Cartooning Books

Now, this was my first Let's Draw Manga book, and I wondered what I would get out of it, but as soon as I opened it, I was amazed. The art is amazing, it shows you things you would not even consider, and it's not even just about Fantasy, though it goes into a great deal about it. It doesn't just throw you into the world of Fantasy. It makes sure you know the basics b4 you drown in all the knowledge that may be ahead of you. It's really great for beginners. I, personally, am not one, but needed a reference for different fantasy worlds (Feudal Japan and Medieval Europe, for example which this book includes), so this book is an amazing reference book for those who are intermediates and experts as well. With that said, it's for anyone and is well worth your money.

This book is wonderful in so many ways. I was a bit skeptical when I was about to buy this book. Not because of the cover, which is cute by the way, but because I have at least 2 books from let's draw manga, and the books are ok, but nothing to fascinating. I was totally wrong about this book! I love everything in this book. This book is a good foundation for those growing imaginations, as well as expanding imaginations to help feed your ideas and make you manga even better. This books contents includes:

Chapter one: Let's create some characters!...

1. Drawing human bodies
practice corner
planning page

2. Illustrating human sized characters
Western style-medival characters
planning page/ let's draw western-style
medival characters
sci-fi style
science fantasy character illustration
asain-style characters
Planning page/let's draw asian-style characters

Chapter 2: Let's establish our world!

1. Creating a western medival world
Let's illustrate our western
medieval world in color

2. The world of science fantasy
Let's draw a picture board

3. Creating an asian-style world
Let's illustrate our asian-style world in color

Chapter 3: Enemy and supporting characters!

1. New relationships
Planning page

2. Let's create enemy monsters
Sample drawing/ color process

3. let's create friendly monsters
planning page
drawing process: digital color illustration

Fantasy variations
drawing process: black and white illustration

Chapter four: Magic and eguipment

1. Weapons and armor

costumes
weapons
accessories
2. Magic and magical equpiment
medival
science fantasy
asian
let's digitally illustrate a magical scene

Chapter five: Let's draw fantsy manga!

steps:
1. Ideas
2.Ecstablishing the plot
3. story boarding
4. drawing and inking a draft

Manga " the spring seekers"

Chapter six: Author illustrations

All in all, I think this is a fun and interesting book. It is a good foundation to start you off in your manga processes. I difintely recommend this book! It is a total steal. Plus there is no nudity at all in this book, so those of you who are offended by nudity, this book is right up your alley!

I have a collection of How to Draw Manga books, but this was my first Let's Draw Manga and I love it. Simply put: The book is extremely well done - no skimping on the art quality (what you see on the cover resembles the inside art, if not better) and excellent color graphics. It is probably for upper-level beginners and up as far as details in how to draw.
There are six chapters, each with about two subsections. The chapters are:
Let's create some characters
Let's establish our world
Enemy and Supporting characters
Magic and equipment
Let's draw fantasy manga
Author illustrations.

There are body shapes that you can photocopy (intelligent move by the authors), very detailed descriptions, CG instructions(which are great), background development and explanations, character designs and costumes, and finally a book with a good proportion of male character information (which I find hard to get out of the How to Draw Manga book series). It is almost like a compilation of the many of the How to Draw Manga books. Well worth the purchase. Useful. Great addition to collection.

This book is excellent and my girls love it. It allows them to dive into romance, love, relationships and excel by using this book. The emphasis on the detail enable one to create the most adorable characters. So many ideas of figures, moods, expressions, clothing & accessories make the task a lot easier and possible. Quite a few action scenes as well as finishing techniques make this book complete. Hours of learn and fun for the summer.

Chris Hart has written another masterpiece! If you want to learn how to or better master Manga drawing then you have to buy this book. It's written so well and the step by step instructions make it very easy to make the drawings look real.

This is an enjoyable, informative instructional book from Chris Hart that my family and I have had a great deal of fun with. My two daughters found special enjoyment in drawing the shojo girls andm yes, the bishie boys! There are great sections on costumes, close-ups, group shots - ideas that you would be hard pressed to find any place other than a Chris Hart book.

Kuper's sketches are some of the best and most appealing I've ever seen, be sure to see what he's doing with the black and white MAD Magazine 'SPY VS. SPY', which he gave fresh life to. This book has a clever angle and mystery to every book which doesn't come across as a cheap gimmick suprise, all while telling a good/meaningful story.

The formula works like this--there are four panels on the front of the page which give you a visual clue.

Turn the page and on the back is the fifth panel, which "concludes" or solves the puzzle of the first four.

Extremely simple, but extremely entertaining. The fifth panel usually takes a left turn to some quirky conclusion (which makes it that much more fun to figure out).

I leave this out on my coffee table, and people are constantly hooked after just one or two "puzzles."

This is the second copy of this I've owned--the softcover version wasn't bound all that well and fell apart quickly. However, I had so many people over who asked me what happened to "that really neat comic book" that I bought this hardcover version--which holds up well.

