Constructive Anatomy (Dover Anatomy for Artists)

I bought 3 of Bridgmans books: Life Drawing, Constructive Anatomy and Heads, Features and Faces after reading the reviews. No one mentioned that most of the pages are dedicated to the anatomy of men, however I am interested in the female anatomy, so, these books did not work for me.

Mainly for intermediate-level artists- it's actually *GREAT* for enthusiastic beginners. It has a little bit of *everything* depicting anatomy construction from memory. It's also great for general improvement; a few tips & tricks- an *excellent* reference for all working artists.
This is the book that really turned me on to the genius that is Bridgman. At first glance it may not be immediately impressive, but flip to page 167 for a quick look at his cubed-construction of the head. It's Bridgman's brief but effective treatment of cube-construction in this book that really, really impresses me. Many books *mention* cube-construction for heads; many books show a brief picture or two. But not many show it with the precision & detail that Bridgman conveys in just a few short pages. It deals with figure construction mainly in its parts- for full-figure movement, check out Bridgman's Complete Guide, or his less overwhelming Bridgman's Life Drawing. Constructive Anatomy begins with hands, which in my opinion is the weakest part of the book. (Bridgman's 100 Hands is much, much better.) Arms are next and they're easily among Bridgman's best, although not all the drawings are crystal clear. Many of the BEST drawings in Bridgman's Complete Guide are taken from this book, and his depiction of arms here is definitely among them. The shoulder & neck briefly follow, and are above average in their depiction. Then it's time for that excellent section: the cubed-construction of the head. It's only a FEW pages- I don't want to oversell it. But in my opinion at least, it's worth the price of the book. Individual features follow: eyes, nose, ears and mouth are simply & accurately treated. This is a more *in-depth* book than Heads, Features and Faces- which is mainly a simple introduction to the basics. Maybe the BEST section in Constructive Anatomy involves the Torso. He describes more in a few pages than most books ever do- and with a precision & beauty that few seem to match. The pelvis, legs, knees, feet & toes finish this truly excellent work. If anyone's overwhelmed by Bridgman's Complete Guide, Constructive Anatomy is a simple & effective choice to make- Highly Recommended!
In short- Along with Book of a Hundred Hands and Bridgman's Complete Guide, Constructive Anatomy is currently in my Top 3 by Bridgman.

Overall, this is one of my most favorite drawing books from my shelf.

It includes a good number of drawings that can also be seen in "Drawing from Life", but it misses the part that talks about drapery, for instance.
This book is rather small and so can easily be taken with you in your backpack alongside with your sketchbook.

In this book Bridgman covers all the essentials to figure drawing. It has a large chapter on different ways to draw hands, which I enjoy the most. Bridgman shows off more simple and constructed ways to draw the body (hands and legs in a very self explanatory and dynamic way) as well as more advanced techniques.

I would personally say that this book has the potential to fit advanced artists as well as beginners since I have seen hardly any book that breaks down the basics better than this publication. (Hogarth is also very good, but different from Bridgman, so I would recommend to the beginner to practice with both and then pick the artist he feels he can relate to the most style wise.)

What more is to say about this book is that readers that don't understand latin may feel a little lost with the descriptions of the muscles here, which is a little sad when you want to learn how all of the parts of the body are working together in depth.

I like the images. It's really helping improve my sketching. However, several pages are miss-printed or blank. If I wanted to do anything other than copy the drawings, I'd be pretty pissed that pages of my book were missing.

This is a great pocket guide for anyone who wants to understand the figure. There are tons of illustrations which are simple and do a great job of breaking down parts of the anatomy to the basic form. You should note that the illustrations are not super highly rendered drawings like in some other anatomy books (Artistic Anatomy, Anatomy for the Artist). If you want something super comprehensive you might want something else, but if you want something you can stick in your bag for figure drawing/sculpture class then this is a great buy.

"Constructive Anatomy" is unique in that George presents the viewer a 'real world' application of the muscles, by telling you what each muscle does.
I'd be wrong in saying this book is a one-stop source for learning to draw people. Let's face it anatomy is tough and artists can use all the help they can get! What this book offers that other's don't is different views and applications of perceiving the limbs, muscles, bones, joints, etc., of the body. For the price it's listed out, ya can't go wrong!

Lemme tell you something right now. This is one sweet little book! It gets two stars right off the bat because it's really cheap(unlike Hogarth). For a student who doesn't have an income, this really helps out. When I bought this this book, I thought I knew a little about human anatomy. Well, put it this way, I was wrong! This book is PACKED with anatomy! Thanks to it, I've been getting alot better. Now I'm starting to do a real study of this book, and I don't think I'll be disappointed.

that picture of the skull IS NOT a bridgman drawing, so i don't know what the store is trying to sell you thru kindle. just do a goog image search on bridgman's constructive anatomy. the first few rows of results, before getting into copies and phonies, are the way bridgman did his drawings.

just a word of caution

This book is a priceless reference for *anyone* who has to, or wants to, draw proper anatomy. G. Bridgman's methods are timeless. This guy taught many of the giants of the Golden Age of Illustration. If nothing else, having it in your office library will give you credibility.

If you are any kind of character artist you really should have the Bridgeman books. This one is probably my favorite, though they are all really good. I will add that a pretty decent understanding of both muscular and skeletal anatomy is really needed to get much out of Bridgeman. I would suggest starting with an anatomy atlas, or at least pairing it with one unless you have an ok idea of what lies under the surface of the skin already.