Product Description
The next best thing to working with a live model, Virtual Pose(r) 3 provides professional and student artists with an accurate and convenient method of viewing the human form--without needing access to a live model and studio sessions.

Digital artist Mario Henri Chakkour has created a CD-ROM and companion book that features models in 70 high resolution poses, images which can be zoomed in on and rotated 360 degrees. Painters, sculptors, and other artists will welcome the opportunity to study at length each detail and subtlety of the human form, giving them a deeper understanding of shape, form, and gesture.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 32 reviews)

too many light sources

There are way too many light sources at the same intensity.
The fill completely obfuscates the forms -- sure, nice
picture, but for any student of anatomy or the body,
fill in this case, is useless. Sure, if one just wants to make a
'still life' from these pics, then ok, lighting is adequate.
But if one desires to really study the figure via surface and
anatomy, well, one is better off hiring a model, and referring
to a good anatomy book.

The quicktime angles help and offer better understanding,
so the product by-design is helpful. The photography simply
misses completely. Hint to producers: Pay attention to lighting,
and decrement fill to key way more. The fill is counterproductive,
as in a lot of cases, it obfuscates form -- for those who are in this to
study the human form, rather than simply produce replicas of an image.

My summary: The ability to rotate a pose makes this product
incredibly valuable. It would have been more valuable if the photography
had a bit more respect with regard to the communication of form,
as we really have to rely on rotation rather than the communicative
potential of lighting. That was an opportunity squandered -- to produce a
stellar product, given the price point.
September 28, 2008

Solid visual reference

Chakkour offers a valuable resource. Many aspiring artists (maybe I'm not an artist, but I aspire) have limited contact with models, but understand how important it is to have ready access to simple and precise figure imagery. References like VP3 are a godsend for us. They inspire us with the many possibilities that inhere in the human form, and provide exact reference for our imperfect efforts.

This collection works very well in one way. Each model poses on a turntable; while holding that pose, s/he is photographed from many angles. With just a little interpolation, one can interpolate any angle in between, laterally, even if it doesn't cover the up/down axis.

But, as with any book, it contains the author's vision - not mine. Perhaps your vision can adapt to the pose, perhaps your pose can adapt to the vision. Some poses simply baffle. I expect a pose book to try to cover many of the moods a body can express, and p.41 worked well for a recent project, but not all that well. The pose on p.40 simply baffles me, though. This is a pose book. The authors imagined some situation in which that pose could make sense, so the student could take the body's physical facts and build a story around them. So, just what story did the pose on p.40 inspire? I'm lost.

Also, I had trouble with the retouched photos. A few times, a model and angle would combine to expose something indelicate, like an excretory orifice. Fat-fingered blurring saved us from many of those troubling details. C'MON GUYS. I don't have any special fascination with naughty bits - but they're there. I find the Barbie doll plastering-over of normal anatomy jarring and disturbing. That little touch doesn't affect the pose or the general flow of a body. It does affect my ability to accept the image as real, though. It's not that I actually want all those little details of the human condition. Instead, it conjures horrible surgery when I see them missing.

On the positive side, these 70 poses gain value from their multiple viewing angles. On the negative, the editors bowdlerize even nude figures. And, on top of it all, the pose that I really wanted never appeared. I tried to adapt one from the book - it came pretty close, actually. Just not close enough.

-- wiredweird
September 13, 2008

does the job, but background is horrible

The 360 degree rotating is great, some poses could be more interesting, some are too similar to each other. The women modeling are pretty much the same, same bone structure, similar weight, skin color, ethnicity and age. There is only one young male model, and one older male model. That part was really disappointing. And what it bother me the most was the background color. in all the pictures is the same, white!. A darker color, gray or black on any other color for that matter would be great! the fact that all the models are REALLY white becomes obnoxious. At certain points the background blends with their sking color, making it hard to differentiate one from the other. With a different background the model would "pop-out", and the artist's eyes would easily focus on his/her subject.
August 11, 2008

really good, but not perfect

i really love using this book (and the CD). i want to mention that i have a Mac with an operating system that isn't updated (OS 10.2), and i purposely got Virtual Pose 3 because i assumed (rightly) that a more recent version of these books would come with a CD-ROM that's not compatible with my operating system. so thankfully i CAN use this CD, which is the best part of this book.

in my opinion, the book itself would be improved by 3 things:

1. more dramatic lighting (although i believe the author has addressed his reasoning for this)

2. a spiral binding (easier use for drawing from the book itself)

3. larger pictures (at least some)

i do like the models in this book very much, and the poses are great. i'm a bit of a beginner, and i only get to go to a life drawing once a month or so, so this is a great resource for me to just do lots and lots of gesture drawing, along with some more detailed work.
April 12, 2008

Better, but still not understanding the artist

I am going to be critical, but I'd like to open with saying that this was a really cool and thoughful project for someone to come up with and offer to the artist.

I get quite a chuckle at all the people who are angry about there being airbrushed vulvas and anuses. In your usual life drawing class you are not going to have the model eyeballing you with their privates. Its not like there is a shortage of vulvas and anuses online if that's what you want to draw. And any artist who has developed true capability with the human form can use the suggested form shadow as a base from which to draw a glorious sphincter and beautiful floral labia to make any viewer blush. Until then get over yourselves. The models, used to having a choice of what they want to show the students; are entitled to keep four square inches of themselves private from the world.

Virtual Pose 3 is a good step up form Virtual Pose 2. And I appreciate the creativity of the poses and opportunity to see a pose from all sides. However I am still disappointed that these poses aren't lit properly to describe the form. Generally they are top lit so in standing poses you get some minor indication of core shadow and somewhat overly bright reflections on the skin on they upper torso,and everything below is pure ambient light and this obliterates form. While some poses are better with lighting than others; on the whole, the lighting is uninteresting and lifeless Virtual pose could take some cues on how to light their models by checking out an artistic soft porn site like Met Art. But hey, I suppose you are going to often be faced with the difficult challenge of illustrating people in ambient light. So Virtual Pose 3 will give you a real work out as you figure out how to describe form with even lighting all over!

I'd like to see a Virtual Pose V or VI, but with artistic form light. As with Muybridge what a cool thing to attempt.But it won't be the ultimate reference series for the artist until the lighting loses its sterility.
September 05, 2007

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist (Galaxy Books)
by Stephen Rogers Peck

Basic Figure Drawing Techniques (North Light Basic Painting)
by Greg Albert

Virtual Pose Duo: The Ultimate Visual Reference Series for Drawing the Human Figure
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Virtual Pose 2: The Ultimate Visual Reference Series for Drawing the Human Figure
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Virtual Pose 4
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