Customer Reviews

The Art of Animal Drawing: Construction, Action Analysis, Caricature (Dover Art Instruction)

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Originally published in 1950, these drawings remind me
of the old Disney cartoon classics animals. Ken's animals
express emotions, movement, and come to life. Ken keeps
writing to a minimum, sharing excellent insights and tips;
while the majority of the book speaks for itself in his
drawings. I found this book to be truly helpful in
improving my own animal drawings. His insights can be
very useful, and solved some problems for me. His drawings
range from very simple to very impressive work. This is
definitely a book worth studying.

Are you tired of drawing animals that seem flat and lifeless? Then this book is definately for you. Ken Hultgren does more than merely teach you to draw, he teaches you how to draw with the illusion of movement, and how to put life into the image.

I just recently got this book and I must admit, as a graphic designer, this book is quite helpful with learning more of the different animals' anatomy and structure but the only negative thing I can say is that it could be even more helpful if it had more words in it to go along with the images he shows you. Adding some instructions would help a long ways to showing a person how he got to each image. But all in all, it's very helpful.

Mike Sexton,
Owner, Birdman's Designs

This book is somewhere right between a "How to Draw Animals" book and a detailed anatomy book. It gives you the basics of the muscles for each animal in beautiful, dynamic sketches that take you from drawing static (but proportional) animals to leaping, rolling, fighting animals. If you're really serious, you'll still need a more detailed anatomy book, but for movement (especially of horses and deer and their running patterns) this one is awesome. Just a warning though, the section on dogs is awesome but smaller than the horses, the section on cats is extensive but focuses mostly on big cats, and the section on wolves/foxes/wild dogs is pretty brief - much more of the book is spent on the larger herbivores and some less commonly studied animals like kangaroos, camels, rabbits, and a big section on bears.

For anyone learning to draw animals, to do animation...this is a gorgeous guide. I just love looking at these poetic drawings. This is the only book out there that I know of that really explores movement. I share this book with my students. I love it, they love it. I'm never parting from my copy!!!

Excellent guide for sketching animals....great attention to the ever popular art subject...the horse. PLUS!....some outstanding techniques for the big cats !

This is one of the best books I have found on animal drawing. The caricature sections are one of the highlights of this book because the author is a former Walt Disney artist. Highly recommended!

The book covers several animals (with special detail in the part about horses ). It contains skeleton drawings and muscles of most animals covered.The book also has a few drawings of animals caricatures.

A very skilled artist shares some of his thoughts. A lot of emphasis on usage of anatomy to improve best, and also how to make your drawings more interesting. There is a few sequence drawings, too. One in which a horse jumps and tumble, a deer jumping, a deer walking, etc. Many pictures whowing the bone structure under all the meat. Would've liked the amazing artist to share some more words- but overall a very helpful book! Take notice he focus' mostly on mammals, but the same skills can be applied to other animals.

My daughter (who got this book in 5th grade) often goes to this book to get cues on how to draw a horse or other animals. The drawings present the animals in action in an attractive way. The drawing steps are kept to a few major sketches for each animal, which seem to be about right for a child or person who enjoys drawing and seems to have a bit of a knack for it but would be turned off by too many technical instructions.