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Drawing Beautiful Women: The Frank Cho Method
Frank Cho, the acclaimed creator of Liberty Meadows, shares his secrets to drawing the lovely women he is renowned for. His exquisite line and masterful brushstrokes are explored to give the beginning artist, along with the most advanced professional, all the tools and knowledge needed to draw beautiful women.
No area is overlooked, as the book begins with demonstrations on how to draw basic anatomy—including the body, legs, arms and hands—plus more through clear, step-by-step procedures. Cho continues by exploring figures in motion utilizing ink, ballpoint pen, paint and watercolor while providing visual answers to an artist’s toughest questions. Numerous examples are featured, from rough sketches to finished art, along with helpful tips. The process of the cover painting is revealed in detail.
A storytelling chapter is highlighted by an all-new, eleven-page adventure premiering Cho’s Jungle Queen. The majority of the art shown here has been created specifically for this collection. Drawing Beautiful Women is enhanced by Frank Cho’s wit and flair for entertainment, as he interjects humor throughout the book for a fun and playful experience.
Two gatefolds are included. This book includes nude artistic drawings.
No area is overlooked, as the book begins with demonstrations on how to draw basic anatomy—including the body, legs, arms and hands—plus more through clear, step-by-step procedures. Cho continues by exploring figures in motion utilizing ink, ballpoint pen, paint and watercolor while providing visual answers to an artist’s toughest questions. Numerous examples are featured, from rough sketches to finished art, along with helpful tips. The process of the cover painting is revealed in detail.
A storytelling chapter is highlighted by an all-new, eleven-page adventure premiering Cho’s Jungle Queen. The majority of the art shown here has been created specifically for this collection. Drawing Beautiful Women is enhanced by Frank Cho’s wit and flair for entertainment, as he interjects humor throughout the book for a fun and playful experience.
Two gatefolds are included. This book includes nude artistic drawings.
120 pages, Paperback
First published November 11, 2014
9 people are currently reading
111 people want to read
About the author
Frank Cho
399 books95 followersThe second of three children, Frank Cho was born in Seoul, Korea in 1971, but moved to the United States at the age of six and was raised in Beltsville, Maryland.
Cho received no formal training as an artist. He got his start writing and drawing a cartoon strip called University2 for The Diamondback, the student newspaper at the University of Maryland, College Park. After graduation, Cho adapted elements of this work for use in a professionally syndicated strip, Liberty Meadows.
Cho received no formal training as an artist. He got his start writing and drawing a cartoon strip called University2 for The Diamondback, the student newspaper at the University of Maryland, College Park. After graduation, Cho adapted elements of this work for use in a professionally syndicated strip, Liberty Meadows.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 4, 2014
A very fast read. Not nearly as much info as one would get with one of the classic, though now rather outdated, Loomis books.
The book has some very basic proportional information, the same outlook and general presentation as a Loomis book really (a hero character is eight heads tall kinda stuff). It is just a more modern and less stiff presentation than those now 70ish year old references.
The book is mostly a series of process pictures showing, say, four images relating stages in the creation of a finished figure drawing. Ya know, like a step 1: gesture sketch, step 2: refine, step 3: refine, step 4: ink and done.
I would definitely not recommend it as a beginner how to book. It goes from zero to master artist in about 20 pages. Not the step by step guide you would hand to a total drawing noob. I fear the average beginner would get a little discouraged looking at a "step 1" composed of a gesture sketch with more conveyed visual info then they would have any real idea how to render.
As a supplemental reference for an already expansive figure drawing book collection or for a person just interested in looking at more of Cho's fun art, it is a good read and you can get it for a like 10$ during an amazon sale like i did, so it wont break the bank.
The book has some very basic proportional information, the same outlook and general presentation as a Loomis book really (a hero character is eight heads tall kinda stuff). It is just a more modern and less stiff presentation than those now 70ish year old references.
