Cartooning Books

Many little images and no many words. It's a interesting book, but could be better.

nice printing, and informative text. some really interesting art here. you won't be dissapointed. all the work is very well documented, and the source material is all listed nicely at the end. great job!

edition doesn't have as many and as terrible mistakes as in earlier volumes. Very instructive and clear, and the support the digital tones gives you when working on photoshop is just great. highly recommendable for comic producers and fans.

The book itself is actually pretty useful, and showed me how to place tones on a wide variety of items, mostly military mecha, vehicles, and personnel. However, the CD itself does not have the tones available directly, which means you have to use their install application, and this is incompatible with Mac. Mostly my fault, because it did say Windows CD-ROM on the outside, but I assumed it would have patterns, textures and brushes for Photoshop use directly available to drag and drop where you want them. This doesn't make sense to me because Macs have always been preferred for graphic applications over PC's - don't know if this is still true as I have not used a PC in several years.

I do like the book, however, and if you're a Mac user, it's probably worth the cost if you can find it used. I bought it at a local comics store and can't return it now because of the open CD thing. Like I said, my fault, I should have investigated it more, but if my overlooking something can save another aspiring artist money, I'll just chalk it up to good karma points.

The cover of this book is a tad misleading, and maybe this was just my own expectations, but I under the impression the book was much like that of the first one, only with "super deformed" anthropomorphism animal characters as so hinted in the description. So just to clear some air for those who are planning on purchasing this book, it's pretty much just filled with extremely simple drawn animals and the anthropomorphic characters it contains are pretty much rubbish.

This book teaches how to draw super deformed animals!I never would have thought of it!Even though SD animals are not as popular as SD people this book is still good for a manga fan.

A Super Deformed charater is a manga charater with a big head, slightly chubby body,and cute looks. SD charaters are usaully know as chibis. Useully SD charaters are human but hey this could be a new begining of chibi animals!Mabye SD animals can be just as popular too!

The reason I gave this book four stars is it just goes over millions of animals until the book ends. I would have give it five stars if it just teached more about the expresions, and the poses and how to make SD animals in motion because they practiclly rushed through those steps.

Over I do recomend this book though but you kind of have to have the basics on expressions and body movement of SD charaters down first.So before buying this book try buying "how to draw manga Super-Deformed charaters Vol. 1 people" first then buy this book.

~*~Purin~*~

A good drawing book for drawing Manga characters, but it is pretty beginning level. This is very good for learning from the start because of the level of details in the drawings. With the easy-to-understand drawings, you can feel confident that you can draw one manga character. In color and glossy paper. Nice, but wished this was longer.

Overall, this book is about teaching you (the reader) how to make Manga. And nope, it won't help you with creating a story, this book would be prefered to those that already have a story made in their thoughts and need some tips on drawing it all on paper. The chapters of this book consists of:

Chapter 1: Drawing techniques and Process
This chapter only shows you how the drawing process works, like sketching the drawing, then inking... The process!

Chapter 2: Tool Selection and Use
Of course, this chapter shows some of the basic tools that would be useful to make your manga with. If you have problems with choosing the right materials, this is the perfect chapter for you!

Chapter 3: How to draw Different Characters
Like it says, it shows you how to draw different characters (from young people to old people, how to make your characters different from each other...)

Chapter 4: Background and Perspective
It shows you tips on perspective, and backgrounds. They should've put more info in this sections though, since I hear alot these days that everyone has difficulty with backgrounds, and of course, perspective.

Chapter 5: Drawing in Panels
Finally... I have found this part of the book to be the most useful. Lots of tips on how to make very good panels in your manga.

What I found very fun with this book was that it was like some sort of manga, but it taught the reader techniques for drawing their very own mangas. This book was very entertaining, but it would've been more fun if it had more information, tips, tricks and stuff like that. I am glad to have bought this book!

