Atlas of Foreshortening: The Human Figure in Deep Perspective

Foreshortening is one of the trickier aspects of drawing anatomy. This book helps to take some of the frustration out of the process by providing visual references for the artist to work with. Definitely a must-have for your anatomical studies.

This book contains a comprehensive collection of body positions covering slight foreshortening to sever foreshortening both front and back! Very helpful to the artist!

I happen to like the fact these are in black and white, since the simplicity of it makes you familiar with the form. I already have The Nude Figure for my other references for life drawing. As another person said, this is not the best book to get reference for illustrative foreshortening. This book is more to train your eye to capture various parts of the form in foreshortening. I thought it was interesting how the author noted that it was difficult these days to find models because of people's need to do body alternations like piercings and tattoos. While I find the models average, I would have liked to seen a few different models like overweight or even more athletic to get variations of the form in perspective. I wouldn't even mind old people, but I'm not sure if the elderly could perform in some of those poses. Most of the poses are in seated or lying down positions, I remember the author saying also that a lot of poses even in perspective started looking the same. I got some use out of the book, for the photography was clear enough for me. I also like using it as an exercise to recognize the form, like certain muscle and bone groups would look like in certain perspectives. I think too many people want to copy and not understand the true value of learning and utilizing reference. It's not an AMAZING book, but it's still useful.

I have the first one that came out years ago and was hoping for this second updated version to have clearer pics with better definition to use for life drawing sketches. Turns out it’s basically the same black and white pics with similar lighting as the first book. The only difference is different models and the background is black as opposed to white like the first one. I prefer the first book to the second. Still looking for a version with clearer pics (maybe color) and better definition/ sharper images to capture more muscular details.

It is a fantastic resource for figurative artists. I have many resource books but this one shows poses that none of mine have.

Move over, Muybridge. Foreshortening is a hugely difficult human or animal perspective viewpoint to believably portray. Now we can simply look up the view we need to incorporate into a painting. Live models are the best, but not only do most of us not have access. but it is a lot to ask of a model to "hold that pose" while we figure out the foreshortening piece!

My husband is taking a figure drawing class and wanted more instruction on foreshortening. There are many, many good photos of models in various positions involving foreshortening but no verbal instruction. If all you want are pictures to draw from, this is it, but if you need instruction, not so much.

I am a fine artist (NOT an illustrator), and I purchased this book in hopes of adding some reliable reference material to my growing stockpile. I sincerely feel that I wasted my money on this book. For one thing, as stated by another reviewer, the photos are of fairly low quality. I prefer black-and-white reference because it allows me to see value more clearly and does not prejudice me when I am selecting the color for my subjects, but I would expect a "reference" book to contain sharp, clear images. This book does not; the images are grainy, the focus is too soft to be useful for a broad range of techniques and styles, and the lighting is uneven across all of the images. Second, as also stated by another reviewer, every single pose in the book is of a reclining model. Especially in the case of women, this presents one major problem-- the effects of gravity on soft/fatty tissue. Women in particular look completely different when reclining, than standing, and this book offers not a single image that offers foreshortened views from above or below of a standing, kneeling, or sitting figure. On the other hand, if you are an art student who is leery of using soft porn images from the internet to get your life-drawing practice, this book may be worth the investment. If you are serious about experimenting with different perspectives of the human body in fine art (or if you are an illustrator), spend the money on decent anti-virus software, and peruse the aforementioned soft-porn sites. You'll find a lot more usable reference, much better-photographed.

Las fotos fueron impresas en la peor fotocopiadora posible, detalles necesarios se pierden por la pobre calidad de las imagenes, aunque en el libro estipula fotografias de "ALTA CALIDAD"

Une réference interessante pour travailler le corps humain sous divers angles mais trois points négatifs: les photos manquent de contraste (éclairage trop diffus) et les raccourcis ne sont pas assez marqués, le photographe ne se positionne pas assez bas face au modèle. Il n'est probablement pas dessinateur et ne sait pas ce qu'attend un artiste comme point de vue. Finalement: absence de gros plans des pieds.

No comment.

The quality of the photographs is so poor that some poses are not readable. Poses are not printed very clearly. Images are very grey and lacking in contrast. They are muddy, bad resolution and sometimes slightly out of focus, causes that In the natural non-shortened poses is very difficult to find existing foreshortening. Most models laying down on the ground in poses which are very unnatural, total lack of natural sitting poses shown from multiple angels with marked foreshortening. As a reference book for art student, like myself practicing art of figure drawing I found this book is not very useful. It was very disappointing and expensive purchase.