iSculpt.org

Most sculptors I know have a lot of anatomy books and also a lot of reference images collected from other places. Some of these images are used for inspiration, others simply to help them know what a certain kind of body looks like in a certain pose. Although images created for this purpose, such as those in anatomy books, pose reference books, and online resources such as 3d.sk account for some of those images, we also tend to find useful references in other places.

To give some examples: Sculptors who create very muscular figures often make extensive use of bodybuilding magazines and books. Old catalogs are a great reference source for clothing from a particular time period, and screen captures from movies can be very helpful when trying to capture a likeness of characters from that movie.

I thought I'd post a couple of more obscure reference sources that I've used.

Harmonious Development of Women's Bodies

The first one is another old book I stumbled across last year. It's called "Harmonious Development of Women's Bodies" by Alice Bloch, and the English version I have was published in 1938, although it's a translation of a German book from a few years earlier. The book was sold as a "how to" guide, giving exercises and information on building a healthy and attractive body for girls. Much of the information and science in the book is outdated, but this book does still offer something of value for the figurative artist.

You see, Germany in the 1930s is the birthplace of the modern naturism movement (aka nudism, aka running around outside with no clothes on), and Ms. Bloch appears to have been a part of that movement, or at least influenced by it, for the book is chock full of pictures of nude young women outside performing the various exercises she discusses. The quality of the printing is less than perfect, but is good enough to discern a decent level of anatomic details, and there are some really wonderful pictures in here of gymnastic and dance poses.

Since this little book was published in 1938, its copyright has expired, so I'm able to legally post scans of all the plates. If you would like a digital copy for yourself, you can find a PDF with all the plates here. Standard warning - there be naked bodies at that link, so don't click Mrs. Grundy!

Tax Dollars at Work

Another unlikely resource for finding reference images is, believe it or not, the Library of Congress website. Hidden deep down in in their prints and photos collection are a large number of useful reference images that have been scanned and made available thanks to your tax dollars (if you live in the U.S). Among other things, you'll find scans of several of Eadweard Muybridge's original photographs from "Human Locomotion" and a lot of pictures of the old-time bodybuilder Eugene Sandow.

The search engine is capable if not, perhaps, as robust as something like Google. Despite its simplicity, you can have a lot of fun searching for reference images and inspiration here by plugging in different keywords. In a later post, perhaps I'll let you in on the super-secret method for getting to higher resolution files in some cases.