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Recently, I have had the pleasure of contributing a small portion to this book (about three-quarters of a page of text and four gesture drawings that I did while in second year animation). I did it on a completely voluntary basis as the Author is a model friend in the U.S. I met on Deviant Art a while ago. I thought it was for a good cause. Got my copy of it in the mail today.

I've seen many figure drawing books that discuss anatomy, different drawing techniques and various exercises - those are everywhere. Until now, I've never seen a book that is written from the model's perspective, directed mainly to models and instructors who don't have a lot of experience with posing for and directing figure drawing sessions. You might even say... that it's directed at those who don't really know why artists draw nude figures as well. It explains very thoroughly about why particular things are done.

It's a great book that explains what art modelling is about (i.e. it's NOT run way fashion modelling) - what to expect, what to bring, what makes a good pose, what teachers and students expect from models, etc. It talks about what goes on in an art class (i.e. short poses to warm up and then progressively longer poses), long poses for painting and sculpture, . It's a very good resource for those that are considering to become art models or are still new to the profession. There are many short anecdotes from different artists, instructors and models, as well as longer interviews with models.

As a person who has been on the drawing side, it gives me an insight into the model's perspective of figure drawing. Obviously I recommend it for art models but also I recommend it for basically anyone who has an interest in figure drawing and wants to get a different perspective on it in contrast to the large amount of "drawing/anatomy-centric" books on the subject. There are lots of drawings from all kinds of artists included as well (painting, sculpture, pencil, ink, etc).

This all reminds me... haven't gone figure drawing in over a year and a half....