Customer Reviews

How to Create Action, Fantasy and Adventure Comics

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

 

 

I didn't buy this book here because I was lucky to find it here in the Philippines. I found this book almost complete in its goal to teach its readers to become comic book artists. The book could have been 100% complete if it had a few pages on muscle structure (male and female), more pointers on drawing hands, foreshortening the human body and coloring. Despite these, I still rate it 5 stars.

One particular chapter that I believe stood out was the chapter on Clothing and Drapery. Learn the principles Tom outlined here and you will be able to draw clothing and drapery from memory.

It's not the only book you should buy if you want to draw comics but it definitely is a must-own book. I also bought Stan Lee and John Buscema's "How to Draw Comics - The Marvel Way" from the same bookstore. I haven't finished reading it yet because I'm already practicing breakdowns (posing your character using basic shapes prior to filling them in with muscles and covering them with clothes or costumes) as Tom suggested we do for at least a week or better months or a year (what a perfectionist, ey?).

I've read this book many times and it has the most info I've seen in a book on how to create comics, by far. It even goes so far to include instructions on drawing clothing! Tom Alvarez gives a two page lesson on the compostion of a comic page, explains different techniques of the inking job, and even gives dimensions of a typical comic book pencilling page with instructions to size it down! There are also many tips he throws in at the end of every chapter to help you get going in every aspect. Like watching some dramatic movies and studying angles to re-drawing an existing comic book. Extremely detailed! No regrets! A must-have for artists!

I was very disappointed in this book. I realized when I purchased it that it was a bit older than most books out there but I really wanted to see this artist's take on things. The overall content of the book is pretty much the same as the rest of the books of this type. It covers very basic anatomy and human proportions, but the problem is that the illustrations are just terrible. They look like high school drawings of an unskilled fan boy. Some of the drawing are very out of proportion with one arm longer than the other or heads too small for the body. This is surprising to me because I have seen the author's Shelock Holmes comic strips and the art in them is phenomenal, in my opinion. Those strips are what prompted me to want to see this book in the first place. The drapery section is its saving grace. However, this is a very small section at only a few pages and if you are familiar with drawing at all this section may not be of any help to you.
For more in depth coverage and better rendered art, I recommend Draw Comics with Dick Giordano, Drawing Dynamic Comics by Andy Smith, and Comics Crash Course by Vincent Giarrano.

This book showed me everything I needed to know about drawing fantasy and adventure comics. I enjoyed the books informative value and its comments by other artists. I now know how to draw cartoon characters with skill and prescision. Thank you, Amazon!