Summer 13



Gottfried Bammes was professor of art at the Dresden Acacemy of Fine Arts in Germany and is renowned for his anatomic drawing textbooks. Originally published in 2009, this new Complete Guide to Drawing Animals has been translated from the original German. The book is divided into seven sections, starting with Gauging Proportion in which the author shows how to establish the main proportions of your subject using the ratios between the height and length of an animal's body. Set exercises in plotting basic proportions will help you to gain a better understanding. The next section deals with body structure, looking at animals' skeletons to help create accurate drawings. Once again, the author sets a range of exercises to work through to gain experience, looking at animals at rest and when moving. Large sections are devoted to individual aspects of animal shapes: the hindquarters, foreleg and front foot, torso shapes, the skull and head and finally, the complete animal form, including how to capture the markings and textures of animal fur and hide. There's quite a lot of information to take in here, but the author doesn't over complicate the information, and the final illustrations are relaxed and instinctive, belying the precision and knowledge the drawings are based on. * Leisure Painter, The * July 13



Bammes takes a holistic, methodical approach in this thorough and in-depth title. Readers will learn about the anatomy, balance, and movement of various animals, as well as how these aspects differ from the more familiar human figure. One particularly helpful section is devoted to explaining the proportions of a range of animals, using gridded diagrams. The exercises included take the form of suggestions and tips that are open to the readers' interpretation and experimentation. VERDICT Best suited to serious intermediate and advanced artists. * Library Journal, USA * Aug 13



If you have room for only book on how to draw animals on your bookshelf - this has to be it. This is an absolutely stunning, detailed guide ideal for both beginners and experts alike. There are complex studies of skulls, bodies and musculature showing how they exist and how they should be drawn. Help is given on achieving the right proportions, perspective as well as plotting the rise and fall of the body surface. The instructions cover a range of popular animals including cats (both large and small), horses, dogs, gorillas and cows. Both domestic and wild animals are used as examples and are portrayed in a variety of poses and in different types of media. Although this is not a step by step guide, any artist working through this book will provide all the techniques and knowledge necessary to be able to draw an lifelike animal. All the explanations are extremely informative - detail is the keynote of this book. 5 stars. * Monstersandcritics.com * Sept 13



If you have seen Mr Bammes' earlier work The Complete Guide to Life Drawing (also reviewed on this site) then you will be familiar with his style. If not, prepare for an impressively exhaustive course in drawing. Most art books teach you how to draw the outside of something, but here you are also instructed about what is inside the subjects you are drawing. Getting the structure right is after all more likely to result in a lifelike representation, and this book goes into anatomy in some depth. There are pictures of skeletons and proportions all marked out, which is very helpful. Each chapter also contains plenty of things to try out for yourself, including observation of your would-be subjects. To its detriment, at times there is rather too much information about anatomy. Reading through pages of this type of thing if you are interested in drawing rather than training to be a vet can be more than a little daunting, as well as difficult to understand. Skipping through and concentrating on the drawing alone is not quite enough to truly grasp it all, so I would recommend this book to those who are truly determined to master the art of drawing animals rather than the dabbler. Some prior knowledge of (or at least interest in) anatomy would be a help too but if this is you then after having worked through this book you should be pretty au fait with the art of wildlife drawing. * Myshelf.com * Mar 13



This is a weighty and impressive tome that is, I think, more likely to appeal to the serious, maybe even semi-professional artist than to the beginner. To be fair to it, it makes no claim to be an introduction. The first thing that strikes you, looking through it, is how few actual complete drawings there are and that, for the most part. those you get are very loose and quite sketchy. Again, this isn't a book that aims to impress by wizardry. Rather, it's a comprehensive and progressive guide that proceeds by looking at structure and anatomy - differences between, say, herbivores and carnivores come as sub-headings in chapters such as The Hindquarters. Based on a German original, the book has quite a literal approach, but is invaluable if you want to get the details of your work absolutely correct and it's something to be worked through rather than dipped into. Used in this way, it could keep you occupied for anything up to a year and leave you very proficient indeed at the end. Whether you think it's for you very much depends on whether you want such an exhaustive (and potentially exhausting) approach. It's pretty much one of a kind and certainly not for the faint-hearted. If you're of sterner stuff, though, I think you could love it. * Artbookreview.net * May 13



This very thorough guide progresses through detailed lessons covering structure, anatomy and articulation long before any completed work is encountered. Although the publisher pitches it as suitable for the beginner, it is more suited to the serious student who is prepared to put in the hours of study it requires. It is also worth noting that the animals covered tend to be larger and almost exclusively wild, from big cats and horses to elephants. If you are serious about drawing animals, this will reward you fully, but the less serious student might find it a bit overwhelming. * Artist, The * May 13



This is an incredible guide to drawing animals. Based on the theory that if you understand the structure, you can draw the form, this book provides detailed diagrams and instruction to help you draw animals accurately. The book looks at skeletal structure, torso shape, proportion, perspective and more. The selection of animals both domestic and wild is varied. Animals are shown in different, natural, life-like poses. The book shows how to capture natural animal poses and movement. A variety of media has been used to capture these wonderful drawings. This book provides a thorough grounding suitable for any artists no matter what their skill. I love the tigers, dogs and orang utang best. This is recommended for anyone trying to draw animals. * Karen Platt Yarnsandfabrics.co.uk/crafts *