Customer Reviews

Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery: Solutions for Drawing the Clothed Figure (Practical Art Books)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an excellent *solutions manual* for the artist who draws human figures or includes fabrics in his or her drawings. If you already draw, and you want to create dynamic fabrics and clothing in your work, this book is for you. The study of wrinkles and drapery in this text very impressive, and was exactly what I was looking for.

***Note: If you don't already know how to draw, this book won't be of much help, as no drawing techniques are included to show you *how* to draw these wrinkles. Some basic drawing knowledge is needed, and assumed. Used with other drawing technique books, however, I think even the beginning art student could get some good theories, understanding and ideas out of this book.***

What makes clothing look natural and lively is how it flows and folds with the body when you sit, stand and move. This text explains how fabric flows with the body and naturally folds in a variety of different situations.

Chapters cover how the body moves and how its movement and positioning effect clothing. Chapters also cover the various types of wrinkles found in clothing and other draped fabric, including:

- direct thrust wrinkles (wrinkles created when the body extends and pulls on the clothing),
- bend wrinkles (seen when the body bends and twists, particularly on arms and legs),
- crossing wrinkles (wrinkles in a zig-zag pattern, coming from two directions, often seen on loose clothing),
- compression wrinkles (outward pulling wrinkles created by crushing or squeezing of fabric),
- fragmentation wrinkles (seen on older, worn fabrics as lasting impressions in the fabric, or when movement is uncertain),
- swag and hanging wrinkles (think drapery, roman clothing, capes, and flowy or heavy dresses),
- trap and closure wrinkles (when a crossing wrinkle traps or blocks off another wrinkle flowing in a different direction),
- flying wrinkles (wrinkles affected by air or wind movement), and
- passive, inert, and lying wrinkles (flowing wrinkles on non-moving fabric).

Lastly, the text briefly but effectively covers wrinkle patterns, and how wrinkles are affected by different textures and types of material.

I think this book does a very effective job of classifying and explaining wrinkles so that their use in drawing makes sense. Its a very good solutions manual to help you achieve realistic looking clothing and drapery. I highly recommend it to the dedicated artist.

I ordered this book along with "Drawing Dynamic Hands," also by Hogarth (it's excellent as well). I'd been doing mostly figure study, and it was time to make the jump to clothing. I realized I had no idea what a wrinkle looked like (you'd never guess that from my clothes!).

This is a really great book! It's always easier to practice using interpretations that have been filtered through the eyes of other artists. Hogarth's style is exaggerated, but this is exactly what makes this book a great learning tool and reference.

I do understand how someone could be put-off by this type of illustration, but I feel the principals shown in the book can be applied to other styles as well. I happen to like this style of illustration -- it's probably nostalgia on my part; I grew up reading comics illustrated by Burne Hogarth -- but I was worried that it was inadequate for learning fine-art. I find now that I was wrong about Hogarth as a teacher. His books have helped me improve my technique, without changing my style overmuch. His exaggerations illustrate and teach the concepts well, without requiring one to duplicate them.

Obviously, nothing can replace the old-fashioned method of going out and observing wrinkles as they appear in the real world. If that is your intention, this book can help tremendously by giving you a clue on what to look for as you're studying cloth. Also, this book is fantastic for teaching you how wrinkles appear if you'll be drawing from memory.

Topics include drawing compression wrinkles, crossing wrinkles, flying wrinkles, swag and hanging wrinkles, bend wrinkles, passive, inert, and lying wrinkles,... as well as a section on understanding kinetic forces which may prove to be the most helpful to you.

Also, the drawings are awesome and have given me a new-found respect for Brune. His "Light and Shade" book is also remarkable.

You absolutely need a good background in human anatomy (i.e. the skeleton, muscles, and nude figure) before tackling this book. That said, I have not seen anyone else describe the rules of how fabric hangs, stretches, and crinkles on the stationary and moving human body (and on furniture). "Lines" on clothing I just thought of as a confusing and arbitrary muddle turn out to be much more systematic than I ever imagined.

He groups wrinkles by the forces exerted to produce them -- direct thrust, bend, crossing, compression (a subclass of crossing wrinkles), fragmentation, swag/hanging, trap/closure, flying, and passive/inert/lying wrinkles. I still don't understand the chapter on fragmentation wrinkles (hence only 4 stars), but all the other categories were clearly described and illustrated. He also notes the differences in wrinkles caused by different thicknesses or textures of fabric.

His examples are heavily influenced by his decades of professional experience in adventure comics (e.g. Tarzan) and period illustration, but the rules they reveal still apply. Fashions change, but how fabric behaves on the body is eternal. Essential.

An excellent _technical_ treatise on how to draw drapery for all levels of artist. This book covers it all, detailing how every wrinkle type is formed and where it flows. A _must have_ for any serious artist.