Great for your guests or a few hours of fun.

Mind's Eye is the second 'Eye of the Beholder' collection, which began as the first comic strip to run in the New York Times, and provides a fine set of black and white strips which presents a particular viewpoint. These visual puzzles provide much food for thought: there are panels of scenes, then turn the page for the unifying concept linking them.

Mitch Byrd has always been one of my absolute favorite illustrator/artists. His characters have a visual depth that few other artists can achieve, even when they're unrendered line drawings. This book is full of tips on how he gets that look, but it's worth buying just to flip through and marvel at his sketches.

An actual comic artist suggested that I read this book to help with my current struggle of discovering my own style and becoming an overall better artist. Mitch's drawings are quite unique and he uses just the amount of words to get his message across about the importance of using certain technique's. There's nothing OVERLY detailed, but if you really want to learn, you'll see the point he's trying to get across and learn from it.

Very good illustrations on every page of this book.

This one is a keeper. For those of you who love comic book illustration this one shows you forced perspective and how to draw the human form for comics. It's a medium that gets no respect. Yet it requires it's illustrators to be very dynamic and inventive to keep a readers attention. This one shows you how dramatically light your characters and backgrounds. The amount of technical skill that is needed to draw a comic is more than good looking pinups. I hope there are more books from these authors. It's a step in the right direction with the flood of how to draw books. This one tells you something about making good comics.

The English language is filled with quirks and puzzles. In Dictionary Of Troublesome Words, copy editor Bill Bryson provides the reader with an expert guide to avoiding the traps and snares of what is justifiably considered the most complicated and dominant languages of the world today. Bryson's A-Z dictionary clearly outlines some of the more common problems involved in using ordinary words such as 'either', future', or 'may well be'. Dictionary Of Troublesome Words is another browser's joyride in the proper pursuit of English and a welcome addition to personal, school, and community library reference collections.

This book is 112 pages of entertaining cartoons of palindromes. Jon Agee creates whimsical one to four panel stories in which all sentances are palindromes (the same forwards and backwards) and then illustrates them to bring them to life. If you enjoy palindromes, this is the perfect item for you.

Palindromes form different words when considered from left to right or right to left (e.g., dog/god). This zany collection provides words or phrases which read the same forward or backward, pairing the zany phrases with entertaining comic strip cartoons. A whimsical, fun gift for the English major.

I thought I'd reviewed this years ago, but maybe it was elsewhere. I love this book. I've been a fan of the late Al Hirschfeld for years, but here's a relatively new artist from New York who captures a little of that style but yet has his own. Well, the cover says it all! If you can look at the cover and not laugh, well, you're dead. The back cover will blow away any Diana Ross fan, as well. His caricature style is such that if you follow pop culture at all, you don't need to look at the index to see whom is who. Well, for me there were a couple that were unfamiliar. I thought he missed the mark with Michael Jordan, but nobody's perfect! The book is divided into TV, Style, Music, Thinkers, Film, Scandals, Media, Sports, Theater, and Politics. Nobody seems to be off limits with Risko. His artwork is just beautifully done on a technical level, and still there's humor in a lot of it. There's one piece in particular of singer Al Jarreau that's stunning--it's part Hirschfeld and part Picasso! It's hard to explain, really. If you've never seen a Risko, you just have to experience it for yourself. Buy this book! I can't say enough about this artist, and I can't wait for Volume Two!

Found this book to be an amazing collection of illustrations by one of the most talented artists in our time. His work has matured over the years to a fine point of perfection.

Outstanding collection of extremely witty and winsome caricatures of entertainment and political figures from the 1970's through today. Most of the work previously graced the covers and feature articles of The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Interview, and Rolling Stone and therefore will be familiar to the reader.

There is much excellent cultural and political commentary (in illustration form) collected in this one book by an outstanding illustrator of the 20th century.

Great for Christmas giving, the book is beautifully printed and guaranteed to bring miles of smiles to the reader.

I've been looking HIGH and LOW for the right book to explain how the pros CREATE manga. Not draw manga. I've got THAT down. It was creating the right story with all it's interconnected stories that had me at a standstill and the little leaves behind me in the wind making more progress than me.

The book actually flows in a manga format, and you follow the story of Kyoko and Alisa. Kyoko shows little Alisa through illustrated examples of how writing techniques are done for manga. The illustrations are drawn superbly by an actual japanese manga-ka. The book continues all the way to about thumbnail sketching your ideas out.

All the techniques are useful. It's a benefit to read them over and over and try all the "lessons" or "One Point Advice" with smaller ideas to get the hang of it. It's a contagious learning experience!

If you are wanting to learn how to draw manga figures, or how to actually draw pages with tone. This book is not what you're looking for. And the first page establishes this for you. If you are looking to help a wounded one legged story along and nurse it back to running status. THIS is what you need to get back on track!

A good introduction to storytelling, and drawing, for shoujo manga. I appreciated the teach-by-example nature of this book, which is written/drawn as a manga comic.

