"How to Draw People is really useful for the beginner, aimed at those who would like to draw the human figure. It takes the reader through five stages, starting off with teaching you to draw a stick person working upto a fully formed body. The step by step instructions and illustrations are very easy to follow and would recommend to anyone who is interested in learning how to draw people. I liked this book, and think it would be very useful to have on hand for anyone interested in learning drawing, or learning the basics.

Very informative book on learning to draw. It would be a great companion book for those wanting to learn to draw. It is full of step by step instructions and illustrations for the want to be artist/student. I found this book very easy to follow and would recommend to anyone who is interested in drawing people in an easy to follow format.

I was given this book by Netgalley in order to give my expert opinion as a librarian.

I feel like this is a good book, but I struggled trying to follow it (keeping in mind that I'm a terrible drawer). I think it will generally be very popular, but it probably wasn't the book for my skill.

I will make this review pretty short because I got this a long time ago.
It is definitely step by step and I really thought it was very good explained. But still portrait sketching is (for me at least) very hard and not very easy for complete beginners. So for people who haven't drawn much I would recommend a drawing book that shows the first steps. Shadow things, draw shapes and so on.
But for people who want to get in the people drawing "scene" I think its really good and well explained.

The step-by-step nature of this book makes learning to draw a less daunting endeavor. I wish that I had more time to work on my drawing!

Perfect for beginners and those getting frustrated and overwhelmed with other books about firgure drawing

The simplicity of the title got my attention right away. As a self-taught artist in process, I went online to search for the "best books to learn figure drawing" and bought a couple of them. I have that big book of figure drawing by Andrew Loomis, beautiful yet daunting. Truth is, what I really needed was a book to take me by the hand and play the part of the teacher with homework/ exercises. I didn't know that, but while checking this book I realized that this title could have avoided me a lot of frustration when trying to tackle figure drawing for the first time (and maybe I could have started drawing people years ago instead of avoiding the subject altogether)

What makes this book special is that it starts from the simplest representation possible: the stick figure. It then adds just a small amount of complexity to it, enough to get you on the path of improving but not that much that you might feel overwhelmed or "omg, there is no way I can draw THAT from the get go". The other great thing about this book is that it gives you exercises right after each lesson. These rather simple exercise boxes are really useful for self-taught students. They make it easy to know when to stop reading and start practicing. They also tell you what to notice and focus on while practicing.

The simple lessons are grouped in "levels": Armature, Simplified Skeleton, Simplified Volumes, Major Anatomy and Putting it Together. At the end of each chapter (level) there's a checklist with things you should be able to achieve before you can jump to the next level. I found this self assessment extremely helpful for avoiding frustrations and to be more aware of my progress. Most definitely recommended for beginners, self-learners and for those who have tried popular books only to end up feeling overwhelmed and incapable of drawing people (like me). I requested my eArc from NetGalley

I do love all things Manga...but I have found that it's best to review/open this up on my Ipad/Tablet Kindle app as it doesn't load well or open properly on the Kindle Keyboard or Kindle Paperwhite Ereader

I am a casual sketcher and have always struggled with drawing the human form. This book was very helpful in that it breaks down each body part into basic shapes and provides great tips to keep your sketch flowing. This is definitely a great reference book that I will continue to revisit as I progress in my drawing! Recommended for beginning and intermediate artists who are looking to improve their human figure drawing skills.

Excellent companion book for students. This book helps student how to express human kinetics on sketches. Jeff helps the reader to improve the skills from basic to advanced level by providing easy to follow tutorials . The tutorials are step by step with practical illustrations.

I just loved how this book is taken steps by steps and is clearly explained. Very useful to have for anyone interested in drawing, or learning the basics of figure drawing.

This book speaks for itself as a step by step beginners guide on how to draw people.

It is split into 5 levels, starting off with giving you to confidence to draw a stick person in proportion up to a fully formed body with muscles.

Each level is easy to follow and contains plenty of instructions and pictures.  It suggests exercises to follow to get an understanding of how a body or cartoon character are made into a drawing.

I had a go myself at drawing a level one stick person from a photograph and was very pleased with the results.  I'm not someone who can draw but this book gave me the foundation tools to try and also succeeded.

