What the heck am I looking at?

[Psychotime]

That question ever come to mind when you're reading a Bridgman book?

Yes, they're great books, but sometimes I really can't tell if I'm looking at a tendon or tortellini. (No, not seriously) But his work is really scratchy and sometimes hard to read, at least for me.

Had the original works aged a bit before they were reproduced, or is it the material he drew with? (I think it's charcoal.)

CASE & POINT: I like Loomis better, even though it's impossible for me to own a physical copy of his books for the time being.

[armando]

Ha. Yeah, I can't say I'm a fan of Bridgman. I've copied through every book of his except "The Human Machine", the downloadable versions I've found are really low quality. His worst book is definitely "The seven Laws of Folds", useless unless you already know what's he's drawing about.

[Anid Maro]

Yeah, I've found that Bridgman's stuff definately requires you to at least have some intuitive ideas about the subject first. Personally I prefer Hogarth, his books have always spoken very clearly to me.

[FourTonMantis]

I find Bridgman good for his gestural studies. But Hogarth is good for muscle structure. Loomis is good for proportions, Hammond is good for beginners.

Balance is the key.

[sodAp]

I did some studies of arms after bridgman and I can't say I learned a lot. With Robert B. Hale I did some studies of shoulders and necks and now I'm quite confident drawing those. I don't know.

By the way I'm just wondering what should I be studying for my anatomy. I SUCK at it, and I really need to be studying it intensively. I'd like to get the most profit from my studies, as I find them veeeery boring.

I've just reached that point (you get there every few months) I feel like I dont know SHIT about drawing. I need to learn perspective, anatomy, proportions, the very basics. I want to be doing 4 hour studies each morning for the next few months, just so I can really push my art to a new level. Now I'm just wondering HOW should I be studying.

[Noah Bradley]

I really love Bridgman. His method of constructing the figure really helped me a lot. I will confess that some of the illustrations and accompanying text can be really confusing, but for the most part if I copy the drawing I can still get a lot out of it.

[J Wilson]

Bridgman is the guy who finally got everything to start clicking for me back in art school. I'll admit, I didn't really read the books, but the sketches to me did a great job of helping me to understand how different body parts locked together like a puzzle. Bridgman just made the concept of finding the bigger shapes so much easier for me to understand.

Loomis is really good too, but I HATE Hogarth. A LOT of his sketches just look incredibly off to me.

[Anid Maro]

I'll agree with you there J Wilson, even though I like Hogarth I still think his sketches just don't quite look "right". What I like about Hogarth though is that the way he constructs the figure really makes sense to me while Bridgman leaves me feeling like I'd be better just sketching after photographs or live models.

To each their own though, all of the artists mentioned have their own methods and they all persist because depending on the individual any of the methods could be the one that works best for them.

[J Wilson]

I'll agree with you there J Wilson, even though I like Hogarth I still think his sketches just don't quite look "right". What I like about Hogarth though is that the way he constructs the figure really makes sense to me while Bridgman leaves me feeling like I'd be better just sketching after photographs or live models.

To each their own though, all of the artists mentioned have their own methods and they all persist because depending on the individual any of the methods could be the one that works best for them.

Yep, agreed. It doesn't matter if his sketches look off if you are learning, because you'll always tailor what you learned to what you can personally observe and hopefully come up with your own system in the end. I certainly get what others say when they say they don't care for Bridgman too. His style at times can be abstract or so loose as to be a little mystifying. Which ever source works for you works for you. I think Hogarthe was one of the first anatomy and "how to draw" books I ever bought on a recommendation, and I just remember feeling it it just didn't help me that much.

There was actually a pretty decent anatomy drawing book first year of life drawing class we had to buy, but I can't for the life of me remember who wrote it. I probably still have it somewhere if I really look for it.