The book is mostly a series of process pictures showing, say, four images relating stages in the creation of a finished figure drawing. Ya know, like a step 1: gesture sketch, step 2: refine, step 3: refine, step 4: ink and done.
I would definitely not recommend it as a beginner how to book. It goes from zero to master artist in about 20 pages. Not the step by step guide you would hand to a total drawing noob. I fear the average beginner would get a little discouraged looking at a "step 1" composed of a gesture sketch with more conveyed visual info then they would have any real idea how to render.
As a supplemental reference for an already expansive figure drawing book collection or for a person just interested in looking at more of Cho's fun art, it is a good read and you can get it for a like 10$ during an amazon sale like i did, so it wont break the bank.
October 5, 2025
Summary:
Basic anatomy and proportions
Section on choosing figures’ dynamic poses
Basic Inking
Painting with colour
Drawing with ballpoint
Composing a visual story
Depth - limited
The anatomy section is unique in considering the sex appeal of the breasts and butt, however it doesn’t give enough detail to move beyond its function as a sort of punchline. It also completely ignores the crotch and hips as a significant source of sex appeal, and which are both quite difficult to depict well. Some interesting tips for the shape of the breast, but nothing for the shape of the thigh which, again, significant and difficult.
None of the sections about composing images have really any analysis whatsoever. ‘How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way’, for example, is not orders of magnitude more verbose than this book, but contains incredible sections comparing dramatic vs stale poses or well-grouped vs sparse compositions. That format would have done wonders to iconify Frank Cho’s style.
The painting section is so undetailed that its inclusion is a mystery.
Breadth - adequate
Would have been fine with more depth. At the current level of depth though, some topics that could have been included at a basic level: facial expressions, clothes, lingerie, different skin tones and hairstyles, physics of hair, shadows and shading styles.
Objectivity - biased
Cho has a very limited conception of sexy woman. It makes sense for the book to only treat one exact body type; the case can be made (subjectively) that this body type embodies the ideal female bodily proportions. However, his lack of variation in how he draws women’s faces betrays a more worrying fetishistic objectification. Every woman he draws has virtually the same face, and as it is a rather plain, uninteresting face, it gives the impression of a total lack of interest in women as ensouled, living beings. Similarly, there’s no ethnic variation, even within the broader class of ‘white woman’. The greatest issue, for me, was a joke mocking the idea of drawing a sexy woman with a more aquiline or roman nose. Without some explanation of the ultra-precise physiognomy that Cho is pursuing (perhaps a specific woman in history or media that struck Cho as superlatively beautiful), the reader is left feeling that he simply doesn’t have the technical skills to depict other examples of beautiful women, like a cartoonist who can only draw one character.
Clarity - good
All explanations are by definition easy to follow since there is so little detail.
Effect -
The book does motivate you to draw beautiful women, but is not particularly inspiring. It is sufficient to peruse Frank Cho’s pinups and illustrations alongside a more classic book on artistic anatomy. The idea of the book is great but it’s ultimately lacklustre.
Basic anatomy and proportions
Section on choosing figures’ dynamic poses
Basic Inking
Painting with colour
Drawing with ballpoint
Composing a visual story
Depth - limited
The anatomy section is unique in considering the sex appeal of the breasts and butt, however it doesn’t give enough detail to move beyond its function as a sort of punchline. It also completely ignores the crotch and hips as a significant source of sex appeal, and which are both quite difficult to depict well. Some interesting tips for the shape of the breast, but nothing for the shape of the thigh which, again, significant and difficult.
None of the sections about composing images have really any analysis whatsoever. ‘How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way’, for example, is not orders of magnitude more verbose than this book, but contains incredible sections comparing dramatic vs stale poses or well-grouped vs sparse compositions. That format would have done wonders to iconify Frank Cho’s style.
The painting section is so undetailed that its inclusion is a mystery.