I received this book from netgalley in return for a honest review.

"How to Draw People" is an art book on how to draw human figures. The author teaches this by using a 5 level method that introduces figure drawing in a simple way and builds up to a fully realistic figure. The first level involves learning to draw an advanced stick figure--first just getting all the parts down, then trying to get the parts in proportion--and also learning to do gesture drawing. The second level involves drawing a simplified skeleton. The third level is a more refined figure using merged boxes and cylinders to create the volume of the figure. The fourth level adds on the largest, outer muscle structures. The fifth level is drawing a fully realistic human figure.

The last two levels took up much of the book as they illustrated the outer anatomy of the body and how to draw it. Each chapter had exercises for you to practice until you master that level of drawing. There were step-by-step demonstrations for each new skill or body part. I have read the whole book but am currently working on level four. I feel like the book has helped boost my confidence and my drawing skill in figure drawing. Overall, I'd recommend this book to beginners to figure drawing.

My aspirations are to improve my sketching abilities from a position of having no natural talent but a recognition that the skills can be learned through an understanding of technique and plenty of drawing exercises. I liked the concept of the armature whether the absolute amateur does not have to produce complete drawings from the very outset. This book is an ideal resource that may help me reach my goals as it makes no assumptions about abilities but will provide assistance along the way provided that the reader is prepared to make a commitment as well. Whether it is the right approach for me remains to be seen, but I would be foolish not to have it on my bookshelf.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

As far as "how to draw the human form" books, no one is going to reinvent the wheel anytime soon. So, to judge these kinds of books, we are looking more for - are they accurate? Do they use acknowledge techniques? Do they provide a good look at skeletal anatomy and muscles, etc?

This book gets everything right. It provides a truly basic starting point for beginners who are not used to drawing the human form and takes them through basic line work, to block forms, to skeletons, to muscles and finally, to finished human form. It does exactly what it says it does.and for this type of book, that is the definition of good. It now only remains to the reader to see if this style of instruction appeals to them.

This book is really for the absolute beginner, indicated to those who would like to draw the figure but do not know how. It takes the reader through five stages, starting point - guess what - the stick figure that a child would draw. Building up from this to complete figure in a logical and comprehensive way, with minor effort, that seems the author's intention. Nothing original seen, I have read a lot of books on figure drawing and so had instant déja vu feelings of Vilppu, Burne Hogarth and Bridgman techniques, in effect, the last two are actually mentioned in the "Further readings" page. Everything is very simple, maybe the major anatomy section needs more attention, where the muscles and their movements are presented (in a very simple way), in my opinion a coloured scheme of the muscles should have been useful (all the illustrations are monochrome).

I got an ebook copy of this from NetGalley for review purposes.

However, after reading through it and trying the first few chapters' exercises, I preordered a physical copy. It's *that good*, y'all.

Most "draw people" books I've looked at seem to make the process incredibly complex. The steps are widely varied, so the author has you drawing a stick figure and then says something like 'let's draw skin now!' and suddenly, there's a Michelangelo drawing on page three, which is about as motivating and encouraging as climbing a mountain made of jello.

Not so with this book. Mellem's steps (or "levels up" as he calls them at the summary of each chapter) are clear. Easy. They build on one another so that you're almost unaware of the new skills you're buiding. You get a strong foundation and a way of looking at the body while doing incrementally more complex seeing and rendering. He breaks down the human body, so you kind of learn the *why* behind each motion and step, as well.

Seriously, folks. If there was one book on drawing figures that I'd recommend, it's this one. I feel like I finally "get" it. Or, at least, that I'm capable of getting it, as I keep working through the book, which I plan to do, possibly on multiple passes, since I feel like Mellom's foundational approach will be enlightening on each pass-through.

Most art-related books, I read, get some inspiration from, and never touch again. This one? I feel like it's going to be tattered, dog eared, and in my collection forever.

Adult beginner's guide to drawing the human form, taken by steps and clearly explained. North Light has published some great how to art books, and this one will not disappoint.

I liked this book, and think it would be very useful to have on hand for anyone interested in drawing, or learning the basics of figure drawing.