Rating: 
Summary: Simply the Best
Review: After purchasing too many sub-par reference books on anatomy for artists, I highly recommend any of the Bridgman books. However, this one is the best of the bunch, as it combines the illustrations of the others in a larger format. Hey, you can spend triple the price of this book on newer books with poorer illustrations on better quality paper, (a.k.a: "Drawing the Human Body" by
Giovanni Civardi -blech!), but for my money, Bridgeman has yet to be beat. An absolute must have for any serious illustrator or figurative painter. I also recomend "The Human Figure: An Anatomy for Artists" by David K. Rubins as a no-nonsence, highly useful anatomy reference.
-CDK
Rating: 
Summary: It's OK, but there are better anatomy books.
Review: I feel almost guilty, like I'm missing something, but I just couldn't get into this book. Everybody spoke so highly of it, but I just didn't find anything in its pages that made me a better artist. Now I have the UTMOST respect for anyone who ever taught at the Art Student's League in New York--I wish I had the opportunity to attend. (Maybe that's what I was hoping to vicariously achieve with this book.) And I have no doubt that Mr. Bridgman was, and is, a legend in the figure drawing world. But the illustrations throughout the whole book are really bad. I mean, like, unrecognizably so. With all of my anatomy books I like to practice by trying to sketch the drawings in my own sketchbook, but with these pictures, there's just nothing to copy. It's more like looking at sketches that somebody made on a cocktail napkin. I guess I just like examples to follow when I'm receiving instruction, and I just don't feel like I'm getting it here. It's more like a biology lecture with grainy slides. The other day I bought "How to Draw the Human Figure: An Anatomical Approach" by Louise Gordon, and have found it to be a much better buy, I think. Same price, better anatomy, much better pictures. Check it out. Either way, happy figure drawing.
Rating:
Summary: It's OK, but there are better anatomy books.
Review: I feel almost guilty, like I'm missing something, but I just couldn't get into this book. Everybody spoke so highly of it, but I just didn't find anything in its pages that made me a better artist. Now I have the UTMOST respect for anyone who ever taught at the Art Student's League in New York--I wish I had the opportunity to attend. (Maybe that's what I was hoping to vicariously achieve with this book.) And I have no doubt that Mr. Bridgman was, and is, a legend in the figure drawing world. But the illustrations throughout the whole book are really bad. I mean, like, unrecognizably so. With all of my anatomy books I like to practice by trying to sketch the drawings in my own sketchbook, but with these pictures, there's just nothing to copy. It's more like looking at sketches that somebody made on a cocktail napkin. I guess I just like examples to follow when I'm receiving instruction, and I just don't feel like I'm getting it here. It's more like a biology lecture with grainy slides. The other day I bought "How to Draw the Human Figure: An Anatomical Approach" by Louise Gordon, and have found it to be a much better buy, I think. Same price, better anatomy, much better pictures. Check it out. Either way, happy figure drawing.
Rating: 
Summary: Total waste of Money
Review: I have bought many drawing books and have been able to gleam at least something from each that I thought warranted me keeping the book. After going through this book, I can find nothing useful. Before buying the book I read the reviews and after reading and trying to use the book, I can't imagine what the reviewers who had anything good to say, were talking about. Save your money. In this book the author just gives you a bunch of disassociated illustrations.
Rating:
Summary: THE BEST DRAWING BOOK YOU COULD EVER BUY!!!!
Review: I own several drawing books including: Drawing A Contemporary Approach (Betti / Sale), Figure Drawing (Goldstein), The Craft of Drawing (Wood), Gray's Anatomy, Drawing on The Right Side of The Brain (Edwards). BRIDGMAN'S is bar the best purchase, and possibly the only drawing book you need to teach yourself to draw. Let me preface that by saying, Betty Edwards book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain I also give five stars, primarially as a fantastic tool for teaching drawing, and for those beginners who are not right-brain dominant but want to draw. Open to almost any page in Bridgman's and you'll see several illustrations to begin working from if you choose. Or, read from the beginning the simple text that helps break down the figure, and the figure's components, into shapes and go from there. This book is brimming with accurate and easy to read text and anatomical poses to learn from. I guarantee you, if you draw as you see in the Bridgman's book, or if you even copy every drawing in the Bridgman's book, you will draw the figure, and everything else, like a professional. This book should be on every teacher and professor's course syllabus for all drawing levels. Great tips, great tools, great reminders. Enjoy drawing!
