The Figure in Motion: A Visual Reference for the Artist [Hardcover]

Thomas Easley (Author), Mark Smith (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1986

This striking visual reference makes it possible for artists to capture the human figure in motion, solve compositional problems and faithfully record the surface appearance of muscles and bones as well as facial features and foreshortened aspects of the figure.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Thomas Easely, whose paintings are in many distinguished private collections, lives in South Lake Tahoe, California. Mark Smith, whose photographs appear in fine periodicals and travel books, is based in Venice, Italy. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Watson-Guptill; First Edition edition (September 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823016927
• ISBN-13: 978-0823016921
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #425,458 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

88 of 92 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I'll Take Muybridge and a Magnifying Glass, Please, August 16, 2000

By 

E. Richards "Herself" (Alone with my thoughts) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Figure in Motion: A Visual Reference for the Artist (Hardcover)

It's a pretty straightforward resource. It is hard to get your friends to peel off all their clothes and suspend themselves in midair, I will grant you that.

Also, it does not fill up half the book with those inevitable chapters telling the reader, "This is a pencil, you can draw with it and use an eraser, too. This is a watercolor brush..."

However, most of the poses in this book are unnatural poses of people making gestures I don't see in real life. A large majority of the images are of women, and skinny L.A. style women at that. (Interesting shave, there, missy.) Some of the photos are very, very dark and don't reveal anatomy at all. Also, they are very grainy. I don't know if this is a function of the film or the printing process (to keep the cost of printing an all-photo book down.)

I have to say, it was one of the better ones in the bookstore, but it leaves a good bit to be desired. It would have been nice if there were more males in it, the poses were more natural, and there were people of different sizes and (hello?) colors in there, too.

I have been using it to draw from, but all the flying in the air spreadeagle poses are not going to make it into my sketchbook. I think I will invest in a good magnifying glass and do some drawings from Muybridge's photo collections of people and animals in motion.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for beginners, advanced, intermediate, and fun!, February 5, 2000

By 

David Beoulve (United States of America) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Figure in Motion: A Visual Reference for the Artist (Hardcover)

This book contains full-sized nudes in motion and organizes them by the angle of the photograph. Face-forward shots come first, then forward-left, left, backward-left, backwards, backwards-right and so forth until a complete circle is made. This makes finding the perspective you want quite easy.

All of the photographs are black and white, which is great for pencil, charcoal and any medium lacking color. The last 1/3rd of the book has a male figure.

All in all, this book is great due to these elements:

1) All photographs are large and clear, and original photographs. You aren't drawing a copy of someone else's artwork.

2) Sample "thumbnail" sized artwork is provided on some margins to show you different styles of art and ways to draw the figures.

3) The book is organized such that it is easy to find the pose you want.

4) All of the figures are in motion, something that a real-live model can't hold for long, if at all.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars good idea, bad execution, September 9, 2004

By 

Lars Kingbeard (Galipoli) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Figure in Motion (Paperback)

As other reviewers have mentioned, the photos are grainy. very grainy. However, left unmentioned was something even more troubling - many of the photos have been digitally cropped in photoshop or some such program. this was done presumably to save ink by not printing backgrounds. The cropping was done extremely poorly and amateurishly - there are toes that come to points, feet that look like blocks, all sorts of bizarre and unnatural concavities. a real hatchet job. the end result looks like someone took a pair of scissors and crudely snipped photos from a magazine. this sort of problem is particularly distressing in a book intended for artists as the accurate depiction of the outer contour of a form is vital for drawing.
On another note, the models are not actually that thin. more average. This would have been a useful book, if not for the botched photos. An older edition would likely be satisfactory.