This paper presents a constitutive model of plasticity that describes the cyclic stress-strain responses at large strain. A new equation of backstress evolution is proposed for an accurate simulation of the transient Bauschinger effect. An original idea of a non-isotropic-hardening surface defined in the stress space is presented for the description of the workhardening stagnation appearing under reverse deformation, as well as the strain-range and mean-strain dependencies of cyclic hardening characteristics. The validity of this model is confirmed by comparing the cyclic stress-strain responses calculated by the model with the experimental observations on two types of steel sheets (an aluminum-killed steel and a dual-phase high strength steel of 590 MPa tensile strength).