Introduction
In this video I review the fifth edition of Bridgeman’s complete guide to drawing from life.
Video
Hey this is Scott's a kid.
I am recording a video first off uh apologize, I'm fighting a cold, so if I call for sniffle I apologize for that I just got back from New York, Comic, Con and I think I caught some con curette up there anyway.
I wanted to share this.
This video I'm, primarily making for Ellis I've, been able to talk to Ella since I got back and I wanted to share with him something I found.
I thought was shared with anybody happen to see this okay.
So if you're an artist, especially if you're a comic artist, you probably are familiar with these books I've multiples of this one.
This is all the George Bridgman books now George Bridgman is a guy, and these are the sorry I'm holding my phone.
These are his books.
Heads the human-machine, constructive Anatomy I got a couple copies of the bridges life drawing the book of a hundred hands.
So if you, if you ever go to a poor, feller view with an editor- and they don't like your Anatomy odds- are at least for a long time, they would tell you to reach Bridgman books, so you can see I got Bridgman books, okay, so these are the individual books um.
Now this book is interesting, because this book is the book that Frank Frazetta learned Anatomy from he was doing something to her, and somebody told him.
Oh you don't know Anatomy, and so they gave him this book and he took it home and he copied all the drawings in it and the next day he said I know Anatomy now I'm not Frank Frazetta.
This book is Kona and this one is like a general overview of the figure Britain's life.
Drawing constructive anatomy is more individual muscles.
That sort of thing you see I got a couple copies of it.
If I find these cheap on volume, I got one, not labeled master copy, because I've gone into written notes in it.
The human-machine talked about the human machine talked about how all the muscles work together.
Heads features and faces.
Is that those one on hands and I think that's everything I think I got all of them here there.
Maybe we want to miss them? Okay, so that is kind of the individual books that came out.
Well, then, there's a compilation book and I: don't have a dust jacket online, but it's this version, his complete guide to drawing from life, and so what they did on this is they went in and they combined all these books and they made this one book now.
One of the problems with Bridgman is it's the he's he's challenging to understand.
He didn't he didn't write these books.
My understanding is it's written from notes that from his classes he taught classes at the at the School of Visual, Arts I think it's where it was in New, York and he's well known for for having a lot of famous students.
I think Norman Rockwell was on his students up there, and so this is a basically a compilation of his notes or notes up from his classes, combined with his drawings.
Now some of the drawings are are rough.
I guess would be a good way.
They're diagrams he's he's trying to do it's supposed to go along with the text.
So honestly, I preferred the end of individual books to the big book, because the big book that kind of combined everything and it it doesn't flow super well, in my opinion, for example, they might have something like like this, where talks about the muscles of the arm and then the combine that would like some of the mechanics of the arm and it did it just never.
It always seemed hard to get through, but it's a good book and I have a couple copies of this and you can get this relatively cheap everywhere.
So what I saw what I bought on my trip, New York, says: I bought this the reason about this cuz labels 5th edition, so it's like well, what's the if I can get a little bit farther away from that? It's the 5th edition, so I flipped through it and so I thought for the video I'd kind of flip through it a little bit and show you some of the difference.
Now one of the things that I noticed right off, you can see it right here.
It has two colors looking tell us red and if you read in the in the inner- and it says they went in and relayed out the text and they didn't as near as I can tell they didn't they.
They didn't rewrite, it necessarily I think they left it basically the same as it is, but they relied how how it, how it? Oh here's a perfect example.
Okay.
So this is the page likeable torso structure, okay and then it's got this structure here and it's got its got the the muscles.
It's got the numbers and then over here talks about them: okay, so I'm here this is this basically same page and they've rescanned all the art, supposedly okay, so here they have that and they have they have this, which is very helpful.
If you've ever tried to figure out how the muscles go together, an armpit cuz, that's pretty and they've got the muscles and you notice the muscles are red, and then this here, where it talks about that the act, the mechanical part of it.
Where talks about the muscles we're just label, it they've got it with the labels.
So if you look at this page in the new book, you can see what the muscle is and then you can read about it, the the notes that it has in the old one over separately, they've incorporated into the muscles and so they've rejiggered, some of it honestly I've, drawn on this pad and I draw on these books, and you can see but see they've, they've kind of relayed it out so that it works a little bit better.
They've broken up the text, okay, so here's a good example.
So this is the this.
Is the torso profile page and says it's long block of text here? Well, they kinda they got the same picture and they've got the text as it as a unbroken column or is it you know, and the drawing is a little smaller in there, but then they've incorporated this.
You know this next stuff on that page on here.
It's a visitor on the next page, and here they're on this page, so they've tried to reorganize it.
So it reads a little bit better and the text is a little bit clearer and just the way it's laid out see.
So this is all here on the torso and then over here.
It's down here then take a whole page.
Just the end of that page and again it's got the instead of having the muscles listed and then the description.
It's got the description written at the muscles and again the muscles are in red, and the highlighted text is in red, so like I was looking at today and one things I liked is, it has, it seems to have like some of this stuff broken up a little bit better in terms of like how the arms are laid out.
I think this is a good because one of the complaints well one of the problems of abridgement everybody recommends Bridgman that people want to learn an Anatomy one of the problems.
Is it's not super clear? It's not necessarily a good beginner book.
I, don't know if this changes that was good but but I think it goes a long way towards making it more user friendly.
Like I, said, I got this I'm very happy with it, because I was actually going through that green Bridgman book and studying it, and so I'll just roll it into this and study this I don't know if this is available in hardcover I got in paperback.
That's what I saw I, don't know if they make it.
They made the old edition in hardcover, anymore, I, think I, think the ones I ever told you can see this one, it's kind of coming apart there in the seams, but anyway that's so.
This is my review of the fifth edition abridgements complete guide to drawing from life anyway.
Thank you for listening.
This is Scott Sackett.
If you enjoy this, you can check out my other videos.
I.
Do a blog, called Scott @midnight, where I talk about all kinds of crazy stuff, this and I do it every comes out every Sunday night, this Sunday night I think I'm gonna talk about my trip to New York.
Hopefully my voice will be back and I'll be back to 100% anyway, thank you for listening have a good evening.
Bye.