What are some of the art books that have inspired you or helped your work?

**dreamflow** · July 19th, 2006, 10:48 PM

Bammes, Loomis, Hamm, and many art books:
Download Here

**darkwolfb87** · July 31st, 2006, 12:55 PM

I dunno if these have been posted yet, but I use them all constantly for my figure drawing class:

"Drawing With an Open Mind: Reflections from a Drawing Teacher" by Ted Seth Jacobs
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/082...177640?ie=UTF8

"Light For the Artist" by Ted Seth Jacobs
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/082...177640?ie=UTF8

"The Artist's Complete Guide to Figure Drawing" by Anthony Ryder
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/082...177640?ie=UTF8

**Madman!** · August 16th, 2006, 10:21 PM

got some books over the last couple of weeks..

D'artiste Concept Art

It's got Andrew Jones and Sparth and tones of other cool art..it's a must buy for me.

Entropia

It's got some great art just not very much in the book.

Daphne

Really like this one has some great pencils.

the Smaller Majority

Not an artbook but has tons of pictures(really nice ones) of cool animals..some crazy looking crabs.

almost forgot one..

Art of Guild Wars..

Have you seen the thread? another must buy.

**darkwolfb87** · September 1st, 2006, 10:49 PM

Okay, I discovered this book this year and still believe it is one of the most helpful things any artist could possibly read, study, and work from. If you come upon this recommendation, find this book!

**Madman!** · October 3rd, 2006, 10:29 PM

got a couple new books..

Art of Open Season. It's pretty nice lots of art specially the environments.

Absolute Batman..man this book is awesome and has some sketches in the back. I wish they made more collected editions oversized.

Rainforest..just a book full of pictures animals and environments.

the art of Disneyland..bunch of concepts of the park pretty nice stuff.

**foggle** · October 4th, 2006, 07:19 PM

Anatomy for the artist was always great in that it started me off in trying to learn the anaotmy properly, which in turn has massively increasexd my ability. And for inspiration...

got bored of trying to draw manga long ago, but the Akira series will always be a great source of inspiration to me. The sheer volume of artwork in the books alone is incredible.

**Flake** · October 5th, 2006, 07:06 AM

Just picked this up and found it really interesting.

http://www.amazon.com/Problem-Solvin...e=UTF8&s=books

It's not really a "how to paint" book, it's more about the author trying different things to improve paintings and walking you through what he's doing and why. It probably won't appeal to everyone but I found it a good read. It's about oil painting but I would think most of the advice could be applied to other mediums as well.

**IndieFly** · October 19th, 2006, 08:42 AM

Great thread everyone, will go through as many books as i can!
Right now i'm on the hunt for a good book on color, some theory and combining them for mood, etc.
Mainly covering most of the topics and maybe not going in depth in all of the topics.

Anybody with a good suggestion would be highly appriciated!

Cheers

\Nick

**Dusk22a** · October 30th, 2006, 05:45 PM

Does anyone have any reference material for clothing, as in periods/cultures/styles, as well as how they interact with the human body. I have the Hogarth book on Dynamic Wrinkles but that one is like all of Hogarth's books, interesting and informative but rather impractical.

**Flake** · October 30th, 2006, 06:03 PM

I'm about halfway through this and finding it very interesting so far. The illustrations are fairly poor quality black & white and it's heavy going in places but it's well worth a look. Cheap too.

**pavelpangrac** · November 29th, 2006, 01:40 PM

To Dreamflow - I would like to thank you - the books you have on your page are really great - the figure drawing from Loomis - wow (I had before "Die Gestallt des Menschen" from Bammes completely german and there is a lot of theory, that it is quite difficult to go through), but Loomis is, lets say very easy and good for progress, once again thanks

**palette** · December 19th, 2006, 09:29 PM

Anything one can find with reproductions of work by the Czech master Mucha should prove very helpful in developing one's sensibilities to anatomical contour . . . his knowledge of human anatomy is quite profound and Like Rodin
and Degas he had that wonderful ability to draw well from memory; sadly, a contemporarily neglected discipline IMHO . . .

**Vaejoun** · January 22nd, 2007, 02:36 PM

Oh my, I just overflew 2 or 3 sides and I have seen so many books I wanna run out to buy T_T Maybe on Ebay.

Ok, When it comes to watercolours this one is great:
I just love his stuff.

Bodo Meier - Tiere in Aquarell

And also the works from Yoshiuki Sadamoto. Espacially "Der Mond/the moon"

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**Madman!** · January 29th, 2007, 10:14 AM

Some books I got over the last couple of months…

Burning Crusades Artbook

Had to buy the collector's edition to get it. It was worth it though, way better than the other first one.

Revolution the Art of Jon Foster

Of course it's good, just wish there wasn't so many of the old images used from the last one and that the sketches on the insides cover were bigger.

Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide

Not really an artbook, but it has tons of cool art by Tony DiTerlizzi. I know the books are for kids but they're pretty good and they have art in them too.

Design Studio Press-In the Future

Not sure if I posted this one yet. It's just like the Skillfull Huntsman book, but has more artists in it this time and different subjects. It's really cool and along with the Skillfull Huntsman book, these are probably ranked somewhere at the top of artbooks I own.

