14 DAY TRIAL // I remember my first human figure drawings used to be a disaster. Whenever I started my drawing with the head, there was not enough paper to draw the feet and again, if I drew the feet first and then the head, I always needed extra paper to finish. Only after a lot of wasted crayons and paper I started to realize that there are some rules that you have to follow in order to draw a proportional character. Now I've discovered 3D Virtual Figure Drawing Studio and I surely can say that this is a key utility for everyone who wants to learn how to draw human figures.
The product costs only $17.99 and at this price it surely offers some great drawing lessons that one couldn't attend in class or under other similar conditions. With a very simple interface and some easy to use toolbars you can evaluate the demo version of 3D Virtual Figure Drawing Studio for as long as you want but you will have to deal with a reminder screen that appears at random periods of time on the center of the screen.
While the main central part of the application is occupied by the 3D figure itself and the background around it, the left and right sides display some toolbars which allow you to control and edit the character's appearance. One great experience that you happen to discover when first running the program is the versatility of your mouse moves. Scrolling up and down and moving the mouse around allows you to get a complete 3D view of the character from any angle that you wish to. You can fully rotate around him and stop to analyze the body structure, the bones, muscles and proportions and get a complete image of how the human anatomy looks like.
3D Virtual Figure Drawing Studio comes with a series of default poses that you can switch and analyze. After you get some experience with drawing you may set a specific order and an amount of time for the poses to change and so you can seriously develop speed drawing skills. This is the 'Quick poses' mode and you can also choose to have the model presented from random camera angles.
The main view mode is the Perspective view, where the model sits on a flat support and you see him frontally. If you don't want to explore with the camera mode and simply wish to understand the body elements, the right sidebar provides the necessary tools. It contains the Light, Skin, Sketch and Background menus from where you can customize the looks of the character that you will draw. Light can be natural or artificial, the Skin can have any combination of colors from the RGB palette, the character can have a sketched outline and the background color can be also changed as you wish.
Another interesting part is that you can run 3D Virtual Figure Drawing Studio in full screen mode as well. As I said at the beginning, the application does not have so many options and customizable features, but it surely manages to be a complete drawing tutorial, both for beginner and advanced users.
The Good 3D Virtual Figure Drawing Studio's price makes a really good deal. Considering that the application supports 3D acceleration and provides a professional guide to exploring the human body, the price/quality report is more than preferred.
The Bad I haven't actually found any unpleasant features about this software although I must admit that somehow it gets a bit unhandy and difficult to control.
The Truth As mentioned in the 'Requirements' section of the program's description, you do need a 3D accelerator in order to run 3D Virtual Figure Drawing Studio. On computers that do not feature an independent graphic adapter it won't even display the interface and toolbars. So if you want 3D exploring of the male body, you must have a compatible system configuration.
