Customer Reviews

Handbook of Costume Drawing, A

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1 star:		(4)

 

 

As someone who has "fallen in" to costume design, I was hoping that this would be a great reference that would help me to get my ideas across to my director, but it has done little more than show how to proportion the male and female figures correctly. I was dissapointed in the lack of technical information about drawing fabrics on the human figure. Instead of technique, it gives a very brief overview of what changed in the line of the garments and has a half silhouette on the side of the page to show how the figure changed from period to period. There are several fashion history books availible that have much better overviews and illustrations. Only a few examples on four pages are given for each period.

This book is lame. It's black and white drawings are sloppy and they don't instruct. There is little or no instructions
This book is way over priced. Stay away from it.

As a student of costume design, a book that has "for students" in its title is marketed right at me. It's too bad no one told the publisher or the author that students do not have $50 to spend on a book that would be better used as toilet paper.

First off, there is no excuse for a professional costume designer having to bring in an illustrator to illustrate the book for them. Costume design is inherently about your ability to create art that helps you communicate your ideas to others. If you can't do that, why are you writing a book telling OTHERS how to manage it? The author's costume renderings are shown in color only as small thumbnails on the front cover of the book and only in black-and-white internally. Given her style of rendering, this is one step down from useless.

The illustrator has made a nice effort, and the silhouettes from the time periods might be useful in a pinch, but there are plenty of costume history handbooks out there which illustrate far more of the range of silhouettes - and cover more than just white-washed portions of European history. I find it both disappointing and hilarious that this book devotes more pages to Ancient Greece than Ancient Rome. How many plays survive from Ancient Greece as opposed to Ancient Rome?

(hint: less than 10)

This book is an extreme disappointment from start to finish. The instructions seem highly hypocritical when viewed in context with the illustrations and the costume renderings on the cover. Instructions to use realistic style and to avoid "wide, cartoon-like" eyes and figures which appear to float on nothing seem wholly inappropriate given the style of the renderings on the cover. I can't help but wonder how the author would react if she saw the work of students who rendered in a style more in accordance with her instructions. One must hope she would at least be gracious about it.

I don't know how much input the author and illustrator were able to give their publisher with regard to these problems, but honestly, far more can be accomplished by going to a search engine and finding free, online tutorials. Perhaps in the future, a blog would be a better venture than a book?

At least those only waste the money of the people who pay for the hosting, and not for those unfortunate enough to stumble across them.

I confess, I was extremely disappointed in this book, especially considering its relatively high price.

I'm not sure exactly who the book is aimed at. There is very little helpful content at all.

The first 26 pages ...which sounds like a lot, but isn't, considering the format, consist of a few figure drawings plus a few notes about body and facial proportion, a short, generic section on art materials and techniques, a basic colour chart, etc. Nothing specific to the topic of drawing the costumed figure, at least nothing specific enough to be any use; there is nothing here to help the would-be artist achieve a finished result. Then follow 3 pages of PhotoShop instruction, or rather an extremely lightweight overview as to what PhotoShop can do.

Then comes the body of the book. This chooses various periods, such as "Cavalier 1620-1660," "Restoration 1660-1680," "Baroque 1680-1715" then gives a half-page of overview, including one or two sketches of things like a hat, a pair of shoes, maybe a dress or two, one large black and white drawing on the facing page. Only six full costumes (3 male, 3 female) for a relatively modern era covering a 100-year time span?

The closer we get to our own times, the less satisfactory this pitiful 'overview' becomes. For example, the female 1940s page drawings include 2 shoes, two hats, two hairstyles, one small drawing of a coat and one large drawing of a woman in a two-piece suit. That's it for the entire decade!

These costumes are nearly all designed for the wealthy classes, virtually nothing of everyday wear for ordinary folk. Giving the reader only one detailed example per period is extremely unsatisfactory. There really isn't any reason to buy this book that I know of. There isn't enough art instruction included to make an artist, and there certainly aren't enough costume examples to satisfy someone interested in either period costume illustration OR theatrical costuming.

If this had been a children's book (which it rather resembles, once you get into it) which only cost a couple of pounds, I wouldn't be complaining. However, I wouldn't have ordered it either. For this price, I expected a lot more.

I sure wish I'd read previous reviews before ordering it!

I bought this book as a gift. I was stupid enough to throw away the return slip before I realized what I bought. This is a flimsy black and white book that does not show much of any detail. There is nothing from China and Japan and maybe one exaple for every 250 years of history. There are even blank pages throughout the book for no reason. I am still going to give the book because I have nothing else to give but I know the person will be thinking that I"m a cheapskate and will never guess in a million years that I actually spent 50 bucks. I feel like I've been robbed. The reviewer that was the reason I bought the book has obviously only seen one or two books in his/her life.