Facial Expressions: A Visual Reference for Artists

I bought the other facial expression book years ago and it was good and this one is just as good. From young to old and with focus on speach phonetics at the end of the book and also this book has a nice reference section with hats, masks, and sports gear. A great addition to my library.

'Facial Expressions' is an excellent reference book for artists who want to practise drawing and sketching the human face, enlivened by any number of evocative expressions. I am using it to improve my figure drawing, and to give the anthro characters I like to try and draw some life... it's great for that! The models cover a huge cross section, ranging from around 20 to the late 70's, both male and female. The expressions cover a wide range also, and there are more than enough angles to get the pose down. If you're a developing artist - like me - who struggles with the expressive human face - and particularly if you want to do anthro or furry art - I think this book is a must!

In my 19 years as a professional animator I've never seen a book of facial expression references as extensive and well thought out as Mark Simon's book. I was pleased to see that the expressions portion of the book was organized by character types rather than expressions because the animation thought process works in the same order. The type of character needs to be established first before storyboarding and animation can begin. Gender and Age are typically a great place to start. Another great thing about this book is the uniqueness and diversity of artwork from various artists. It clearly shows how a human facial expression can be applied to a wide range of character types - from animals to mythological creatures.

This book is a must buy for any artist. The variety of expressions and models is awesome and I particularly like the photos taken at low and high angles. I also like the way the book is organized. It's perfect to have expressions grouped by person because when I'm drawing a character I need to see how that character's expressions look. As fascinating as the photos are of different people, the artwork inspired be each model is so creative! The galleries in the back of the book of a kissing couple, phonemes, and models wearing hats are an invaluable resource.

Capturing a person's expression is often the key to a successful illustration. Sometimes you have to translate your own features from a reflection and apply them to the face you're drawing. This book alleviates a lot of guesswork and opens up scores of options with the variety of kinds of faces included, the range of distrortion the models allow, and the multitude of angles from which we see the faces. What's great about the collection is it isn't just faces, it's the other details that can sometimes present challenges, from hairstyles to types of shirts and collars, to a specific section devoted to various hats and headgear. All these seemingly obvious things are necessary to include at one time or another, and can present challenges to an artist. Just a sliver of the possible interpretations are included in the book as well, as several artists have contributed sketches based on the actual photos you see. Caricatures, animal characters, sculptures, it goes on and on. I see this as one of the few staple books for any artist to keep on their shelf, that covers a broad ground within a single volume.