from observation. Anything you see can be broken down into lines, contours and shapes.
techniques for measurement and alignments to make the proportions and distance look right.
It's not that helpful for drawing from imagination, however. Very helpful when it comes to drawing from references and building up visual memory.
Never understood why people complain about that one of the first exercise is telling you to draw your own hand. That this is somehow a steep learning curve.
Of course it's not going to be perfect. it's more to show you how the concepts can be applied to draw something irregularly shaped. In other words something that is not geometric shaped.
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Anon10/18/25, 18:49No.7763717
pyw
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Anon10/18/25, 18:59No.7763756
Xiao Weichun's Anatomy is useful and easy to understand
Scott Robertson's How to Draw/Render are good too but can be tricky to apply depending on the subject / stylization
3D Total Color & Light is also very good, especially the tutorials by Guweiz and Knopf
my work is [/ic/thread/7753682#p7760343] [/ic/thread/7753682#p7761781]
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Anon10/18/25, 19:58No.7763847
>Preston Blair's Cartoon Animation
In my opinion, the best starting point for learning drawing is through cartoons, and this book is the best for that. It's nothing but cartoon characters, but they ratchet up in complexity, to the point you should be able to draw most any other character through the lesson's learnt in this book, and you shouldn't be overwhelmed when learning the realistic human figure.
It also goes over some lessons in classic character design (though they shouldn't be treated like a bible), and animation.>Loomis' Fun with a Pencil
Also a good starting point, as it also starts with cartoon characters, but the biggest fault with this book is that Loomis was not a cartoonist - that is to say many of the drawing he expects you to study and learn from are, frankly speaking, absolutely fucking hideous. His baby heads are the stuff of nightmares.
However, many of the drawings are still quite appealing, and unlike with Preston Blair's book, he goes over the beginnings of how to draw the realistic head and figure, as well as some rather short chapters on perspective and shading - neither of the last two are expounded on quite enough, but are decent introduction I suppose, as this book is really just an introduction to...>Loomis' Figure Drawing for all it's Worth
A very good book, in my humble opinion. Here, Loomis is in his wheel house, showing nothing but realistic figure work, and I don't believe there was a single bad drawing within - many are quite fantastic actually, and make it that much more fun to study from. All the stuff you expect is in there; a greater explanation on perspective, proportions, anatomy, shading, the planes, rhythm of a drawing, clothing, line of action, etc.
If I had to fault it for anything, it didn't expand on drawing the face and head, with Loomis either expecting you to have read the previous book, or using that as a means to sell more of his later books (one specifically being about the head).
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Anon10/19/25, 01:53No.7764324
its a small book you can carry anywhere with you, easy to read and has all the basic stuff for beginners at drawing.
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Anon10/19/25, 05:34No.7764542
>Why this book is hyped by the comic crowd is beyond me
Anime animators rec it too, and that's why I read it years ago. It's an okay resource, its chapter content is clearly an inspiration for a lot of Youtubers.
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Anon10/19/25, 10:21No.7764704
Preston Blair and a good book of sketches from your favorite renaissance artist (I have one from Michelangelo) are the only books I recommend. Bridgman, Hogarth, TASK (as well as Simplified Drawing for Animation), and Loomis are all good too but I don't think they are quite at the level where I'd recommend them to every beginning artist.The best exercise for improvement (including imagination) is short pose figure drawing, with the occasional master study to learn appealing shapes and keep your accuracy high.