How to Draw Anime & Game Characters, Vol. 1: Basics for Beginners and Beyond [Paperback]

Tadashi Ozawa (Author)

Book Description

Series: How to Draw Manga | Publication Date: July 5, 2001

If you are anime/manga collector or fan, you have had a burning desire to learn how to draw the popular characters by yourself. However, you may be worried that you cannot draw as well as people in art clubs or in cartoon clubs because drawing is difficult - don't worry, many people feel the same way. This series was written to help those who are interested in drawing, but are worried about the challenges involved with it. If you change the way you look at an object - even just a little, you can succeed.

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Graphic-Sha (July 5, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 4766111206
• ISBN-13: 978-4766111200
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #159,499 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #11 in Books > Arts & Photography > Drawing > Specific Objects

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

177 of 178 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent illustration instruction, October 13, 2000

By 

Erik K (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: How to Draw Anime & Game Characters, Vol. 1: Basics for Beginners and Beyond (Paperback)

Far and away the best of the English "How to Draw Manga" books. The art style is clean and the layout is well-done, with no issues of whether you should be reading left-to-right or right-to-left (a definite problem in some Japanese conversions).

Best of all, Ozawa starts from the very basics, and urges you to do the exercises from the beginning. Sure, drawing cubes isn't exciting, but even for a non-beginners, it's a useful warm-up that improves technique. With the reassuring statement "if you can hold a pencil and draw straight lines, you can draw, " he skillfully leads the reader to develop or improve drawing skills.

He also includes something I've never seen in a comics manual before: Drawings from different ability levels. He shows stuff by absolute beginers, intermediate, advanced and professional and critiques the problems and positives. Personally, I found this extremely helpful and reassuring. He also marks the time it took to create some of the professional drawings: Again, very reassuring that these things took time and weren't dashed off in minutes.

Finally, Ozawa covers a broad range of character styles, from generally realistic to the SD (simple deformed) type. For each, he includes plenty of detail on what makes such characters work and why.

These books can be hard to find, so if you're interested in this subject, don't wait. Get your copy now.

48 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ahhhh this book rocks!!, January 3, 2003

By 

Kaya (Rio Piedras, PR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Draw Anime & Game Characters, Vol. 1: Basics for Beginners and Beyond (Paperback)

I... Well actually my dad bought this book for me (I bought volume 3), and trust me this book is worth every single penny! It talks about the basics like the face, body, poses, and more! The main reason I bought this book was to learn how to improve my anime eyes; and let me tell you, being the amateur I am, they've improved ALOT! I would show a scan of one of my practice sheets, but it's not allowed, oh well! XD

I made a drawing of a kitty girl with the instructions the book gives you...*can't imagine all the critiques she would get from the author* But anyway, the book tells you to compare your drawings with other drawings, and it takes you think: "Man, I used to draw like THAT?" At least that's how I did...lol

One of the things I loved about this book was that the author shows us these drawings made from 100% Amateurs, Intermediate *sp* and Advanced artists, plus proffessional versions of the drawings. It tells you WHAT'S wrong with the drawings, the errors etc. And that helps ALOT because these drawings have very common errors.

May I add that the mascots are, hmm how do I put this...KAWAII?! (japanese for cute...heh) The author uses these adorable mascots that briefly explain you things like "We must learn the basics!"; that adds humor to the book, and that alone made me more confident of myself, and killed the thought of "Oh it'll probably be too hard for me". But let me tell you, if you put your heart and time to it, and practice with this book, you'll be a kick-arse anime artist in no time! And remember, if your first straight line comes out horrible, don't worry, by time you'll get it right, because practice makes perfect =3 If you plan on becoming an anime artist or illustrator or whatever, thi book MUST be on your bookshelf, you won't regret it. ^_^

58 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A vey nice book, October 16, 2000

By 

Gwen Kramer "gwenhwyvar" (Sunny and not-so-sunny California) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: How to Draw Anime & Game Characters, Vol. 1: Basics for Beginners and Beyond (Paperback)

I hesitated to buy this book at first because I was worried that it was one of those cheap, 12 page, how to draw book meant for 2nd graders. This book is not! It is pretty thick for a drawing book. I really liked the exercise suggestions, they helped a lot with my drawing.

One quibble and that is not enough to bring down my rating, some of the translation is obscure (fringe for bangs, etc.) but you can usually figure out what was meant.

This book is well worth it if you enjoy anime.