Character Costume Figure Drawing: Step-By-Step Drawing Methods for Theatre Costume Designers

by Huaixiang Tan and Tan Huaixiang

Book Overview

Character Costume Figure Drawing will develop your drawing skills to improve your renderings. Not only is this book gorgeous and inspirational, but these comprehensive visual images carefully illustrate--step-by-step--how to successfully render dynamic characters with personality and life. This book presents drawing instruction with detailed breakdowns of various types of characters. Maternal? Elderly? Sassy? Sexy? It all starts with body proportion,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0240811844
• ISBN13: 9780240811840
• Release Date: January 2010
• Publisher: Focal Press
• Length: 338 Pages
• Weight: 2.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 11.0" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

character drawing

This book is very detailed in showing how to draw the human figure and facial features... it has greatly improved my ability to draw for costume and fashion. I'd recommend this book to anyone who needs a little help with drawing a human form with garments and attitude. It made a HUGE difference for me.

Great book!

This book is very interesting. It has taken a very difficult concept (figure drawing) and broken it down into easy to understand step by step directions. The author's costume sketches were very helpful as well.

Amazingly helpful!

I had to do a full costume presentation with renderings for 6 characters for my class and I was so lost! I am not an artist at all, so I got this book and it helped me so much. It explained everything in detail and my renderings came out great! I would definitely recommend this book for beginners and experienced alike!

Everything You Need to Know

I bought this book because I had a project to do on costume rendering, and I know very little about it. Now, thanks to Tan Huaixiang, I know so much. He makes drawing the figure bearable, shows how the body should look under the clothes, and provides many, many detailed examples. It shows how to beautifully draw different textures and the different methods of painting the rendering. The chapter about the face could show better how to draw the eyes, nose, and mouth. Other than this, I believe everything is well written and explained. This book is definetly worth the money!

essential for costumers who need to "sell" their designs

I bought this book sight unseen and boy, did it come up trumps! I come from a fashion background, and the style of fashion illustration I learned is great for designing and selling to retailers - it's very gestural, and the structure of the garment is the most important thing. The 'model' that it's on is only suggested in a few strokes; you want whoever is looking at the illustration to imagine themselves, or their clients, in that outfit. And I was used to poses that showed the garment off to best effect, but really had the minimum of character to them. All well and good - but HOPELESS for costuming, where suddenly I'm trying to 'sell' my designs to the director/producer (and sometimes the actor). I'm trying to convince them that the image I have of the character in these clothes is going to tell the story that they want to tell. So i needed to add character and personality to my sketches. If you have the same problem; if you're looking for the same thing; then this book will be a godsend. The author covers exactly how to create character in the pose, then how to give personality to the face. She gives ideas to show youth, children and teenagers, middle age, old age. She gives basic details of muscles and anatomy to make your figures look more alive, and discusses lean and ample frames (something else that isn't an issue in fashion illustration). She gives easy concise drawable cues for emotions, and details of facial features for full, 3/4 and profile views. She even gives basic period figures for Egyptian, Greek/Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, Elizabethan, 18th Cent, Regency, Victorian/Edwardian, 1940's/50's, and contemporary styles. This section is the essentials of the Georgia Baker book boiled down to the kernal of good stuff and is of amazing value if you need to start sketching today - NOW - and can't wait a 6 months till you've got the whole thing nutted out yourself. There's good stuff on hands and feet and shoes. There's great examples of how stiff fabrics and soft fabrics hang differently. There are at least half a dozen really good examples of non-human characters (wolf, crocodile, ostrich etc)that are perfect for learning from. This is a really large book. It's chock full of valuable examples of the author's work, in all kinds of periods and for all kinds of characters (the play and character is always specified, so there's a point of reference you can use to see how the author has nailed the PERSONALITY of the character in her sketches.) About 3/4 of the costume illustrations are in colour - the book feels lush and inviting to read through. Some down sides; there is a double page on hats for male and female - I would have liked more, although I guess some other examples do offer hatted characters. Sometimes really valuable points are hidden in small notes amongst illustrations. The font is quite a small point, and can be slightly hard to read in poor light (like in many costumer's workrooms backstage!) Nowhere that I have found