Although directed at those interested in created shoujo (girls') manga, the graphic and storytelling techniques described can be applied to many other genres.

How-to-do-manga books that I've read have a strong tendency to display a great deal of enthusiasm and relatively little useful content. I don't give five stars lightly, but "Shoujo Manga Techniques" deserves it as a useful, well-written book on manga techniques.

I really loved this book. I like how the book looks like a manga, and the characters are cute as well. This book is really helpful in telling you the do's and dont's in the approach of creating a unique story. It tells you step by step of the things that would benefit you as well. I enjoyed the book from beginning to end. I truly recommend getting this book. I believe it will further advance you in writing better and more interesting stories.

This is an excellent and richly illustrated book on animation at Warner Brothers. It contains a lot of background information on e.g. Carl Stalling's music, the styles of the different directors, inside jokes, war cartoons, forgotten cartoon characters and so on. The joy of reading this book is only surpassed by watching the Warner Brothers cartoons themselves.

First, I have to confess that I am a card-carrying adult who still watches cartoons every Saturday morning. As an adult, however, I'm now interested it the history of the cartoons I watch. (It makes me feel more...sophisticated about my cartoon viewing.)

"That's All Folks" has incredible full-color pictures, chronicals the history of WB cartoons, provides specific information about the most popular characters and cartoons, AND includes a filmography of WB cartoon releases. If you like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and the rest of the gang, you should have this book.

While writing an article for the Talaria Enterprises Museum Store's new release of Looney Tunes sculptures, I turned to this very informative book. It discusses the history and impact of the Looney Tunes characters from historical, technical, and theoretical perspectives. Very Good Sourcebook!

This is probably the best book on drawing dinosaurs out there, especially for adults. There isn't just one artist's dinosaurs pictured into this "how-to" book, but artwork from Brett Booth and Bryan Baugh as well. Many dinosaurs are featured in here, including Triceratops, Spinosaurs, Therizinosaurus, Chirostenotes, Saltasaurus, and dozens more. Generally depending on which dinosaur you are drawing, it can take you between 1-4 steps to complete your picture. Also, there is information for each dinosaur you draw, which makes it all the more interesting. The artwork is very detailed and sleek. Excellent for any beginner or if you're just trying to brush up on your skills.

You may think me biased, since some of my reconstructions where used in the book, but I did not write any of it (and I don't recieve royalties based on sales). While there are a few nit-picky details I would change, this is easily the best book on how to draw dinosaurs ever made. It is the only one where the reader is given a short anatomy lesson, and shown skeletal reconstructions so artists can learn how to reconstruct extinct animals themselves. It also shows off the remarkable diversity of dinosaurs to good advantage. Highly recomended.

What a wonderful book. This covers all types of dinosaurs from T-Rexes to flying bird dinosaurs. Hundreds of great drawings throughout. I can't draw but I still enjoyed looking at it and my ten year old son will not put the thing down. He was allowed to take one book on our vacation and he chose this one. I don't think he put it down for the whole 6 hour drive to Disneyland. There are some technical drawings of skeletons and muscles and stuff I don't think he understands yet, but the how to steps are easy enough for him to follow. Highly recommended if you have a dinosaur lover or artist in the family.

Of the three Randy Glasbergen books on cartooning ('Toons, How to be a Successful Cartoonist, and Getting started Drawing and Selling Cartoons) this book seems to offer the most information on how to draw and how to start thinking creatively. It is filled with information and a difinite asset to any budding cartoonist's library. Highly recommended.

Randy Glasbergen's "'Toons" is a basic book for a young novice interested in learning how to draw cartoons, or for a more advanced person who wants to brush up on his skills. Randy teaches the reader, among other things, how to draw funny faces, how to draw bodies and show them in action, how to draw comic animals, and how to do cartoon lettering. What makes this book especially valuable is that much more than half of it consists of illustrations, including Randy's published cartoons, so the prospective cartoonist can study and practice whatever Randy is explaining.

There are six pages alone showing how to draw cartoon hands. As Randy says, "Hands deserve special attention. Hands are a very expressive body part, second only to the face. We use our hands to point, poke, pinch, pull, pick, and punch. Because hands say so much about us and our emotions, it's important to draw them effectively. Here's how:..." And he goes on to show 43 examples.

Moreover, Randy's heads, bodies, hands, animals, and cartoon props are boiled down to basic shapes, such as circles, ovals, squares, and triangles, making it easy for just about anyone to learn to draw them.

I highly recommend this fun-filled book for anyone who seriously wants a firm foundation in how to create cartoons, or even for the sort of soul who finds himself casually but persistently sketching on a restaurant place mat, or doodling while chatting on the phone. Who knows, there might be a latent cartoonist hiding inside you right now.

THIS BOOK WAS SO GOOD THAT IF I COULD GIVE IT MORE STARS I WOULD! I would recomend this book to anyone not quite ready for a big company but someone who wants to carton for fun!!!!!!!!