Breadth - adequate
Would have been fine with more depth. At the current level of depth though, some topics that could have been included at a basic level: facial expressions, clothes, lingerie, different skin tones and hairstyles, physics of hair, shadows and shading styles.
Objectivity - biased
Cho has a very limited conception of sexy woman. It makes sense for the book to only treat one exact body type; the case can be made (subjectively) that this body type embodies the ideal female bodily proportions. However, his lack of variation in how he draws women’s faces betrays a more worrying fetishistic objectification. Every woman he draws has virtually the same face, and as it is a rather plain, uninteresting face, it gives the impression of a total lack of interest in women as ensouled, living beings. Similarly, there’s no ethnic variation, even within the broader class of ‘white woman’. The greatest issue, for me, was a joke mocking the idea of drawing a sexy woman with a more aquiline or roman nose. Without some explanation of the ultra-precise physiognomy that Cho is pursuing (perhaps a specific woman in history or media that struck Cho as superlatively beautiful), the reader is left feeling that he simply doesn’t have the technical skills to depict other examples of beautiful women, like a cartoonist who can only draw one character.
Clarity - good
All explanations are by definition easy to follow since there is so little detail.
Effect -
The book does motivate you to draw beautiful women, but is not particularly inspiring. It is sufficient to peruse Frank Cho’s pinups and illustrations alongside a more classic book on artistic anatomy. The idea of the book is great but it’s ultimately lacklustre.
January 25, 2018
Finished this book a few days ago. The book itself is filled with beautiful drawings! The artist clearly knows what he is talking about. The only problem is that he is not good at explaining himself. While this is an interesting books and allows you to see his drawing process, he does little in the way of explaining the techniques he's using. It was nice to look at, but I'm glad I borrowed it from the library. I wouldn't pay money for it.
January 20, 2019
Frank Cho's Drawing Beautiful Women is a beautiful book. I think of this book as a supplement to my anatomy drawing books that I have on my shelf with Burne Hogarth's Dynamic Anatomy, George Bridgeman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life, and Andrew Loomis' Figure Drawing For All It's Worth. It is definitely not a beginners book but for those who have some drawing skills and need tips in drawing the female form. Frank Cho is definitely a master on this subject.
April 10, 2020
This is a pretty good book. It has a nice variety of Frank's work, mixed in with pretty basic how-to-draw lessons about anatomy and the like.
July 23, 2018
To consumers of sequential art, the bold strokes of Frank Cho yield an array of conflicting emotions: fear, jealousy, pride, anger, and perhaps most disproportionately, a sense of fatigue. The women of Frank Cho's mind constitute a remarkable and iconic knitting together of the pitying (or pitiable) male gaze and the skilled fundamentals of a tried-and-true realist artist. As such, the tiresome and confusing concoction of "Cho's women" is as much a deliberately exploitative twist of the pen as it is a profound, not incidental descent into the fragrant plumes of a medium that sacrifices its better mores in the pursuit of perfection.
DRAWING BEAUTIFUL WOMEN: THE FRANK CHO METHOD is less the helpful if sycophantic deluge of a traditional how-to artbook than it is a mildly didactic tip-toeing of proportion, weight, style, and all other manners of aesthetic intuition native to one artist's concept and approach to mastering any number of media. As such, it's not so much Cho's style, which is the subject of the book, as it is Cho's aesthetical preference and experience.
Cho, of course, does know what he's talking about. His lines are smooth and simple but somehow also very dynamic. His knack for facial features, particularly ears and noses, is astounding. And the man's mastery of the subtleties of perspective are always worth noting. Regrettably, DRAWING BEAUTIFUL WOMEN doesn't necessarily tackle these facets in purposeful detail. The strength of Cho's art is how gentle and seamless it appears. His work always feels refined, and nothing is out of place. And while this artbook does provide occasional breakdowns of how to properly line the chin, how to properly measure the gluteal muscles, and how to pace certain coloring or shading strategies, the book is not so comprehensive that prospective artists can learn, step-by-step, how to assign musculature, how to reliably balance color and mood, or how to interrogate motion with minimal drawing experience.
