My favourite books for learning how to draw, paint, animate, etc. The list is a work in progress; in other words I add to it whenever I have the time.
Books on Anatomy for Artists
Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist
by Stephen Rogers Peck
While the drawings are a little dated (there's a shyness about the genitals) this is a terrific book for visualizing the mechanics of human anatomy. Peck has some very original ways of looking at the body; for example he describes the face as hanging off the cranium like a mask. He's got other gems too which help enormously in conceptualizing how the body is assembled.
Human Anatomy for Artists
by Andras Szunyoghy and Dr. Gyorgy Feher
This is a very thorough anatomical text, delving into every muscle and bone in great detail. The illustrations are highly detailed and show the bones and muscles of the body both at rest and in motion.
Animal Painting and Anatomy
by W. Frank Cadleron
This is a terrific book on comparative anatomy. It was written in 1936 for artists who specialized in animal paintings but it's full of fascinating side-by-side comparisons of human vs. animals anatomy. Reprinted by Dover Publications in 1975, it has been out of print since they discontinued it. I found one second hand.
Visualizing Muscles: A New Ecorché Approach to Surface Anatomy
by John Cody, M.D.
Ecorché is a painting or sculpture of human musculature with the skin removed. Artists have produced these kinds of images for centuries. John Cody does it again in the 20th-century but this time he paints the muscles directly onto a living male body holding over a hundred different passive and active positions.
Books on Drawing and Painting
The PracticeOof Oil Painting & Drawing
by
S.J. Solomon
I picked up a well worn copy of this 1910 painters' manual in an English language bookstore in Madrid in 1983. For twenty years I ignored it, and then one day, while struggling with painting some very basic
imagery, I picked it up and was shocked to see that translating a real object in space into a 2D image on canvas was never a skill taken for granted by previous generations. This book is a valuable source of techniques and methods of the great painters from the early Renaissance through to Turner... all in all, a classic painters' manual.
The Practice and Science of Drawing and Oil Painting Techniques and Materials
by Harold Speed
Even though these books date from the first couple of decades of the 20th-century, they are valuable resources. Speed describess in detail the fundamentals of representational drawing and painting techniques. These fundamentals can be applied to any painting style, but they are particularly relevant to figurative art.
Books on Animation
Animation Unleashed: 100 Principles Every Animator, Comic Book Writers, Filmmakers, Video Artist, and Game Developer Should Know
by Ellen Besen and Bryce Hallett
A terrific introduction to the essential elements of animation - story, character, tempo, sound... the list goes on and on. The book is packed with useful problem solving tips for experienced animators as well as beginners.
The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation
by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas
A classic, this book is a great introduction to the art of hand drawn 2D animation. Beautifully written and illustrated.
The Animator's Workbook: Step-By-Step Techniques of Drawn Animation
by Tony White
This book was my first real introduction to animation. The lessons are clearly described and easy to follow. Well worth it if you're starting out and need a good book to get you drawing for animation.
Books on Filmmaking
Film Directing Shot By Shot: Visualizing from concept to screen
by Steven D. Katz
This book was published by Michael Wiese Productions and pretty well anything from this publisher is going to be a valued resource for filmmakers. This particular book covers staging and composition of shots - fundamentals that are essential to both live action and animation filmmaking. Thorough descriptions and lots of illustrations.
On Film Editing
by Edward Dmytryk
Full of anecdotes from his long career as an award winning filmmaker, this short book by Dmytryk covers the fundamentals of film editing in a a very readable way.
The Converssations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film
by Michael Ondaatje
A fascinating conversation between the great film and sound editor Walter Murch and the novelist and poet Michael Ondaatje. The starting point for the book was the filmming of Ondaatje's novel "The English Patient", but the conversations reach far beyond that.