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Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful Reference Book
Review: I have been using Mark Edward Smith's two excellent photographic references as a source for practicing figure drawing over the last year or so. I was a bit hesitant to buy this book - afraid that it might just be duplicating what I already have - but once it arrived in the mail I was really glad that I did. The quality of the photography is *fantastic* and it's printed on a glossy stock which preserves the halftones and detail which unfortunately sometimes get 'washed out' in Smith's books. The range of poses is great too - from some very classical poses to some really "out-there" angles and poses which border on contortionism. Some of the most beautiful poses in this book are ones which a live model couldn't hold for more than 2-5 minutes, so having it captured on paper is a real bonus. All in all, I wuold say that the combination of poses and camera angles provides a fantastic reference work for studying the muscles of the body in various states of tension and compression.
I think I'm going to be spending lot of time drawing from this book.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Reference Book
Review: I have been using Mark Edward Smith's two excellent photographic references as a source for practicing figure drawing over the last year or so. I was a bit hesitant to buy this book - afraid that it might just be duplicating what I already have - but once it arrived in the mail I was really glad that I did. The quality of the photography is *fantastic* and it's printed on a glossy stock which preserves the halftones and detail which unfortunately sometimes get 'washed out' in Smith's books. The range of poses is great too - from some very classical poses to some really "out-there" angles and poses which border on contortionism. Some of the most beautiful poses in this book are ones which a live model couldn't hold for more than 2-5 minutes, so having it captured on paper is a real bonus. All in all, I wuold say that the combination of poses and camera angles provides a fantastic reference work for studying the muscles of the body in various states of tension and compression.
I think I'm going to be spending lot of time drawing from this book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: If you are an artist looking for dynamic poses this is the book for you. It is a great guide to help you get some very interesting perspectives of humans. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: interesting poses, bad position and poor quality photographs
Review: The poses in this book are indeed very dynamic and interesting but the one MAJOR draw-back is that they are all with the models laying down on the ground. Definitely not a very practical figure reference book for an illustrator like myself. I mean lets be honest, how many times are you going to be drawing a figure contorted on the ground verses standing and engaged in some sort of action. It may, however, be possible too adapt some of the poses for a standing position and yet gravity affects the body completely differently when it is horizontal instead of vertical. The photographs themselves are very poor in terms of quality in that they are: muddy, bad resolution, slighty out of focus, badly lit etc. etc. etc. Basically this was a very disappointing purchase. The "Fairburn System" series is far better than this book for photographic figure reference material; however, very hard to find.
Rating:
Summary: Very useful
Review: There are lots of visual reference books out there. It would be easy to populate a bookshelf with them. After a while, though, they start to look the same.
Not this one. Heavily foreshortened poses are the hardest (for me at least), so this book devotes itself to genuinely distinctive views. It may sound like distortion to describe an arm or leg as being a third length of the other. In fact, it is distortion if they are the same length, when viewed from some angles.
This book gives an uncommon perspective - it has earned its place on my shelves.
[review of first edition]
//wiredweird
Rating:
Summary: Very useful
Review: There are lots of visual reference books out there. It would be easy to populate a bookshelf with them. After a while, though, they start to look the same. Not this one. Heavily foreshortened poses are the hardest (for me at least), so this book devotes itself to genuinely distinctive views. It may sound like distorion to describe an arm or leg as being a third length of the other. In fact, it is distorion if they are the same length, when viewed from some angles. This book gives an uncommon perspective - it has earned its place on my shelves. [review of first edition]
Rating:
Summary: Bad for Illustrators looking for reference!!
Review: This book like It's title clearly indicates is not an illustration reference book.It's extremely useful to students and practitioners of the fine art of figure drawing ,it provides poses which are very diffrent from what we are used to seeing in normal life thus forcing us to see how many familiar shapes change when viewed at an unfamiliar angle,for a figure artist struggling with foreshortening a book like this one and Burne Hogarths Dynamic Figure Drawing used in tandem could work wonders.This is the only book of its kind and is in one word "BRILLIANT" .
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