Anatomy For Sculptors: Understanding the Human Figure - Paperback - Anatomy For Sculptors ; Paperback - Book ; Anatomy For Sculptors - Anatomy For Sculptors ; Anatomy For Sculptors - anatomy4sculptors
male torso form realistic to simplified
block farming semipronated arm
Anatomy For Sculptors: Understanding the Human Figure - Paperback
eye anatomy for artists
Shape of still lips, with typography, block-out and color-coded elements
classical nose structure
Creases and gaps of fingers
foot shapes and forming a foot

Anatomy For Sculptors: Understanding the Human Figure - Paperback

Congratulations, this is B.S. free zone!

Visual artists are visual thinkers! So we made human anatomy for artists. They don't want to read magnificent, but boring anatomy textbooks, stuffed with medical level information. Instead, the author made a book with clear images, that contain all the necessary information needed, to create a realistic human form.


Content is king!

In addition to the 3D models, there are also photos of live models from various angles and body postures, overlaid with color-coded muscle diagrams. The coverage of the book is completely comprehensive, displaying the human body from head to toe, including a few pages on face anatomy (for the deeper understanding of facial expressions, check out Anatomy of Facial Expressions). Most pictures in the book are self-explanatory. The text of this book is only about 2%.


The concept of this book came from co-author Uldis Zarins. A classically trained sculptor, with 20 years of sculpting experience, looking for good visual anatomy book for his students, that would help to explain the forms of the human figure. After years of fruitless searching, Uldis decided to roll up his sleeves and take one for the team. So, he embarked on an epic quest to create a book for solid anatomical reference for any aspiring artist.

Guess no more!

The book contains images of various examples of different postures, such as a twisted torso, the movement of arms, etc. This means you don't have to guess anymore how each muscle will look from any angle.

The Internet is not as full of information in the current subject as it might seem at first. With time you seem to not find the correct reference materials you were looking for. This makes you improvise. Improvising without the actual understanding of a human figure brings imperfections and frustrations. This book is meant to gain this understanding of the human figure and its motions. It allows for a person not to just “copy” nature, but to understand it and improve in their work.

Not just for sculptors

The book started out as a sculpting book because the author is a traditional sculptor with more than 25-year experience and a professor of Anatomy in Arts Academy. However, this book has moved far beyond that. Digital art, CGI, VFX, Character art, 2D and 3D, traditional sculpting and so on. All around the art world, artists find it’s used in their daily work.

A guide to making a realistic human form

What sets apart good classical artists from others? Major factors are the skills and practice of course, but the good live model makes a huge difference! If you have a good reference, you won’t need a live model anymore. Be inspired, and don’t waste your precious time on the search for images in google, basically, everything you need is in this book!

Learn more

Are you interested in finding out more about the content in the book? Press HERE. The author describes the idea behind the book and the content it contains, a way of creating a realistic human figure. 

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