Virtual Pose 4 Hardcover – Bargain Price, December 26, 2007

Several improvements from earlier books in this series. There are 76 poses of models of several ethnicities, 52 of young females. Good choices of positioning props, several action poses supported by a transparent yoga ball. Another improvement over earlier editions is that they appear to have dispensed with the airbrushing for this edition. Good photo definition, mostly under diffuse lighting without hard shadows. Facial expressions are again rather serious. Easy to view, rotate and print pictures. However, I'd recommend replacing the cheap vinyl disc holders glued to the inside back cover. Vinyl is not archival grade and contains solvents that soften plastic - that's why photographers don't use it any more to store photos (see my review of Virtual Pose 3 for more details). To export still photos into photo editing software - to compose scenes, magnify details, etc. - you'll need Quicktime Pro...another $29 if you don't already have the "Pro" version. Virtual Pose 4 is a pretty good product, but could still be improved, as noted above. For easy export, photo quality, and models I still like the Art Models series  Art Models 4: Life Nude Photos for the Visual Arts (Art Models series) .

I find the double standard in Virtual Pose 4 offensive. This edition of Virtual Pose includes graphic over the top male nudity, but most of the female nudes are censored. They either omit certain views from the book or blur out what little of the female private parts would be exposed to the viewer. This is true for the book and even the cd. Also, where are the female action poses in this book? The male (Pablo pages 54-65) poses are nice action poses that utilize the clear plastic ball nicely, but because the publisher are so afraid that the viewer might get a glimpse of a female vulva area, most of the female poses are boring non-action poses. It's kind of hard to include great female action poses if your scared of showing a glimpse of the vagina. Most of the female models (and Mark pages 66-77) just seem to be just sitting or lying around with the clear plastic ball. I thought that the purpose of the clear plastic ball was to make more action poses possible? They could have just used a chair or a stool in the female poses instead of the clear plastic ball. Also, by censoring the female poses, it makes the graphic nude male poses a bit offensive. Why do the publishers of this book feel the need to only look out for one gender? Why can't they just treat both sexes as equal? The male poses are much more graphic, but they still choose to censor only the females. Either censor both or don't censor either. I also feel that the male poses on pages 66-77 (Mark) are just another wasted chance to utilize the clear plastic ball and include more action poses. Like the female poses, Mark just seems to be sitting or standing around uninterested with a prop in his hand. He also seems very feminine in his mannerisms. So much so, that I consider pages 66-77 to be more female poses. I'm hoping that future editions of this book will utilize the clear plastic ball better and include more female and male action poses. I also hope that they stop the silly female censorship. Most of us are mature adults, we can handle uncensored female nudity.

The poses in VP 4 are a bit more dynamic and so they are less "artsy" than some of the previous versions. It is a nice addition to any figure artist's library as long as they have a computer since the DVD is the true value.The ability to rotate the figure in the viewer is quite nice and can help the novice and pro alike practice drawing the same figure from many different angles to get a better understanding of the human form.My only complaint is that I wish they would make the images be in a much higher resolution so the zoom can go in closer. In this edition they are much higher than in the past but still much too low, especially when you compare it to the high res DVDs you can get from Ballistic Publishing or some of the sites on the web which all use the turn-table concept but don't include a viewer.

I bought this book to improve my gesture techniques. The majority of the book is great for that. The poses are interesting and varied. The addition of a CD is great because it allows me to work digitally as well. It would have gotten a better review from me if not for one gripe of mine.More male models would have been nice. The book comes with two "males". I put males in quotes because one of the male models postures himself like a woman in all his poses. What use do I have with a male model that postures himself like a female, especially if my intention is for gesture drawing? A more masculine male would have made much more sense.I didn't buy any of the previous books, but this book was enough to warrant another purchase of the previous additions when I run out of material on this one. Hopefully, my gripe is only present on Book 4 of the series.

GREAT reference book.I'll list the positive then negative impressions I have.POSITIVE:1) Beautiful photography. Very well-done multi-angle turntable images of dynamic poses, with excellent lighting (good shadows without totally obscuring any parts of the model).2) Excellent quality, high-resolution images on the accompanying CD-ROM. They're in a Quicktime format where you just click-drag on the image to manually "rotate" the model in front of your very eyes. The image is so large, it wouldn't fit on my huge 24-inch Dell monitor!NEGATIVE:1) It's difficult to find something wrong with Virtual Pose 4, but if pressed my one critique would be there isn't a lot of diversity in age & fitness of the models. They're all relatively youthful & in good shape.This is generally a fine problem to have ^.^ But if you're wanting reference for old or overweight people, you're out of luck.All in all, I highly recommend this book, and most definitely do not regret my purchase.

No sure if I like it

This is another very good tool for the figurative artist. The ability to view the model from different angles and distances is invaluable. The standard of the images is first class. Most helpful for the sculptor.

brilliant

very useful