**Bojee** · January 31st, 2007, 09:42 PM

This is a good one for technique.

and one more

**Darasen** · February 16th, 2007, 01:02 AM

W Joe Innis "How to Become a Famous Artist ans Still Paint Pictures"

At Amazon

**gascogne** · March 1st, 2007, 01:38 AM

ah... i have books but im not at the house ATM so i cant remember their titles ^^; but anyway, i have that book of the collection of hispanic artists from pre-raphaelite to renaissance era. its very beautiful

then these (books) are the rest of my inspirations
braque
monet

for method books, i have
that drawing landscapes in watercolor book
creativity (a graphics book)
color proofing

and the rest i just borrow from the library on in my alma mater. its hard finding those books i like at the bookstores.

**zoephoenix** · March 3rd, 2007, 10:23 AM

I enjoy the How to Draw Manga series (yeah, probably not the best books I could've bought, but I got them when I was in highschool and didn't know any better :p)

I particularly enjoy the How to Draw Manga Costume Encyclopedia: Intimate Apparel. I bought these a few years ago and since then I haven't had the money to buy more traditional books.

I have.. How to Draw Manga:

Bodies & Anatomy
Costume Encyclopedia vol. 2 Intimate Apparel
Occult & Horror
Girl's Life
Illustrating Battles
Bishoujo
Dressing Your Characters in Casual Wear
Mech. Drawing

I plan on getting some traditional books soon... don't hit me... :p

**Coen** · March 6th, 2007, 03:29 PM

By far the most inspirational book to me is this one:

I love the diversity of styles in it, and most of all, I love her own drawings. I actually got the Dutch version with a different cover but it seems to be the same book.

Awesome thread.

**novenus** · March 20th, 2007, 08:10 PM

The classic, The Natural Way to Draw, by Kimon Nicolaides. Every serious artist who wants to master drawing should definitely read and use this book.

**permanent_pixels** · March 27th, 2007, 11:03 PM

Ive recently started collecting the d'artiste series of books and have found those very helpful in getting a good idea of whats possible in digital art.
Checkout.. www.ballisticpublishing.com Great stuff...

**Kevin Lam** · April 9th, 2007, 01:16 AM

My first anatomy book, which I got last week.

**Mendics** · April 13th, 2007, 07:17 PM

Hey i am really new here and i knew that starting a new thread will be stupid if there was something like this here. Anyways can anyone tell me a book about how to draw movements, like realetionship, dynamics, balance anything related to movements. Most of the books i've found was about anatomy and little was covered on movements, I just visited the bookstore today and found nothing about it, well maybe a small part of it but it doesnt really help. * i dont wanna spend money on something i think that will not help me.. *
it'll help me a lot if you guys know something.. thanks.

**Eloth** · April 19th, 2007, 06:15 PM

Goldfinger is a good one for how the bones and muscles move. I know that may not be what you are talking about. I always just went to a coffee shop or something with a big window and did quick sketches of people walking or talking. Also, pausing dvd's for quick action. Anatomy really is the key to most of this. If you know how the bones move, how the muscles are connected and shaped, and how they all interact, you can do any pose you can think of with enough gesture drawing.

**LORDBISHOP** · May 10th, 2007, 04:53 PM

I agree with Eloth. I have been studying anatomy from various sources, but something was missing from my drawings, LIFE!!! So I had to go back and break out the Vilppu and Bridgman and study gestures for a while.

**Rasme** · June 3rd, 2007, 12:43 PM

[IMG]javascript:self.close()[/IMG] http://www.processrecess.com/detail....art=0&limit=6#
I think James Jean is awsome, and his book is too. I can't wait to see his next one.

Also Die gestalt des menschen by Gottfried Bammes is very useful. Exept the fact that i only have it in German, so I can't understand a word of it. but all the illustrations are so good, that I think they tell much more than the words in it.

**kingshaj** · July 19th, 2007, 02:42 PM

this fella (Anthony Ryder) has been inspiring me alot lately
he has a very odd way of approaching the figure (the opposite in fact from the standard blocking approach) he actually starts with the figures contour/ silhouette...i don’t think his approach would work well when drawing from ones imagination IE without a model...nor would i recommend it for beginners. But I have found it very helpful and totally inspiring.

his site
http://www.tonyryder.com/

**Modesty Personified** · August 2nd, 2007, 12:28 AM

After taking a look through this topic, I felt inspired to check out the art section at Barnes and Nobels. I stumbled across a few books, most of which were mentioned here. I just wanted to thank everyone for contributing to this topic. I saw a huge improvement in my art after just glancing through some of the books and getting a few ideas, and I am certain that I have more to gain after studying the books further.

The sky's the limit, right?

**grenogs** · September 5th, 2007, 01:10 PM

i noticed in one of these threads this week, a lot of people trying to look for this book, its supose to be very good, well i just found a pdf version, only 25meg. hope its some use to someone here.

http://www.austinsketchgroup.com/sha...IGURE_draw.pdf

**Flake** · December 25th, 2007, 04:08 PM

Originally Posted by darkwolfb87

Okay, I discovered this book this year and still believe it is one of the most helpful things any artist could possibly read, study, and work from. If you come upon this recommendation, find this book!

I scored a copy of this for Xmas and it's absolutely superb, my mind is being blown every third page or so.
It's long out of print but you should be able to find a used copy on Amazon.

It's up there with Loomis and Speed for me.

I also got a copy of this and it's gorgeous.