Rating: 
Summary: The best drawing book I've ever found.
Review: I've never been confident with drawing faces and the human body/form, but this book offers techniques that are simple to understand and to put into practice. What's more, the techniques actually work! After a few days of just browsing through the book, I decided to try to sketch a face using his egg shape diagram, and I was surprised at how easy it came. Using the triangles diagram, I drew a human figure better than I thought I could.
The author's inclusion of bone and muscle structure never overwhelms, and only aids in your understanding of how to create more realistic illustrations. This was probably one of the most helpful aspects, and I'm usually turned off when it focuses too much on underlying anatomy.
Practice is always the key, and with this book, Jack Hamm has made the process easy and fun.
Rating:
Summary: Carpenter or architect?
Review: I've read and used some really sorry figure drawing books ( and unfortunately bought most of them ). I purchased Jack's book on drawing animals aeons ago, and was impressed with it. This book warrants similar accolades. Simply put, it demonstrates the essentials for drawing the human figure. Burne Hogarth also wrote some excellent books on the subject, but was a bit heavy on the theory. In addition, you can see Hogarth's emphasis was on comic book illustration. He's more...theoretical? Jack Hamm, from what I can see, was more of an illustrator for everyday subjects. His section on clothing is priceless...he tells you the essentials in a few pages. Hogarth takes another entire book to do that, and still another to cover drawing the head. I'm not knocking Hogarth, I think he's a genius. Essentially, we are talking about the difference between an architect and a carpenter. For anyone just starting on figure drawing, this is the most helpful book in my opinion. If you are already drawing people, you can still gain an immense amount of insight from Mr. Hamm.
Rating:
Summary: The #1 Best Figure Drawing Book
Review: I've read several anatomy and figure drawing books and flipped through a bunch more. I think this is probably the very best figure drawing book of all. Anatomy books generally just throw a bunch of bones and muscles at you and teach you nothing about drawing them. You soon forget the names of most of the bones and muscles and you're not much better off. In the opposite extreme, Anthony Ryder's book gives you a few good drawing tips, but that's all. Jack Hamm's book is different and far better than the others. He points out the shapes of the human body in many different positions and shows you how they are defined by light and shadow. He tells you hundreds of details about how different parts of the human body look and should be drawn. He makes you aware of so many things that help you visualize and draw the human body. Finally, he gives you a much deeper understanding of the body. I wanted to be able to construct bodies from my imagination instead of being limited to copying what I see. This book helps you do both. You can draw something better if you understand it better. And even though this book seems modern, by the time I finished it I got the feeling that this book taught me a lot of what the great old masters knew, before modern art took over the art world. This is the real book you should get if you want to be good at figure drawing, not that horrible hoax of a book "The Natural Way to Draw" by Nicolaides.
Rating:
Summary: Unconditional recommendation
Review: In most of the fields I work in (and I'm old enough to work in quite a few) I rely on a collection of "tools"; shortcuts, rules-of-thumb, ways to solve a problem that have worked in the past and will probably help the next time, too.
Jack Hamm seems to think this way too. His book does not give a single dogmatic approach (or worse yet, solve problems invisibly, never letting you know how he got the results he did); what he does is lay out possible ways you can approach the problems of proportion and perspective, anatomy and drapery, shadowing and expression. Not just one method but many methods; many "tools" you can use or not use as you shape those first pencil scratches into a completed drawing.
His techniques for proportion are absolutely wonderful. His understanding of the action line is now the basis of all my figure art. This book is slim but it is all red meat, no fat.
His skills are solid. He has no illusions and pulls no punches. He knows well there is stuff you can "fake" and stuff you are going to have to get right no matter how hard it seems. Yet, somehow, without the breezy pollyanna "just let it flow!" of too many "Yes, you too can draw!" books Jack Hamm manages to make it seem possible. Every time I open his book, I find myself opening my sketch pad as well, and that is one of the highest praises one can give a drawing book.
The usual caveat...you are not going to get far with figure drawing without one solid dedicated hardbound anatomy book. Add Jack Hamm to the short shelve....
Rating:
Summary: Worth more than 5 stars
Review: Jack did it again, this book is perfect for anyone wanting to draw realistic and believeable people. This was my first book by Jack that after I read it, I wanted to get his other books! Topics range from drawing the head, the arms, legs, hands, feet, shoulders, and LOTS more! It even goes on with helpful hints when drawing clothing, male / female differences, surface anatomy, and other very useful tips. Jack Hamm got it all in this book, once you read it you'll see why it gets the praise it recieves!
Rating:
Summary: Very Informative guide
Review: Jack Hamm knows his stuff. The book is very useful for both the beginning and more advanced artist and is packed with information that is typically available only in 2 or 3 books.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: My drawing teacher loved this one. Only it's from 1965 so expect lots of cartoons of lovely women with comic strip type hair and lips right out of fashion mag sixties. There are several different approaches to the figure instead of the standard cones, and blocks style which I find really boring. Good Buy!
Rating:
Summary: A must get for wanna-be artists
Review: Next to Andrew Loomis, Jack Hamm is one of the giants of doing 'how-to became an artist' books. Since Loomis's books are hard to get, If you have goals in becoming an illustrator (commercial or otherwise); I highly recommend Jack Hamm's books. They are affordable and finally back in print making them easily accesible to anyone who has an interest in drawing. Let's hope Loomis's books come back in print as well.
Rating:
Summary: A must get for wanna-be artists
Review: Next to Andrew Loomis, Jack Hamm is one of the giants of doing 'how-to became an artist' books. Since Loomis's books are hard to get, If you have goals in becoming an illustrator (commercial or otherwise); I highly recommend Jack Hamm's books. They are affordable and finally back in print making them easily accesible to anyone who has an interest in drawing. Let's hope Loomis's books come back in print as well.
Rating:
Summary: Best book on figure and portrait drawing at any price.
Review: Not only the best value, this is the best book available on figure and portrait drawing at any price. Each page is packed with examples and principles of drawing the human shape. Artist's anatomy, sample line renderings, and practice exercises...this book has it all. This is not a pretty coffee-table book, but if you really want to learn to draw the face and figure, this book will keep you busy for a long time. Master Jack Hamm's exercises, and you will really know how to draw.
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