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Morpho: Anatomy for Artists #1

Morpho: Anatomy for Artists

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In this book, Michel Lauricella presents both his artistic and systematic methods for drawing the human body--with drawing techniques from the �corch� (showing the musculature underneath the skin) to sketches of models in action. In more than 1000 illustrations, the human body is shown from a new perspective--from bone structure to musculature, from anatomical detail to the body in motion. Morpho is a rich, fascinating, and helpful book that can go with you everywhere on your sketching journey.

387 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 2017

238 people are currently reading
1275 people want to read

About the author

Michel Lauricella

43 books39 followers
Michel Lauricella is a French artist who has worked at various fine arts studios in Paris and at Gobelins. He currently teaches at Lisaa and Fabrica 114 and is the author of various drawing manuals.

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5 stars
228 (67%)
4 stars
84 (24%)
3 stars
22 (6%)
2 stars
2 (<1%)
1 star
2 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
Profile Image for Taufan Fardianzah.
7 reviews
March 28, 2020
Collective illustration of human anatomy based on Écorché by Michel Lauricella, You should use this book as supplement with other anatomy books in order to improve your knowledge on anatomy posthaste.
1 review
July 7, 2024
My only wish is that there were a book like this for physical movement and sequences.
Profile Image for D.T..
Author 5 books78 followers
December 23, 2022
I haven’t had a chance to really digest everything since I only have this as a library hold. But I think this is a really good resource for artists. This isn’t a how-to-draw book, but it explains anatomical reasoning like how an ear is leveled to a jawbone or how long an arm should be from the kneecap. It also provides some interesting poses outside of the usual sitting and standing. The artist shows some bigger body types toward the end, which is a pleasant surprise from most art books.

Shapes and simplifying the body are heavily emphasized. The book shows multiple times how to take a shape of a person’s pose, make a skeletal figure, and then add the meat and muscles. It doesn't teach you how to add muscle, but you understand where fat accumulates in the body and how curvatures and certain parts should look. You can fill in the gaps of knowledge easily, I think.

This is a great companion to a life drawing class or when drawing from reference pictures.
Profile Image for Rommel & Abi.
4 reviews1 follower
September 18, 2019
This is a beautifully illustrated book. What sets this apart from other anatomy or figure drawing books is its amount of invented drawing poses. The author has depicted the human form, showing the muscles underneath the skin, in various angles. The drawings are rendered with a dynamic line and minimal tonal rendering.

This is not strictly a “how-to” book and definitely not for the beginner. But if you already have a good foundation on figure drawing and anatomy, the depictions in this book will give a fresh perspective and good alternative to tightly-rendered, hyper-detailed anatomy books.
6 reviews
October 19, 2018
The book is very exciting. Beautiful drawing interesting poises I particularly like the drawing of the body with muscles and bone showing under neath.

I particularly liked the way the body is drawn with bones and muscles underneath. I recommend that anyone interested in anatomy have a look at this book
Profile Image for Xavier.
528 reviews5 followers
February 7, 2019
More anatomy than art instruction

Great reference for drawing anatomy but no instruction on the drawing itself. This book is good for learning the internal structures and how they bend and fold but it's not an art instruction book.

I'm going to re-read and draw and label along as a way to further understand and memorize the various parts of bone and muscle
Profile Image for Cora Coral.
15 reviews
Read
October 7, 2024
Eu nem acredito que consegui terminar um livro de anatomia! Estou estudando desenho por conta própria. Até recomendaram em vários vídeos ver sobre anatomia mais pra frente. Mas, eu tava muito curiosa e não entendia algumas coisas, e sentia que isso fazia com que os desenhos não atingissem o nível que eu queria.
Decidi ler esse livro só como uma forma de entender o assunto de forma geral, pra tirar aquela intimidação de estudar anatomia e depois ver cada detalhe com mais calma. Dessa primeira vez, não fiz muitas anotações. Foquei em entender o livro num geral, para saber o que me espera quando eu pegar esse assunto pra fazer estudos longos e detalhados.
Ainda não tinha uma grande noção de anatomia, principalmente para desenho, e consegui entender boa parte do livro! O que eu sabia era o que todo mundo aprendeu na escola e algumas coisas que fui aprendendo com vídeos no youtube. Fiquei meio perdida no começo, mas depois peguei o jeito. Amei!
(obs.: comecei esse livro bem antes do que eu registrei aqui, mas só lembrei de registrar muito tempo depois, esse livro levou bem mais tempo do que está aqui)
16 reviews
December 17, 2024
Must-have anatomy book !
It is a collection of very good life-drawn sketches of the human figure. It is good to strengthen your grasp of human anatomy (for drawing) and use as reference to train your sketching skills. This book covers a bit of everything and is divided in sections : torso, arms, legs/pelvis, heads, full figures.
There are other smaller books of the collection that digs deeper in specific subjects.
There is no instructions nor step-by-step and only a very few texts overall.
Profile Image for Polina.
84 reviews2 followers
November 13, 2020
This book is an excellent introduction into the human anatomy for artist. It focuses on the bone structures and muscles that create body shapes throughout various rages of motion.
The illustrations are well detailed and understandable.
I will keep this book nearby as a reference for my future model studies.
Profile Image for Esteban.
207 reviews
July 7, 2021
El primer tomo es una colección de ilustraciones que muestran lo esencial para construir un volumen debajo del pelo, la grasa y la piel. No es un libro de anatomía riguroso, ni tampoco un tutorial encuadernado sobre como dibujar la figura humana, pero funciona muy bien desde la pedagogía de hacer primero y descubrir para qué después.
Profile Image for freddie.
703 reviews95 followers
April 26, 2022
Again, the CAWPILE rating system doesn't really apply, but this book was also really useful. Lots of useful little tips and tricks in this one where it comes to the morphology of the body. Almost felt like I was back in my anatomy + physiology classes looking through the muscle studies lmao
Profile Image for Jimin Ssi.
9 reviews
July 7, 2023
If your beginning in drawing and want to get better at anatomy and human body just read this and draw every page for like 1/2 month combined with other human model references and I PROMISE you will get better.
This book is so perfect and easy to follow it makes anatomy very fun and interesting !
Profile Image for Ren Basel.
Author 1 book28 followers
March 4, 2024
An incredible resource for artists trying to get a handle on human anatomy, with plenty of examples of different body types and easy-to-understand breakdowns of complex anatomy. The text is helpful, and the illustrations are easy to understand and copy for practice.
2 reviews
March 27, 2021
Excellent book for artists. It shows what's going on internally but aimed at drawing, not medicine.
2 reviews
November 5, 2021
Excelente libro

Ayuda a entender la anatomía humana, pues contiene dibujos que muestran el comportamiento de los músculos y los huesos, según la pose dibujada.
Profile Image for Cherrie Wang.
88 reviews1 follower
December 26, 2021
this is a top tier artistic anatomy book. copy it cover to cover, read every word, and you’ll know how to draw human anatomy— easy as that
Profile Image for Ana Viñals Rioja.
6 reviews1 follower
January 14, 2022
I'd never thought how important is knowing the anatomy in order to stablish a better base to draw. This book is a helpful guide to discover the human body geography
Profile Image for -.
11 reviews
January 27, 2022
This book is sexy because it tells you where the fat deposits on the body are
Profile Image for Lucas.
54 reviews4 followers
February 2, 2022
não era o que esperava. estava procurando por um livro para iniciantes com um passo a passo bem detalhado. apesar disso, a quantidade e variedade de formas e movimentos dos desenhos são muito boas.
Profile Image for Evelien Elizarrarás.
5 reviews
February 28, 2023
Es un buen libro que te ayuda bastante con la anatomia artística, tiene varias ilustraciones de diferentes ángulos y masas corporales.
11 reviews
March 12, 2023
Solo las primeras paginas son texto, importante si quieres tener una imagen de lo que haces, el resto son ejemplos
Profile Image for lía.
32 reviews1 follower
June 15, 2023
hai algún fallo de perspectiva pero 10/10
1 review
August 22, 2023
Fantastic simplified, and effective sketches that are great as references! Great for artists who aren't beginners, but need to fine tune their understanding, practice, etc
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews

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