This is a weighty and impressive tome that is, I think, more likely to appeal to the serious, maybe even semi-professional artist than to the beginner. To be fair to it, it makes no claim to be an introduction.
The first thing that strikes you, looking through it, is how few actual complete drawings there are and that, for the most part. those you get are very loose and quite sketchy. Again, this isn’t a book that aims to impress by wizardry. Rather, it’s a comprehensive and progressive guide that proceeds by looking at structure and anatomy – differences between, say, herbivores and carnivores come as sub-headings in chapters such as The Hindquarters.
Based on a German original, the book has quite a literal approach, but is invaluable if you want to get the details of your work absolutely correct and it’s something to be worked through rather than dipped into. Used in this way, it could keep you occupied for anything up to a year and leave you very proficient indeed at the end.
Whether you think it’s for you very much depends on whether you want such an exhaustive (and potentially exhausting) approach. It’s pretty much one of a kind and certainly not for the faint-hearted. If you’re of sterner stuff, though, I think you could love it.
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