Just a doodle of wolverine… I’d really like to make a good drawing of this character someday. Keep practicing, and maybe I’ll get there.

Following up on my post from several months ago on Fun with a Pencil, I’d like to present the quintessential Andrew Loomis book, Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth. It’s hard to describe how good this book really is. I went to art school, and studied design drawing, fashion drawing, and fine art figure drawing, and I don’t think any instructor taught me as much as I learned from this book. (True, I still have a lot of room for improvement, but that’s another post someday.)

It’s a near-perfect explanation of all the key concepts you need to master to illustrate the human form. He starts with the basics of proportion, then he provides a great explanation of anatomy as it relates to art. Later in the book, he shows you how to light the figure, how to construct poses, and how to deal with balance and movement.

He also provides a great selection of samples of finished drawings, many in the pinup style.

If you only read one figure drawing book, this is the one to read.

• Download Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth

I first created these brushes around January 2008. I scoured the web looking for decent and simple photoshop brushes to create that natural media look that you can get so easily in Painter.

The brushes that I found on other sites fell into two categories–rubber stamp brushes (ok for design, but not for painting), and low-res brushes (also useless for painting). So I rolled up my sleeves and created my own.

The brushes in this pack were created from vector drawings, and they were designed to create a rough-edged stroke like you would get when using a real brush. These are super-high res (2500px), but I’ve also included pre-scaled versions of each brush. You can make them larger or smaller without loss of quality. As shown in the preview image, if you play with the scattering settings, you can get some other effects than just a rough-edged stroke. They should be compatible with Photoshop CS2 and above.

These have served me surprisingly well, and I hope they are useful for you too! If you find them useful, please comment, with a link to your work.

Download the zip here

PS These brushes are free for use in any commercial or personal work. You may redistribute, as long as a link back to this site is maintained. You may not sell these brushes.