This is written in prose form as opposed to Charles Schulz' comic strip style. Still, children will like it, especially if you read it to them. I read it to myself, and I liked it very much, and I'm no kid. This was purchased originally as a gift, but,instead, I think I'll gift myself with it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book on peanuts. Whenever I feel a bit fed up I just take out one of my peanut books and thats enough to put me back on track.

This is my third book, after Mecha Mania: How to Draw Warrior Robots, Cool Spaceships, and Military Vehicles (Christopher Hart Titles) and How To Draw Manga Volume 12: Giant Robots (How to Draw Manga) that deals with drawing mecha. I'd say its a good addition to the genre, but not my favorite.

None of the pictures are colored and few are shaded. It is better than the Giant Robots book in that it shows how to sketch out the drawing first, where that book does not. But it doesn't have nearly the volume of content of the other 2 books either and many of the drawings are left in the sketch state, where the Mecha Mania book shows the final product again and again.

From what I've read of "professional" artists, they sketch often just as shown in this book, so from that standpoint, this is a good addition to a How to Draw Mecha library for a beginner.

Sherard Jackson returns with his second foray into the realm of home manga illustration books. His first volume, "You Can Draw Transforming Robots", was one of the finest English-language How-to-Draw mecha books I had ever seen. Somehow, Mr. Jackson has managed to outdo himself in this sophomore work. Various mecha styles in the "Eastern" school of mecha design are represented. Influences from Transformers, Kawamori's Armored Core designs, Zoids, Evangelion, and even Zone of the Enders are present. Naturally, some Gundam-esque examples are also in the book. Jackson's designs from his own work, "Assembly" add to the roster.
Despite the presence of easily recognizable styles, Jackson instructs the reader on how to find inspiration, instead of simply hashing out how to copy someone else's style. Medieval armor, historical weaponry, animals, and human anatomy are presented as sparks for the imagination. Jackson's a teacher who gives the "how-to", but also shows actual design and illustrating savvy that backs up his lessons. Illustrations display his gift for technically detailed mecha with lots of personality.
This book de-emphasizes the "how to draw" and emphasizes the "draw mecha". Those who need the very basics should start with a more basic primer, as the book assumes the reader has some drawing experience. However, those who need more advanced lessons on mecha design and rendering dynamic images of mecha will not be disappointed.

i purchased this for my 10 year old nephew who loves art - it is not too hard and yet it is interesting

This is a collection of more than 330 drawings published in magazines from 1890 to 1974. It is interesting both for the diversity of artistic styles, as well as the different themes.

This is very well written book that is nevertheless slighty flawed due to the fact that Harvey had to split his great big book on comic strips and comic books into two books leaving this one a little uneven. Still the chapters on Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, Gil Kane, Harvey Kurtzman, and R. Crumb border on wonderfull. I do have one or two minor caveats. Why didn't Harvey Kurtzman get a chapter by himself? He's certainly important enough to warrent one. Instead he has to share one with Howie Chaykin, Frank Miller, Jim Steranko, and Alex Nino among others. Still, it's a good book no matter how much I nit-pick.

This is a remarkable work. First, it is Beardsley's earliest commission, illustrations for Malory's classic. For that reason alone, it will interest fans of Beardsley's drawings.

Second, and what really fascinates me, is that Beardsley developed his drawing style visibly over the course of the 580+ works in this project. When I look at the drawings for the first few chapters, they seem harsh and angular (p.22 for example). In other samples (e.g. p.18-19), Beardsley uses textures to generate tonal effects. By the end of the book, his drawings are much closer to his more familiar style. The lines are more graceful, and there is less use of the middle tones - broad solid blacks and whites dominate.

This is certainly a book for the Beardsley fan. It is also a distinctive example for anyone unsure of what "an artist's development" refers to.

Just a small warning, though - this contains only fragments of the Malory text, and many of the drawings do not appear with the printing that defined their original context. This is about Beardsley's drawings, not about the book in which they appeared.

//wiredweird