The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression

I'm a sculptor, very interested in capturing expression, and have been looking for a good book of facial expressions for some time. I saw the title, ordered the book and was extremely disappointed when it arrived; the last thing I wanted was someone else's interpretations of facial muscles. I needed photographs of the real thing, so I set the book aside, intending to send it back. Then I took a class with a very well-known portrait sculptor, and was surprised to hear him recommend this same book. "But it only has pencil sketches!" I protested, "Shouldn't we use pictures of real people?" "Forget photographs. You need to actually read the book. Have you?" he asked, "You must READ it, every page. This is the best facial reference for the sculptor that I have ever found." I followed his advice, and he's right. Faigin is an extremely talented sketch artist and his drawings will teach you a lot, but the accompanying text is really what makes this book work. He's carefully catalogued what each of the muscle groups in the face is doing throughout the expression of an emotion, and the sketches simply show what he's talking about. The text explains WHY we recognize certain muscle positions as a particular expression, and helps us understand the relationships of muscles, tissue and skin when the face moves. Faigin starts with how facial muscles portray key emotions, then moves to comparisons of different muscle groups in subtler positions. For sculptors, it probably helps to have a 3D model of the facial muscles (in addition to a mirror) handy while reading this book. But it's such a rich store of information that you'll learn plenty without them.

I ordered this book with several others last week, but, to be honest, wasn't expecting all that much in terms of highly useful information. I seem to have inadvertently become an art book collector in my search for the answers to what seem to me to be the most basic of questions about the makeup of the body and rendering it. So to say that I was pleasantly surprised when I opened this book is a huge understatement. Not only is this book comprehensive in its descriptions of the skull and face and the underlying structure, but it also goes into great detail about which combinations of muscle & bone movements make up the expressions evoking particular emotions. All of my questions about the head and face have been answered by this one book. It's also full of illustrations to accompany every thought. I love the fact that the author really understands the visually creative mind - Rather than go into written diatribes, he includes short written descriptions accompanied by several visual examples. The only thing I would change about this book is the fact that the illustrations appear to have been rendered in charcoal and some came out a little dark in the book's printing. It's not a big deal, since they're not indecipherable, but I'd love to see a reprint with somewhat lighter illustrations or even with pencil drawings instead of charcoal (I know, a huge undertaking!). I'm an advanced beginner and the author covers a lot of the mistakes I've been making in my drawings - something I haven't seen elsewhere. I can't stress enough how much one week with this book has already improved my drawing ability. I'm only hoping that, if this author hasn't already published a book on figure drawing, he will soon! Long story short: If you're a beginner or intermediate artist and can only get one book, make it this one; you'll see a drastic improvement in your understanding of what you're looking at and how to create artwork that is more true to life. If you're an advanced artist, the multitude of reference illustrations and photos will prove to be an invaluable resource.

I think carefully reading this book cover to cover will get you the most value, and I am working on that. But the pictures and descriptions in each section are useful as well, so if you’re in a rush and trying to figure out why your drawing isn’t expressing the emotion you were hoping for, flipping to that emotion’s section can give you a lot of helpful information. My one complaint is that fear gets the fewest pages and least details of the big four emotions (fear, joy, anger, sadness). I found this disappointing because of the particular project I bought the book for. I would love an expansion on the information and pictures in that section, particularly for the more subtle expressions like anxiety, worry or concern. Most fearful faces I see in real life do not have their mouth open in panic, but are still powerfully evocative. This is addressed in the book, but with less detail than other sections. And this doesn’t belong in this book, but I would love a similar exploration of body language and physical poses that go with each emotion. I found myself acting out the expressions while trying to understand the descriptions, and most that I tried brought out almost instinctual body motions (and believe me, I’m no actor!). It emphasized how much all of these expressions are shown in the entire body.

Opera di riferimento, ricchissima+++++

The book is an excellent guide to learn how to draw faces. All drawings comes in a very big size and helps you to appreciate all the details, so you can understand better the gesture. It is a great book to learn how to draw faces and people quickly. By studying this book, you can improve your urban sketching techniques, when drawing face gestures, tracing faster and accurate lines to better capture the magic moment.

Soy estudiante de animación y hubiera deseado tener este libro en mis cursos de dibujo ya que al momento de entrar a retrato, siempre comienzan con el viejo mito de que el dibujo es observación, lo cual no es necesariamente falso, pero si no sabes exactamente que estas viendo y como analizarlo, jamás vas a interiorizar el conocimiento que se requiere para lograr un buen retrato o una buena expresión que se vea natural. Esto es una fuente de inmensa frustración para los que van comenzando a dibujar y este libro acaba con todo este problema. Yo complementaría el libro de construcción de la cabeza de Loomis con este (no porque a este le falte algo si no porque asume que la persona que lo esta leyendo ya sabe lo básico) para tener absolutamente todo lo que se necesita para dibujar retratos, o si estas en animación, darle a tu diseño de personaje más rango emocional.

Beaucoup de blablas, peu de schémas. Les croquis de Faigin sont infects, inintéressants, et surtout inexploitables pour un dessinateur. Les seuls bons dessins ne sont pas de lui (Rembrandt quand même !). sérieuse déception !

顔の大百科という感じです。表情についてとても参考になります。以前は、雑誌の切り抜き写真を見ながら顔を描いていました。しかし、雑誌の写真というのはライトのあて具合などから考えて、陰影が余りわからない部分が多く、技量不足も手伝って、顔を描いても平面でのっぺりした絵しか描けませんでした。この顔の大百科の場合は、顔の筋肉や表情によって目の形などが細かく載っているので、非常に参考になり、またほとんどが顔のデッサンなので陰影の参考にもなります。 値段は洋書の美術書にしては高く感じますが、和書にしたら恐らく１万以上はするだろうと思われるボリュームです。全編英語ですが、訳せないほど難しいとは思われませんし、基本は絵なので問題は無いと思います。 注意していただきたいのが、あくまで表情の描き方であり、リアルな頭部の描き方では無いと思われますので、ある程度頭部を描ける方がより力になると思います。