As manga grows in popularity, so too does the number of books geared for the aspiring artist—a search for “drawing manga” at Amazon pulls up dozens of titles. Today, we look at three recent releases in this category and include samples of the art we were able to create under their tutelage. Jennifer’s first up with Drawing Manga Animals, Chibis, and Other Adorable Creatures (Watson-Guptill); Michelle gives high marks to The Manga Artist’s Workbook: Easy-to-Follow Lessons for Creating Your Own Characters (Potter Style); and Melinda wraps things up with a look at the software-centric Shoujo Art Studio (Watson-Guptill).
Drawing Manga Animals, Chibis, and Other Adorable Creatures
By J. C. Amberlyn
Watson-Guptill, 160 pp.
This review starts with a warning. Though this book has 160 pages, only 54 of them actually deal with anything resembling a how-to on drawing. The rest are filled with a reference section on creatures both mythological and mundane and then tutorials on using Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop.
The first chapter of this book is actually informative. It goes through how to draw heads, ears, and and profiles in a cute manga style. The instructions are easy to follow, as well. If the entire book were written like the first chapter, I wouldn’t really have many complaints about it. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. After an anemic tutorial on how to draw eyes, the author seems to forget the first rule of writing: show, don’t tell. Yes, there are places later in the book where this seems to be remembered—at the beginning of the chibi section, for example, there are guidelines on how to draw a mouse, but the next page goes directly into much more difficult drawings such as dogs and deer. The mascot section is easy to follow for two pages, and then is right on back to telling the reader what to do rather than showing the steps involved. The biggest irony of it all? Should you want to draw the squirrel (“Squee!” – ed.) on the front, the sketched steps on the front of the book are the only instruction you’ll get for it.
Jennifer draws a bear cub.
The reference section is adequate, giving explanations for common Japanese mythological creatures and other, real animals that you’ll find in anime and manga. I can’t really speak to the Corel Painter tutorial, but something about the second Adobe Photoshop tutorial has been bothering me. What little I do know of coloring in photoshop is this: don’t use dodge and burn as your only tools to get highlights and shadows. They can be part of the artist’s toolbox, but using these tools primarily gives the art an unfinished, amateurish look. This, the use of dodge and burn as the primary tools, is the advice given by the author, and from the illustrations all over the book, is clearly what she’s using. The first tutorial does advocate using darker/lighter colors to achieve highlights and shadows, but is one of the few places in the book that I saw where she did such a thing. Her linework is much too heavy as well, and nothing inside this book looks like manga. Anime, perhaps. A high schooler’s notebook? Absolutely.
What’s truly disappointing about this book is that J. C. Amberlyn is a good artist. There’s a realistic depiction of a Shiba Inu on page 90 that’s absolutely beautiful. Her writing is clear when she’s explaining, but her “manga art” seems like yet more Western imitation of the style, and doesn’t do her talent any favors. In the end, it’s yet another book about drawing manga that’s much more a westerner’s attempt at drawing anime art and trying to teach others some basics. I’ve seen worse, but oh have I ever seen better.
Drawing Manga Animals, Chibis, and Other Adorable Creatures will be available on November 17, 2009.
–Reviewed by Jennifer Dunbar
The Manga Artist’s Workbook: Easy-to-Follow Lessons for Creating Your Own Characters
By Christopher Hart
Potter Style, 160 pp.
Using artwork and text from Hart’s book Manga for the Beginner: Everything You Need to Start Drawing Right Away (Watson-Guptill Publications, ISBN 978-0-307-46270-01), The Manga Artist’s Workbook takes readers step-by-step through the process of creating a character and provides ample opportunities to try out the advice using the tracing and drawing paper included in the book.
The book is divided into sections focusing on different anatomical and sartorial aspects of a character: the head, the eyes, the hands, clothing and costumes, creating natural and action poses, et cetera. The importance of using guidelines to achieve proper proportion and perspective is stressed and the approach is overall a technical one that will require some patience.
Michelle drawing guidelines.
That isn’t to say it’s without immediate satisfaction, though. Because of the focus on one element at a time, aspiring artists (or relatively hopeless manga reviewers) can concentrate on adding just one thing to a mostly completed drawing. In the image below, all I did was shade in the eyes and add some hair and it almost looks like I can actually draw!
Unlike some how-to books on drawing manga that I’ve seen, the art in The Manga Artist’s Workbook genuinely looks like manga art. Its lessons are primarily applicable to shojo style, however, which might be an enticement for some and a turn-off for others. Also, as the subtitle suggests, the lessons are all about creating a character; no advice concerning paneling or backgrounds is given. Still, if you’re a shojo artist looking for some hands-on practice, you might want to check this one out.
The Manga Artist’s Workbook: Easy-to-Follow Lessons for Creating Your Own Characters is available now.
–Reviewed by Michelle Smith
By Yishan Li
Watson-Guptill, 128 pp.
The subtitle of Shoujo Art Studio is “Everything You Need To Create Your Own Shoujo Manga Comics,” an interesting choice considering what is (and isn’t) inside. The fine print on the attached CD points out that users are required to own Adobe’s Photoshop Elements (at the very least) in order to use the files provided—an additional $50 investment casual buyers may not be expecting. On the other hand, one could argue that the CD actually includes so much of “everything,” there isn’t all that much left for the user to create.
What Shoujo Art Studio provides is 67 pages of basic instructions for manipulating the provided images (using Photoshop) in order to create a shojo-style comic, followed by a visual catalogue of the contents of its accompanying CD. The collection of images includes line art for several characters, backgrounds, basic effects, page layouts, word balloons, and accessories (like a bicycle and a cell phone), along with a variety of tones. Characters come complete with an array of possible outfits, hairstyles, poses, and facial features, each in its own layer to be added and removed at will, creating the equivalent of a digital paper doll. Two pages on the topic “Pacing Your Storytelling” are the deepest it goes into anything beyond the most surface elements of manga. The instructions are brief and fairly easy to follow, though Photoshop novices may find that things are not quite as simple as Shoujo Art Studio would have them believe. Though the book is far too basic for even intermediate users, it may move too quickly for some beginners.
Say it isn't so, Kyo-kun! (Click to enlarge Melinda's creation.)
Just as experienced digital artists will find this book of little use, dedicated readers of shojo manga may react negatively as well, particularly to the author’s statements about the nature of the genre which emphasize tired shojo clichés—an attitude that is further reinforced by the choice of artwork included. That said, non-artists will find some enjoyment in being able to “create” something that somewhat resembles a page of manga without having to acquire much in the way of skill. Some elements are more difficult to use than others (this reviewer gave up on toning after one disastrous panel) but the process is surprisingly fun, if undeniably superficial.
Shoujo Art Studio is available now.
–Reviewed by Melinda Beasi
Review copies provided by the publishers.
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