To be honest the production value of the video is very poor, but the anatomy teaching is good.

First of all, the quality is that of basement video with heavy compression and cheap stick on labels. There are 5 dvds in structure of man, but the actual content ranges from a total of 400mg to just over 1 gig per disk. Basically all of the info would really fit on 2 disc. Some of the files dont even work, and some have the video frame rate less than what is needed for viewable video, looking more like flip book animation. I at least hoped the content would make up for the amature production, but since I cant view much of it, I will never know. Also, dont let the DVD format fool you. They are all WMV files and there are no menu's or dvd structure to them. They wont play on most home dvd players. You need your pc and windows media player. DVD is just the optical disk he decided to store the files on. He could have done the same thing with cds. It would just take a lot more of them. I found that a little deceptive too.

I've attempted to email about the problems of the non working files, but never receive a response. I also notice that places like YouTube where he shills his dvds, have comments disabled. Im assuming that I am not alone in being disappointed.

Over all, I paid $79 with shipping and handling, and I basically have coasters unless I can figure out how to view the rest of the videos. But constant file unrecognizable and file corrupt error messages do not leave me very encouraged. And Yes, I have the latest updates and version for Media Player.

I really had high hopes for both of these DVDs.

To comment on AnyMation's post, renowned anatomy teacher Robert Beverly Hale stressed the adoption of a set of standard proportions to see how a living model differs from them. Without this personal standard, similar to what Mr. Phoenix describes as "invention," we're only copying the model in the life class without understanding what we're actually seeing. Real learning takes place only if it can be related to something already known and understood.

He additionally seems to be recording the videos from a pad of paper on the keyboard of his laptop (perhaps using his webcam turned downwards). The lighting is very poor and his cell phone even goes off in one point in the videos. The immense time that these videos occupy is not a testament to his wealth of knowledge but to his copious rehashing, babbling, and stammering.

If you expect people to pay for these DVDs as I unfortunately did, you need to edit, write out what you plan on saying, and proofread. Buy a decent camera and work in decent lighting. I recommend that anyone considering purchasing these dvd's to think again or at least buy a stress ball and forget as much of proper English as you can.

Even professionals need refresher courses and new ways of thinking which is my primary reason for purchasing. Needless to say the DVD's are no magic bullet you still have to work and I know from many years of experience:

NOTHING beats life drawing through observation and practice, practice, practice. Riven is just giving you some fundamentals. You just need to learn when and how to use them. I will also recommend getting a good anatomy book which can easily run you about $50 to a $100 I know I have several. This will allow you to familiarize your self with the human anatomy and re-enforce some of the things that he talks about in the videos.
As mentioned by a number of people above.

I can draw rather well but I still like taking classes and learning different approaches to add to my drawing skillz.