The Complete Guide to Anatomy for Artists & Illustrators

I own quite a few anatomy books (Morpho, Michael Hampton, Stonehouse's Anatomy), but Bammes is particularly great because he goes into detail of the anatomy at multiple angles, which is exactly what you want as an artist. In the pictures I've tried to demonstrate the degree of detail Bammes goes into, for example, the muscles of the lower leg, not only from front, back, left and right but also inside and outside when flexed. I also find his cross-hatched illustrations to be really charming - his simplifies what you see into geometric shapes, which is very helpful because in photos the bumps are not obvious or whatever. But the geometric ideal is great because it helps you identify the main bumpy landmarks, which you can then easily cross-reference with the muscle next to it. (For those of you who have watched the popular Proko videoes on anatomy you can see how Bammes has be been a great influence on Proko's work.) Other than that, I find his text a but extensive. Good material, but it puts me to sleep, so I use Bammes mainly as a reference book. His black and white photographs also are very old school, but as a guide for anatomy for drawing, Bammes' diagrams are top notch and I would recommend it to anyone very serious about learning anatomy for drawing. It's a quite an investment, but really worth it.

Throughout the course of my life, I had 3 books on Human Anatomy for Artists. This one I consider the best because it covers all the aspects of understanding how the figure works and even more in-depth study, that I even didn't know was possible to find in the book for Artists.

Good book with a lot of interesting information for artists.

Having lost the first book in the international mailing system, and calling about it, I have to say that this was done so quickly, it was amazing how we received the second book in such a short time...I did give my son this book and he loves it, has referenced it several times with his drawings...thank you so much

As clearly evidenced by the constructive drawings in this book, Bammes is perhaps the greatest artist-anatomist who ever lived, and has done something with the instruction of artistic anatomy that has never been done before or since.

Was recommended this book by my atelier art teacher. Yes it is pricey but so valuable in information. I trace a lot of the drawings to gain practice

Get this if you really REALLY want to learn to draw the human figure the right way. Not need for going to Art school after this one.

This is one you're probably going to just want for the pictures. The prose is extremely dense and extremely academic. The fact that it's a translation probably doesn't help but I don't think reading the original German academic style would be any more enjoyable. He really gets down to the fundamental structure of a lot of complex anatomy and it's a great resource for that. Also, the first quarter or so of the book walks through the kind of drills that his students do to internalize things like proportions. If you want to attempt some self-guided study that would *probably* be helpful. Just know that it's exactly like reading a textbook, or in some cases, worse. I will also add that he doesn't fall into the trap of dramatic, over-stylized charcoal sketches that are ostensibly showing the reader something but really just showing off the author's expressive style.