Rating: 
Summary: Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing From Life
Review: I read one other review that was critical of this book. I think most opinions are swayed by Bridgman's reputation. It is hard to agrue with his credentials. But for me this book lacks the clarity to help my students learn to draw the human form. The sketches are interesting to look at in their own right, but the text is confusing and isn't tied to the visuals.
I feel there are other more helpful reference books such as "Drawing the Human Anatomy", by Civardi. I still prefer my original anatomy book by Peck.
At best this could be a good companion, but shouldn't be someone's first or only anatomy book.
Rating:
Summary: Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing From Life
Review: I read one other review that was critical of this book. I think most opinions are swayed by Bridgman's reputation. It is hard to agrue with his credentials. But for me this book lacks the clarity to help my students learn to draw the human form. The sketches are interesting to look at in their own right, but the text is confusing and isn't tied to the visuals.
I feel there are other more helpful reference books such as "Drawing the Human Anatomy", by Civardi. I still prefer my original anatomy book by Peck.
At best this could be a good companion, but shouldn't be someone's first or only anatomy book.
Rating:
Summary: Good Book!
Review: I'd like to change my rating of this book to 4 or 5 stars. I finally figured out what the point of this book is after I started making some serious efforts to construct figures out of my head. The book has figures and body parts simplified into blocky shapes in order to make it easier to understand and draw their shapes when you are drawing figures from imagination. That's the point of the book. I don't think you'd need this book if you're just drawing from live models, though. This book is really for illustrators, such as comic book artists. This simplified visualization method makes it easier to construct figures out of your head (i.e. not looking at a model) and get the various body parts posed in the proper directions, angles, perspective, etc. Then after you have the basic figure down, you can refine it and make it more realistic, smooth, and curvy. If you try to construct a figure by starting with realistic, curvy shapes, it'll be much more confusing and difficult. The blocky shapes help you to get the basic sizes, shapes, perspective, and alignments down first. So if you want to construct figures from imagination and have a better three dimensional understanding of the anatomy in different poses, this is one of the books you should get.
Rating:
Summary: Buy this book.
Review: If you would like to really know how to understandand draw the human body this is the book to get. Bridgeman makes the body easy to understand, but not like many drawing books were most of this how to draw books last 20 or 30 years this book has last almost a 100 years and is still used today. Bridgeman teaching has develop many top master such as norman rockwell. enjoy the book and really read and draw the human form like he develop it.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books in figure drawing & how I use it.
Review: In my opinion, perhaps it is best to review this book in two aspects: a) what & how they are covered in the book and b) how I use this book. WHAT & HOW THEY ARE COVERED IN THIS BOOK: This book covers every part of a human body and how to draw them. These include proportions, balance, light & shade, head, torso, arm, hand, pelvis, leg, foot, and drapery. Not only does each section show how to draw these human organs, their anatomical aspects are also discussed in sufficient detail. Illustrations are drawings by the author, going from simplified to realistic expressions of the organs. Movement, gesture, and balance are the most useful and interesting aspects discussed for each organ as well as for the whole body. These aspects are usually not as clearly covered in other anatomy books as in this one. This is a special strength of this book compared to others. HOW I USE THIS BOOK: Although the approach I use to do life figure drawing is more like that described in "The Artist's Complete Guide to Figure Drawing : A Contemporary Perspective on the Classical Tradition" by Anthony Ryder (also read my review on this book), this book is valuable to me for the following reasons: - Certain poses that are impossible to set sufficiently long for a detailed rendition, either due to their complexity or time restraint, that a live model cannot maintain. In this case, quick sketches or incomplete drawings are done from a live model; the rest will be done based on an understanding of human anatomy. This is when this book becomes a big help. - Even when drawing from a life model, certain features are not clearly visible or existent in the same model. For instance, a beautiful face does not always come with an ideal body proportion. Obviously, in the final painting using a model, it is sometimes the artist's job to figure out what to use from the model and what to implement from an understanding of human anatomy. In my opinion, it is dangerous to "invent" what you don't see in your painting, since they will appear unnatural. However, to diminish this risk, a good understanding of human anatomy is a powerful tool to the artist for this task. This book is a good and reliable companion for me to tackle this difficult task when it comes to anatomy. To keep it short, I'd like to say that, "I don't read this book. I STUDY IT." STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.
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