Drawing Animals

This is an excellent book to use as a reference for experienced artists. As someone who is no longer a novice, I am often slightly annoyed at having to wade through repetitive chapters designed for beginners (what pencils to use, how to shade, etc, etc) just to find the nuggets of information or reference material that are new to me. Therefore, I was very pleased to find this book, which skips the information for beginners found in so many other books, and fills its pages entirely with a good variety of animals of all sorts of shapes and forms. For each animal, there are pencil rendered versions of: Front view, side view, three-quarter view Different positions (resting, running, etc.) Close-ups of the head (front and three-quarter) Different breeds Each also has an illustration of its musculature and skeletal structure, And my personal favorite feature of this book: Each has a two-page spread of form sketches in many different positions, which helps a lot with solving foreshortening problems in one's work. The only drawback to this book is that not every animal is included! This is the most useful animal reference I've seen, and I only wish there were a second volume to include more species that are not covered in this one. In this book are: Elephants, bears, horses, cattle, deer, sheep, primates, cats, dogs, and "small animals" (mostly rabbits). Would have loved to see, for example, wolves, giraffes, etc. Still, for what it does have, this is a great book. Highly recommended for those who are well past the "how to draw" stage and just want some help including animals in their artwork.

I have looked at a lot!! of animal drawing books and this one is the best I've seen. The only thing that is missing is drawing small cats. But, it does have great instruction for a medium beginner.

While giving charts of the skeleton and musculature, the emphasis is on the far more helpful method of breaking the animal and its extensions into simple shapes that can be used to quickly lay in a pose before getting on to texture and such. Plenty of action poses and the changes of the head when the jaw or trunk is moved. Covers elephants, bears, horses, cattle, deer, sheep, primates, cats, dogs, and "other small animals" -- mostly the squirrel and the rabbit, but one finished drawing each for the cavy, the prairie dog, the raccoon, and a hoary marmot. Obviously, if you are focusing on drawing animals in particular or particular animals, you will want more specific reference. Everything here is good, there just isn't enourmous depth.

If your into drawing animals, this is the book for you! Tips on shading and bases are included. Clear pencil drawings or just outlines you can try to draw. It's the best drawing animal book ever!

This is a great book that shows you how to draw many animals including elephants, bears, horses, cattle, deer, sheep, primates, cats, dogs, squirrels and rabbits. For each animal there is a complete sketch of the front, side and three-quarter view as well as close-up front and side head views. Next, sketches using basic shapes show the animals from several angles. Then, skeleton, musculature and surface anatomy are shown and discussed. A brief three-step demonstration of how to draw the animal follows. Complete drawings of the animals doing various activities such as drinking, touching, sitting, and resting are also shown along with sketches of the animals' young. Sometimes different species of animals are shown such as polar and black bears. Animals sharing a similar shape such as zebra, buffalo, hippopotamus and burro are shown sometimes as well. Drawings include brief commentary. Though I do like this book and did find it helpful, especially the anatomy/muscle diagrams, I wish the written instructions were a little more detailed. Overall, I would recommend it to any beginning to intermediate artist who wishes to improve their animal drawing technique.