I got this book about five years ago in an art store, and it's had a huge impact on my drawing. Making clothes respond naturally to a human body's shape and movement is one of the big challenges to artists, and this book gives tons of examples of different kinds of wrinkles caused by different movements and kinds of cloth. For example, compression wrinkles caused by stiff cloth which holds its shape and pipe organ drapery caused by heavy thick cloth such as a curtain. It's also very good for training your eye to notice things in real life, so that you can go beyond just the examples in the book. The illustrations are large and detailed and very clear. Even though the style's a little dated, the rules still apply. I'd recommend this to any aspiring artist.

I owned this book for years, and as a picture reference it covers every conceivable wrinkle and drapery situation. But when I had to sell off most of my library, I faced the fact that I simply never used this book. The copious but maddeningly abstract text and little arrows never succeeded in helping me think about wrinkles so that I could predict them and do them without reference. And if you're just copying them for reference, you'd really want many more pictures of commonplace clothings rather than one each of every possible kind of clothing. The truth is, leafing through a bunch of magazines or stop-framing DVDs is more likely to get you exactly what you want.

And yet, while seeking to revive my cartooning habit recently, I found I did want a printed reference on clothing wrinkles -- but only if it were cheap. Following the suggestion of another commenter here, I got a copy of Jack Hamm's Drawing the Head and Figure, used, for under five bucks. And I highly recommend it. The twenty-ish pages on clothing wrinkles at the end of the book are obviously not as definitive as Hogarth's treatment, but they are aimed dead-on at the practical needs of the contemporary artist (and fortunately, men's clothes have not changed that much in the decades since it was written -- at least not from the wrinkle standpoint). It's at least as good a practical guide on this subject, and includes a wealth of material on similar topics that somehow get skipped in most art books -- men's and women's shoes, for instance. For five bucks or less, a much better value than the Hogarth. Though I can't rate the Hogarth below four stars, and understand five: he does his utmost to deliver, and the illustrations are marvelous.

Probably the *easiest* way to learn to draw clothing is to copy photos right along with pictures by our own favorite artists. That *seems* to be the most direct approach. But couldn't we profit from a book on this subject? The answer here simply is- Yes!

This is intermediate info here- a *much* better book for beginners is Drawing the Head and Figure by Jack Hamm. It contains brief yet excellent tips on clothing, wrinkles & drapery, in addition to the obvious figure drawing skills- my highest recommendation!
Burne Hogarth's accomplishment here includes a brand-new vocabulary for identifying pretty much all possible wrinkles. He does more than describing with words- he *depicts*. The entire book is drawn with a red-orange pencil-crayon, and all drawings are by Hogarth himself. Packed with illustrations- every single page has a drawing on it- it's basically learning by example here; these drawings are meant to be copied. Yes, many examples are a bit overly wrinkled, as some have pointed out, but I think he does this in a positive way. What good is a book on wrinkles if the drawings barely show any? This book is great for fashion artists and anyone concerned with drawing from memory. It's not entirely necessary for everyone however; moderately recommended.

Other books worth considering: Jack Hamm's Drawing the Head and Figure; Barbara Bradley's Drawing People: How to Portray the Clothed Figure; and even some of the many Japanese animation & comicbook instructionals, like How To Draw Manga Volume 22: Bishoujo Around The World by Hikaru Hayashi. Check 'em out!

Sometimes I wonder if so many artists draw people nearly naked because they mastered anatomy, but flat can't draw clothes to look realistic, especially without a model in the right clothes. I long ago decided clothes show movement far better than the unclad figure does. If you'd like to move beyond spandex and painted-on metal for imagined figures, this is the only, only book on the subject. The only alternative are fashion illustration books, whose models just stand there sedately. Hogarth has worked out the several catagories of wrinkles, which help you imagine them on your mental or sketched-out figures.

Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery by Burne Hogarth is another must have for any artist, as are all of Hogarth's books. The way shoes crease over the foot of a figure dancing, how shirts gather at the armpits when the figure is twisting, these are just a miniscule example of what you will find in this book. Whether it is cloth hanging on a window, a cape blowing in the wind or a woman's long skirt Hogarth shows how to draw it. The sketches are wonderful in themselves, but also invaluable as quick references as to how external materials behave when they are static or in motion. Rags, uniforms, gowns, togas, bundles, men's three piece suits, these are just a few of the things Hogarth uses to illustrate how things look. His no nonsense explanations and instructions are to the point, without being stark or clipped. What he says is not only interesting, it makes sense. Many of the drawing have arrows showing the direction of force being applied to material so the artist can learn to anticipate folds and drapes in other compositions. For an artist in the throes of creating a quick look at Hogarth's motion arrows can be the greatest of helps when you are suddenly fuddled by how some external should fall or drape. Some of the sketches in this book have partial backgrounds and these give context to the figures movement. The drawings span the spectrum from inspiring to mysterious and are wonderful in themselves as artistic renderings.