Virtual Pose 3

Virtual Pose 3 is an excellent book if you're interested in honing your figure drawing skills, but do not have a life drawing group to work with. The book is not instructional at all - instead it is a collection of photographed poses for your reference. Included are 4 female models and 2 male. Each page of the book has a layout of a model in a particular pose, photographed from 6 angles (60 degree increments rotating around the model). The photography is excellent - there is a pure white backdrop for all the models, and the contrast and lighting is very good. Poses are varied and interesting, with props incorporated into some (chairs, supports, etc), and a mix of lying, sitting, and standing positions. Lighting positions are also varied, with downlights in some, and more even frontal lighting for others.It wouldn't be a Virtual Pose book without some virtual component. This is one of the unique features I found to be superb - an included CD installs a 360 degree viewer on your computer, along with all of the poses listed in the book. Where the book has a particular pose photographed in 60 degree increments, the viewer allows much finer (10 degree) increments. You can rotate the model a full 360 degrees and choose your vantage point for the sketch. There are a total of 70 poses, with 36 views per pose, yielding 2,520 views.The one quirk of the book is photoshop censoring of certain parts of the female anatomy, seen in both the photos and computer viewer as blurred areas. Strangely there is no corresponding censoring on the male models. While I understand that some of the 360 degree poses put the models in some strange positions, it's not as if we hand out fig leaves in life drawing classes. Overall the censoring is mild, however, and should not affect any of your drawings.I recommend Virtual Pose 3 for anyone looking to build their figure drawing skills.