Originally published: Sterling Pub., 1952.

A unique perspective on a fundamental skill - Character Design is necessary for animators, game designers, comic book artists and illustrators.

Along with working from the model, the figure-drawing student needs instruction in anatomy, history, and conceptual approaches; such instruction is often missing from life drawing classes due to time constraints. This text offers these elements, along with a visual reminder of studio practice. The chapters follow the natural development of a student's growth, from gesture drawing to personal exploration. An entire chapter on drawing the figure in perspective offers information unavailable in comparable texts. Asking the student to begin with quick sketches and gesture drawings establishes their significance in professional work, while giving students a non-threatening introduction on a level they can understand and master. Cohesive presentation of anatomy, including a chapter on the human head, helps students understand underlying structure of bones, muscle, and body fat. Larger images throughout promote clearer understanding of concepts. A completely new section on color media provides up-to-date valuable information. Anatomy of the limbs has been reorganized for clarity.

Autobiography has seen enormous expansions and challenges over the past decades. One of these expansions has been in comics, and it is an expansion that pushes back against any postmodern notion of the death of the author/subject, while also demanding new approaches from critics. Drawing from Life: Memory and Subjectivity in Comic Art is a collection of essays about autobiography, semiautobiography, fictionalized autobiography, memory, and self-narration in sequential art, or comics. Contributors come from a range of academic backgrounds including English, American studies, comparative literature, gender studies, art history, and cultural studies. The book engages with well-known figures such as Art Spiegelman, Marjane Satrapi, and Alison Bechdel; with cult-status figures such as Martin Vaughn-James; and with lesser-known works by artists such as Frédéric Boilet. Negotiations between artist/writer/body and drawn/written/text raise questions of how comics construct identity, and are read and perceived, requiring a critical turn towards theorizing the comics' viewer. At stake in comic memoir and semi-autobiography is embodiment. Remembering a scene with the intent of rendering it in sequential art requires nonlinear thinking and engagement with physicality. Who was in the room and where? What was worn? Who spoke first? What images dominated the encounter? Did anybody smile? Man or mouse? Unhinged from the summary paragraph, the comics artist must confront the fact of the flesh, or the corporeal world, and they do so with fascinating results.

Drawing from Life explores revolutionary drawing and sketching in the early People’s Republic of China (1949–1965) in order to discover how artists created a national form of socialist realism. Tracing the development of seminal works by the major painters Xu Beihong, Wang Shikuo, Li Keran, Li Xiongcai, Dong Xiwen, and Fu Baoshi, author Christine I. Ho reconstructs how artists grappled with the representational politics of a nascent socialist art. The divergent approaches, styles, and genres presented in this study reveal an art world that is both heterogeneous and cosmopolitan. Through a history of artistic practices in pursuit of Maoist cultural ambitions—to forge new registers of experience, new structures of feeling, and new aesthetic communities—this original book argues that socialist Chinese art presents a critical, alternative vision for global modernism.

Describes the factors involved in sketching the human form in various positions

The author of Just Draw Botanicals “helps readers tap into rich traditions of life drawing, demonstrating how to use everyday people as muses” (Library Journal). Drawn from Life offers bite-size lessons that will help anyone master the classic practice of life drawing. Over 100 pieces of art by contemporary artists illustrate fundamentals such as line, contour, and color, plus surprising and innovative techniques that will take your drawings to the next level. Showcasing a wide range of styles and methods, this is a refreshing new guide to a timeless art form. “This beautiful little book details various drawing styles from a variety of artists. You’ll be inspired to draw as soon as you pick it up!” —Mindful Art Studio “An insightful book . . . The ideas and tips are great for practice and further exploration.” —Parka Blogs