In that sense, the book is perhaps better suited as a collector's item. However pithy the instruction, Cho's line notes are often absent the explanatory captions or dialogue that typically accompany academic insight. This may have been what was more natural for Cho, but it's not a particularly effective teaching method.
For example, the inking section shows much of the artist's most compelling work. And as such, there are multiple process pieces on display. But one finds it debatable as to whether four pages of five process shots, along with a paltry three sentences on technique, constitutes functional pedagogy.
When Cho discusses drawing characters in motion, he enlists a two-page spread on "fight scenes" that merely includes a naked woman tugging on the tail of a pint-sized pterosaur of a kind. The artist's notes about articulating a character's "emotional state" through body language is solid, but seeing as this is his only example of such a style concept, directly applied, the authority feels diluted.
Perhaps this is the largest crux of DRAWING BEAUTIFUL WOMEN: it covers a lot of ground with minimal clarity. There is significant focus on the how, but not so much on the why (the section on ballpoint-pen art resolves this, but that particular section is only seven or eight pages long. . .). The obvious lack of diversity in Cho's character models is another problem. However, given the artbook's inclination toward the idealized (read: fair-skinned, busty, thinner-than-average), this seems less an affront and more a cultural expectation.
DRAWING BEAUTIFUL WOMEN: THE FRANK CHO METHOD is less the helpful if sycophantic deluge of a traditional how-to artbook than it is a mildly didactic tip-toeing of proportion, weight, style, and all other manners of aesthetic intuition native to one artist's concept and approach to mastering any number of media. As such, it's not so much Cho's style, which is the subject of the book, as it is Cho's aesthetical preference and experience.
Cho, of course, does know what he's talking about. His lines are smooth and simple but somehow also very dynamic. His knack for facial features, particularly ears and noses, is astounding. And the man's mastery of the subtleties of perspective are always worth noting. Regrettably, DRAWING BEAUTIFUL WOMEN doesn't necessarily tackle these facets in purposeful detail. The strength of Cho's art is how gentle and seamless it appears. His work always feels refined, and nothing is out of place. And while this artbook does provide occasional breakdowns of how to properly line the chin, how to properly measure the gluteal muscles, and how to pace certain coloring or shading strategies, the book is not so comprehensive that prospective artists can learn, step-by-step, how to assign musculature, how to reliably balance color and mood, or how to interrogate motion with minimal drawing experience.
In that sense, the book is perhaps better suited as a collector's item. However pithy the instruction, Cho's line notes are often absent the explanatory captions or dialogue that typically accompany academic insight. This may have been what was more natural for Cho, but it's not a particularly effective teaching method.
For example, the inking section shows much of the artist's most compelling work. And as such, there are multiple process pieces on display. But one finds it debatable as to whether four pages of five process shots, along with a paltry three sentences on technique, constitutes functional pedagogy.
When Cho discusses drawing characters in motion, he enlists a two-page spread on "fight scenes" that merely includes a naked woman tugging on the tail of a pint-sized pterosaur of a kind. The artist's notes about articulating a character's "emotional state" through body language is solid, but seeing as this is his only example of such a style concept, directly applied, the authority feels diluted.
Perhaps this is the largest crux of DRAWING BEAUTIFUL WOMEN: it covers a lot of ground with minimal clarity. There is significant focus on the how, but not so much on the why (the section on ballpoint-pen art resolves this, but that particular section is only seven or eight pages long. . .). The obvious lack of diversity in Cho's character models is another problem. However, given the artbook's inclination toward the idealized (read: fair-skinned, busty, thinner-than-average), this seems less an affront and more a cultural expectation.
