Customer Reviews

The Art of Animal Character Design

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Length:: 0:15 Mins

David Colman is a character designer specializing in animals. The Art of Animal Character Design is a sketchbook containing his wonderful caricatured animal designs.

This is not the step-by-step instructional art book. However, it does contain a lot of practical tips and points to look out when drawing animals. He workflow is to observe, to think and then to draw. The emphasis is on thinking and he talks about his thought process for the sketches in the book.

His principle is to draw what the animal is doing and draw the character of the animal, rather than just drawing the animal. To quote from the book, it's to draw the 'verb', not the 'noun'. This is the repeating theme throughout the book, and it shows in his examples.

There are a lot of interesting and useful insights provided. For example, he talks about the need to lock down shapes to preserve design integrity so that the animal is still recognizable. There are also tips on how to improve believability through the application of gravity and forces. Other than just drawing animals, he would also caricature humans into their animal form based on their behaviour. There's also a section on creating imaginary animals.

This book is a very good resource to character designers. It's highly recommended.

(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

Brilliant Designs and just enough concise prose make this the most outstanding Animal Drawing book on the market. I own many current and out-of-print texts that deal with the subjects covered here, but with the exception of Ken Hultgren's classic primer (sought after by every Disney animator of the past 3+ decades)The Art of Animal Drawing- no other book combines the necessary steps to get you to create original character designs without falling back on gimmicks or following current design trends.
I put it up there with Glenn Vilppu's series Vilppu Drawing Manual and the original FA course! Bravo!

Make no mistake, this is NOT a book that teaches you how to draw. This is for more advanced illustrators. It's simply a guide filled with wonderful examples and text that expresses how you can characterize animals (the same can be applied to people). All these tips and lessons and examples help you see what the artist is trying to tell you. Its a great book to learn from if you're seriously thinking about learning how to cartoon properly.

David Colman has just put out an amazing book devoted to a specialized area in art known as "Animal Character Design". The Art of Animal Character Design is a much- needed book for those wanting to unravel the mysteries of good design and animal drawing. Packed with stunning drawings from both his personal sketchbooks and professional assignments, David Colman not only showcases his wonderful zoo sketches and character designs, but also gives us insight on how to go about making them. The book reveals the importance of drawing live models at the zoo and the study of their anatomy in order to get believable character designs no matter how exaggerated. This hardbound edition is beautifully laid out in full color and is a must have for any artist, student or professional, in need of guidance and inspiration in the making of good animal character design.

This book is full of spectacular animal character designs and sketches. If you are realy interested in collecting good art images, just order it.

Do not expect anything but the amazing art works.

It is not an instructural or education book.

The price is another problem. A book from a very talented amazing artist.

The first book which made me ragretfull about my order.

This book is a wonderful asset to any illustrator, character designer, animator, etc. The collection of images is very entertaining to look at and enjoy, and also to study learn from. As an illustration student I found the written content of the book to be just as helpful as the pictoral, and have already seen improvement in my work from following the advice he gives. The book includes a good variety of mediums as well as sketches, process, and more finished work.

The book itself, as a book, did not seem to be extremely well designed. I don't think there's anything blatantly wrong about it, but you can tell that the design of the pages was not what was important when creating this book. It's a very very minor detail that is barely noticeable next to the lovely artwork in the book.

This was worth every penny I spent on it.

If you're interested in animal character design you will love this book. It won't teach you how to draw, but the sketches will give you inspiration for yourself, what kind of characters to draw. It also has some good advice on how to improve your drawing, especially for professionals. This book is interesting if you know how to draw, but want to get to the next level with character design.

Aside from David Colman's amazing artwork, The information in this book is a must for animal artist or any art enthusiast. It's no instructional or "how to draw" book but an insight of why it's important to draw everyday and why you should learn the fundamentals. One of my favorite is the Memory-sketches and Warm-Ups which is to go around and draw what you see. After drawing what you see, redraw it from memory. Doing so will train your mind to recall what you drew. Of course you'll find his artwork posted in his blogger or deviant and other instructional art books that will teach his methods. I wasn't disappointed about it but more motivated to hone in the fundamentals.

This is an incredible book. Every artist has numerous books and a wall full of books that are pretty pictures and great reference, but this has something much more. This is the book that stays on the coffee table or on the closest shelf to the hand that reaches for more. The cover alone is AWESOME!!! Such great character and yet it does not feel like a cartoon, it's something straight out of an animated film. It's a talent I want as well. . . so, I had to have this book.

His work is very similar to the amazing Joe Weatherly, yet he has his own twist by taking that amazing knowledge or structural anatomy and applying it to pulling the character out of the creature. David's work is heartfelt and this book is AMAZING. I couldn't be more happy to savory the insides in the privacy of my own house. It's unbelievable, he tells you his secrets and what he is thinking about when he is creating his designs, NOBODY does that . . it's as if you are in class standing right by him as he draws . . .what a true talent and a great buy. I can't wait to see his next book . . .I'll be first in line!!!!! You can count on it!

The only reason I'm giving this book 4 starts is that I had to buy it for list.
I hate paying list. but the book is that good it will give you a better
idea of how to make and design better animal characters.