Comic Artist's Photo Reference - People & Poses: Book/CD Set with 1000+ Color Images [Paperback]

Buddy Scalera (Author), Amy Jeynes (Editor), Sean Chen (Illustrator), William Tucci (Illustrator), Greg Land (Illustrator), Paul Chadwick (Illustrator), Matt Haley (Illustrator), Mitchell Breitweiser (Illustrator), Fernando Ruiz (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 24, 2006

Supercharge your drawings with the power of photo reference!
Almost every professional comic artist uses photo reference. Finding really good photo reference is crucial to capturing accurate lighting, foreshortening and body language in your drawings. Sure, you can surf the 'net or flip through catalogs to find a few poses . . . or consult generic photo reference books with static poses and flat lighting. But to draw a character consistently and convincingly over an entire issue or series, you need a serious reference library.

You're holding in your hands over 1,100 awesome-quality, color photos?500+ in the book and 600+ on the CD-ROM?all created specifically for you, the professional or aspiring comic artist.

Inside you'll find:

• Handsome, muscular men and gorgeous, fit women in dynamic poses
• Extreme angles, foreshortening and complex body mechanics
• Poses including jumping, kicking, punching, standing, ducking, lifting, flying, sitting, smoking, drinking, kissing, screaming, laughing, cowering, shooting, sword-fighting . . . and more
• Superior lighting that creates dramatic, muscle-revealing shadows
• 7 fantastic art demos by professional comic artists

Unless you have a team of superheroes willing to pose for you, Comic Artist's Photo Reference: People and Poses will be the most important tool in your photo reference library. Get started today drawing the pictures that will launch or advance your comic book career!

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School–This is a terrific book for all artists, not just those interested in comics. Professional artists demonstrate how to use photo references in drawing, what materials to use, and techniques needed to do studies and finish the work professionally. The photos show models in various action poses, alone and in pairs, with and without props, in capes and street clothes, and expressing several emotions. The only difference between this and a professional artist's photo reference book–and what makes it a perfect addition to a library or art classroom–is that the models are all clothed. The CD-ROM has the images from the book and can be used by groups working together.–Dana Cobern-Kullman, Luther Burbank Middle School, Burbank, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From the Back Cover

Supercharge Your Drawings with the Power of Photo Reference!

Every professional comic artist uses photo reference. You should too! Excellent photo reference is crucial to capturing accurage lighting, foreshortening and body language in your drawings. Sure, you can surf the 'Net or flip through catalogs to find a few poses and flat lighting. But to draw a character consistently and convincingly over an entire issue or series, you need a serious reference library.

You're holding in your hands over 1,000 awesome-quality, color photos all created specifically for you, the professional or aspiring comic artist. Inside you'll find:

• Dynamic poses including jumping, kicking, punching, standing, ducking, lifting, flying, sitting, smoking, drinking, kissing, screaming, laughing, cowering, shooting, sword-fighting...and more
• Extreme angles, foreshortening, and complex body mechanics
• Superior lighting that creates dramatic, muscle-revealing shadows

Unless you have a team of superheroes willing to pose for you, Comic Artist's Photo Reference: People and Poses will be the most important tool in your photo reference library. Get started today drawing the pictures that will launch or advance your comic book career. 

Includes CD-ROM. Easy to use - Mac & PC compatible.

Includes 7 art demos by these top pro artists!

• Greg Land - X-Men, Birds of Prey
• Billy Tucci - Shi, Daredevil
• Paul Chadwick - Concrete, The Matrix
• Sean Chen - Wolverine, Iron Man
• Matt Haley - Firestorm, GI Spy
• Mitchell Breitweiser - Drax, Agent X
• Fernando Ruiz, Betty & Veronica

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: IMPACT; Paperback & CD-ROM edition (May 24, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1581807589
• ISBN-13: 978-1581807585
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.4 x 11 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #290,768 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Buddy Scalera is a writer, editor, marketer, and photographer. He is best known for his photo reference books and CD-Roms.

For more info:
http://www.buddyscalera.com

Check out the Facebook Fan Page for Buddy's Photo Reference:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Photo-Reference-for-Comic-Artists/224221057835

These CD-ROMs and books are popular among professional and aspiring artists and remain strong sellers at Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, and Borders.

He's an active photographer with published work in books including Body Dump , Doll Fashionistas , and more. He also served as the Interactive Consultant on the book Artist's Digital Photo Reference - Landscapes.

He's written 150+ published articles on a range of topics including health, politics, government, multimedia, marketing, comic books, games, movies, television and much more.

Credits include The Suburban News, The Ridgewood News, Wizard Magazine, Comic Buyer's Guide, Comics Values Monthly, Collector's Advantage, Scarlet Street, Combo, Spin Magazine Online, Pharmaceutical Voice and others.

For over four years, Scalera also wrote and hosted "ComixVision," a cable-access television show that explained the comic book hobby to mainstream viewers.

At his previous job, Scalera was the original Online Editor for Wizard Entertainment. He was joined by Rus Wooton in developing Wizardworld.com, Wizardschool.com, Toyfare.com, Toywishes.com, and Inquestmag.com.

Scalera is also an active self-publisher. With his partner Darren Sanchez, After Hours Press released the graphic novels Necrotic and Celestial Alliance. He is also self-publishing "Visual Reference for Comic Artists," a series of multimedia art-reference CD-ROMs.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Ho-Hum August 28, 2008

By Telene Johnston

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I'll list the GOOD, then I'll list the Not-So-Good (aka. BAD).

The best two things about this book are:

1) A decent amount of images therein show the models in clothing (cloaks, some street clothing).
2) There's some decent reference of models holding weapons in "battle" poses.

That's it, really...

The *not* good (ie. BAD) things about the photograph are as follows:

1) The images are SMALL. Even the ones on the enclosed CD-ROM. Seems like the largest they get is around 700-800px on the longest side.

2) The camera's focal length causes the subjects to look distorted (ie. Huge hands close to the lens, tiny feet far away). For example:
http://is.gd/21M0

3) Only 4 models total. And two of them don't take their socks off. It may seem like a small thing, but not showing the feet is kind of huge. There's a lot of important detail in the tendons/bones/toes that is completely missing from half the images in this book.

4) The lighting creates strong shadows. This could be good or bad. Good because you get some nice play of light across muscles/tendons. Bad because sometimes parts of the model cast shadows on their face/etc, and obscures expressions and such.

All in all, it's OKAY. Frankly, I wouldn't buy it again. I'll keep it now that I have it, but my recommendation is to look elsewhere for a good reference book.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars very handy for the professional July 5, 2006

By Drusilla Kehl

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I already own Buddy Scalera's Pose reference DVDs and was delighted to see he'd come out with a book. I am a professional storyboard artist and find the figure and light/shadow reference in this book to be extremely helpful. While it may be geared more to the comic book artist (fighting and swordplay poses); nevertheless, I think it is worth owning. It comes with a DVD with more material. For a modest price, I think it's a terrific source for anyone drawing the human figure.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Useful Artist's Reference July 30, 2006

By Serene

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

People and Poses is an excellent drawing reference for those interested in drawing human figure in action poses. This Impact title is chock full of spectacular photos of the human figure and contains a small amount of drawing instruction towards the end. I particularly like the 'couple's photos,' and the pictures depicting wounded/injured poses.

Overall, a great resource sure to please those interested in improving their art. 5 stars