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For years, the out-of-print art instruction books of Andrew Loomis have been coveted for their valuable information. Before the internet, illustrators would frequent estate sales and used book stores hoping to find rare copies of Loomis' teachings to purchase. Disney Studios reportedly made it harder for young artists to locate the books, by leaving standing offers for Loomis' publications and buying them quickly, so as to provide them as training guides for their animators. And when the books were able to be found, which was made easier with the help of the internet, the prices were most often high for these musty and well-used manuals. Many begged to no avail for the books to be re-issued, and eventually, fans of Loomis began to sneak digitized versions of the copyrighted material online, so that all students could have access to this wonderful teacher.
But the good news is, more than half a century after their original publishing dates, at least two of Loomis' seminal instruction manuals are finally being republished. Titan Publishing Group, an independently owned publishing company in England which seems to specialize in graphic novels and TV and film tie-ins, is set to release two of Andrew Loomis' drawing books this year: Figure Drawing for All It's Worth at the end of May, and Drawing the Head and Hands at the beginning of October. Both books have a retail price of $39.95, but if they are pre-ordered through Amazon.com, can be purchased now for $23.72 and $26.37, respectively. Hopefully, this is a good indication that the rest of Loomis' publications are to follow.
Addendum: According to Julia Diller, a friend of Loomis' grand-daughter, Titan Books will be re-publishing all of the books!
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14 comments:
Awesome cant wait to get both of them.
BRILLIANT, I want these so badly. Referring to a PDF is just not quite the same... I guess their sheer unavailability does give them an extra mystique. Thank you for this post.
I really do hope it's finally being re-published, it's been a long time coming!
Thanks for posting this Matt. I just pre-ordered both. They should give you a commission!
This is great news these are great books. I happen to own these two as well as Creative Illustration and Three Dimensional Drawing. It would be great if these two will be published in the future.
In my case EBay was where I found them. Some I paid about $100. I got lucky on the Creative Illustration book which came with Figure Drawing For All It's Worth in a bid that included both and I was the only one bidding, so I got them for a the starting bid. It seems harder to find these now than a few years ago for some reason.
This is terrific news. We also have Creative Illustration but paid a whole lot for it on ebay! Well worth it in the end. Hopefully CI will be republished in the next few years. It has been incredibly inspiring and helpful.
I am always glad to hear of republishing of great books. But what I appreciate more is the availability of so many great books like these available for FREE from the public library. I am always on the Cincinnati Library site reviewing books and asking them to be sent to my local Branch in Harrison Ohio. You can even get books,videos and DVD's.
Please don't overlook what is available to the artist on a small budget.
Thanks for the heads up. Exciting !
This is so exciting!
This is so exciting!
YEEEESSSSSSS!!!!!! Ever since my old college library managed to snag a physical copy of "Creative Illustration", the pdf version I have just stopped cutting it. Thanks for the heads up!
Or you did what I did, borrow a copy of each book from the school library and xerox every single page and put it in binders. haha :)
After learning that two of the books by Andrew Loomis would be reprinted, I was totally excited to get my hands on them for the first time. What most of us had prior to that were the e-books shared to us by the other artists grateful of the knowledge Loomis had shared to them. That's why I'm so pumped for the reprints!
-Kathryn McDwell
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