July 6, 2015
I made a goal to read and explore more art books this year. It is June. Oops. Anyway, getting on that goal now and this is the first book I grabbed out of my bookcase. I bought the book because I like the artist and the artwork within. I work more with graphite, charcoal, and acrylic paint, however, I'm always up for learning and looking at new things. My favorite artwork in this book is on page 65, a woman sitting on a stone wall with butterflies floating overhead.
Chapter 1: The basics. A quick run down of human anatomy. Anyone just learning drawing might desire something more in depth. The experienced artist will find this a nice handy guide and the art collector will learn a little about how an artist works. Other books worth taking a look at: Dynamic Figure Drawing by Burne Hogarth and The Figure by Walt Reed. I'll be writing reviews of these books in future weeks. (btw, it is not necessary to draw boobs as big as a woman's head)
Chapter 2: The interest. We've all seen lovely paintings of women sitting, standing, lounging, or in other positions of rest. Nothing wrong with that. However, sometimes it is nice having something less placid and more dynamic. In this chapter, Mr. Cho shows his process of developing an active scene, starting with a rough drawing and moving along till a final ink work. This chapter is good for inspiring artists to think more about the capabilities of the human body. The beginning artist will want to hunt down images, I enjoy browsing yoga poses as well as women engaged in sports.
Chapter 3: The ink. Mr. Cho's ink drawings remind me of woodcut prints, in this chapter he explains how to use lines to develop depth and contrast. This chapter contains my favorite drawing on page 65. Also, very much like walking through the process of the final work on page 69 of a woman sitting on a plain landscape with the night sky looming.
Chapter 4: The Paint. Touching on the basics of watercolor (light to dark), oil (dark to light) and color theory (warm bodies against cool backgrounds will pop).
Chapter 5: The Ballpoint. Admittedly, not my favorite media for art. The example drawings are lovely, the minimalist explanations are sufficient.
Chapter 6: The Story. My favorite chapter in the book. I have an aspiring author and illustrator in the family and he's giving some thought to graphic novels. Helps that dinosaurs play a predominant part in this chapter.
Summary: This is a great addition to my shelves. Very quick to thumb through and get a sample of the artist's work.
Chapter 1: The basics. A quick run down of human anatomy. Anyone just learning drawing might desire something more in depth. The experienced artist will find this a nice handy guide and the art collector will learn a little about how an artist works. Other books worth taking a look at: Dynamic Figure Drawing by Burne Hogarth and The Figure by Walt Reed. I'll be writing reviews of these books in future weeks. (btw, it is not necessary to draw boobs as big as a woman's head)
Chapter 2: The interest. We've all seen lovely paintings of women sitting, standing, lounging, or in other positions of rest. Nothing wrong with that. However, sometimes it is nice having something less placid and more dynamic. In this chapter, Mr. Cho shows his process of developing an active scene, starting with a rough drawing and moving along till a final ink work. This chapter is good for inspiring artists to think more about the capabilities of the human body. The beginning artist will want to hunt down images, I enjoy browsing yoga poses as well as women engaged in sports.
Chapter 3: The ink. Mr. Cho's ink drawings remind me of woodcut prints, in this chapter he explains how to use lines to develop depth and contrast. This chapter contains my favorite drawing on page 65. Also, very much like walking through the process of the final work on page 69 of a woman sitting on a plain landscape with the night sky looming.
Chapter 4: The Paint. Touching on the basics of watercolor (light to dark), oil (dark to light) and color theory (warm bodies against cool backgrounds will pop).
Chapter 5: The Ballpoint. Admittedly, not my favorite media for art. The example drawings are lovely, the minimalist explanations are sufficient.
Chapter 6: The Story. My favorite chapter in the book. I have an aspiring author and illustrator in the family and he's giving some thought to graphic novels. Helps that dinosaurs play a predominant part in this chapter.
Summary: This is a great addition to my shelves. Very quick to thumb through and get a sample of the artist's work.
January 24, 2015
I've read his Liberty Meadow books. I like his work. The way he draws women reminds me of some frank franzetta and nagles.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews