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 enlarge | Author: Mark Simon
Publisher: Watson-Guptill
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
Buy New: $12.70
You Save: $9.25 (42%)
New (28) Used (11) from $12.70
Avg. Customer Rating:  44 reviews
Sales Rank: 9204
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 10.4 x 9 x 0.9
ISBN: 0823016714
Dewey Decimal Number: 704.942
EAN: 9780823016716
ASIN: 0823016714
Publication Date: June 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Absolutely Brand New & In Stock. 100% 30-Day Money Back. Direct from our warehouse. Ships by USPS. 1+ million customers served-In business since 1986. Happy Customers is Our #1 Goal. Toll Free Support
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| Customer Reviews:
 Not bad, but too over-the-top June 10, 2007
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
This book has it's uses. It is organized by the age of the model, and varies from 20 to 83, both male and female. The pictures are clear and usable, and I was pleased that they were large enough to work with. Note that these are head-shots only. Then at the end of the book, there is a brief section on "sequential poses" which basically gives you some still frames in transitions between for example a happy and sad face. There is also a few pages on models speaking the phonemes if you need to do morphing.
The problem that I have with this book though is that, like others mentioned, WAY too many of the expressions are these really outrageous over-the-top kinds of things. I guess you could best describe them as "silly". If you are doing some type of animated cartoon or something, these might actually be real useful. But for any other use they are not nearly as much help as they could be.
For comparison's sake, I also have "The Artist's Complete Guide To Facial Expression" which I feel is a little more useful. It is organized by expression, and contains a lot of discussion about each one. The weakness of that book though is that it doesn't have near as much reference material (i.e. pictures) as this book, but at least the ones it does have are in general more useful.
Good, not great reference... June 7, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Facial expressions" is worth getting if you are looking for how the human face can squash and stretch, and how far you as an artist can push that, while still making the face "realistic." I belive many novice artists would be surprised. I was also pleased to see the age range of the subjects photographed. However, this book is not very good if you are seriously studying facial expressions. As another reviewer has said, the expressions in the book are cartoony and over acted. Again, this would be fine if what you are studying is how the features of the face interact, but if you are say, a comic book or storyboard artist who wants to work on acting and drawing a good, meaningful facial expression, this book isn't for you. Also, the drawings inspired by the expressions are pretty useless; honestly, they are in most photo reference books of this type.
 Amazing reference May 22, 2007
This is a very good book as reference not only for caricatures, comics or illustration but also for some serious portraits. Included sections of Art Inspired by (Photographer)'s Photos are creative. This book is a must have for people who draw or paint individuals.
I neglected this gem too long! May 11, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
My first though on seeing this book was: "What can it give me that looking through magazines or searching on the internet does not?"
A lot, as it turns out. I was seriously underestimating the value of having so many pictures of faces in one place. Especially photos showing various angles and extremes of expression -- which can be difficult find in traditional photos. About thirty seconds with this book was enough to make me realize that I will always keep it within easy reach of my art desk.
In addition to being a great learning tool, I think this book will be especially useful to cartoonists and comic artists. The extremes of expression make it easy to extrapolate the kind of exaggerated features required for such venues. Included in the book are example cartoons and caricatures based on the photos. Some of these even show the extrapolation to expressive animal faces!
No regrets about buying this one. Now I want one for hands and feet too!
 Almost Useless May 8, 2007
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
This book should be called "Facial Caricatures", because the expressions
are not subtle at all, but cartoonish. Not only that, the author
uses a wide-angle lens (or stands too close to the subject) so that the
face is distorted (large nose and eyes). If you want your paintings
to be filled with such caricatures and distortions, go right ahead.
The poses are mug-shot type, uninteresting with no attempt to pose the head in different attitudes on the neck. The subjects are quite unattractive, also--people I would never paint except maybe if I was doing a painting
of Hell's denizens. This book is maybe useful for only cartoonists, and in fact the "art examples" inside the book are all non-serious "inspirations"
from these hack photos. But serious artists, stay away.
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