Customer Reviews

How to Draw Anime & Game Characters, Vol. 4: Mastering Battle and Action Moves

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

 

 

I got books 2 and 3 in this set before I got this one, so I knew that there would be a lot of useful information for me to use. I make computers games and draw manga, and these are my favorite resources I use to figure out just how to draw an anime style character without making things look awkward.
This book isn't my favorite of the three I own in the series. It shows very throughly all kinds of brawling and physical hand to hand techniques, but I found there to be a lack of battle and action moves that involve weapons, which is a must for sci-fi stories and so on. Since 6 of 7 pictures on the front and back had weapons, I expected a little more instruction in that respect.
Another note would be that they show so many different angles of the same move (about 4 pages per pose) that it seems a bit redundant the first time through. However, since I see how knowing these angles is really nessecary for any kind of game with a 3d effect.
Things I liked about this book are the good descriptions of the important points. It's also easy to use the index or simply flip through to find what you are looking for because it's well organized. It's clear and easy to understand as well.

If you've gotten Ozawa's other books, then you already know how detailed his books get! This volume is no different and goes a step further by showing you actions in progress such as showing you each movement of a person walking. Then he shows you how to do the same action but at different angles and foreshortening. There's so much info in here that it'll take you awhile to digest all the information in it. It's stacked full of drawings and side notes!

There are quite a lot of action moves in this book, specifically hand-to-hand combat. No instructions on drawing weapons even though the cover shows them.

Quite unlike Martials Arts & Combat Sports and Illustrating Battles editions, this book prep you to think in 3 dimensions and animation-type movement. If you're set on making animations and video games in the future, this book is the best way to learn spatial relations and seeing your characters more than just one or two-dimensionally.

If you're into making manga, getting this book won't hurt at all but you're probably better off getting the Illustrating Battles or Martials Arts & Combat Sports book initially.

Like his other editions, this book is young-reader friendly and covers nudity well using block, wire, and wooden model figures.

after getting the first three volumes of this series i admit to being a bit over-expectant of this volume. not to mention i am also guilty of judging it by its cover. as usual it starts off with some useful information about movement or anything it could be covering in this book, which i like very much and has very useful tips. however towards the part of the book where it begins to have illustrations of kicks and punches and stuff, i was utterly disapointed. the cover suggests that the book contains something on sword fighting or knife-fighting, or graceful battles, but was completly off. the battles in this book are like street fights, something i was totally not interested in. All it has is overly-masculine people throwing elbow jabs and drop kicks. there is an even distribution of girls and boys in this book, but none of them seem to be at all related to the kind of battles on the cover or back page. i suggest before buying this book you understand it will NOT give that many battle moves. it never even touches upon knives or swords. and pretty much the only action moves are people going from a walk to a run.

If you view this book as just a drawing book, then I can understand some of the negative reviews.

For example, one of the reviewers complained that the author spent too much time on the drawings for a side kick. And that reviewer was absolutely right.

The reason is: this is really an ANIMATION book. And all those "redundant" drawings that the author is spending time on are the Key Frames and Passing Frames that are ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL for creating great animations.

For example, take Macromedia Flash, draw in those key and passing frames. Then draw in the inbetweens, and you have FANTASTIC animated action sequences. I know, because I've done it!

Viewed as an animation book, this is THE DEFINITVE BOOK for martial-arts, anime animation.

Buy the Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams, along with this book and you will have a complete course on anime animation.

The fourth book in this series dedicates it time to showing action and battle moves. It starts off with a small section on motion and the human bone and muscle system, then moves into detail on action moves such as running and walking from many different angles. The bulk of this book is on battle moves, and they have a ton to show you. Everything from chops and punches to roundhouses and elbow strikes is right in this book from many different angles. The only reason I gave this book four instead of five stars is because I really think they could have gone into more detail on the muscle systems, and there are no weapons in this book. Although they show it on the cover, they don't show how to animate your characters with weapons. A small downside, but it still is a great book to learn many different types of action especially battle moves.

What I like about this book is that it has many angles for a fight style. It offers hints on small details that would make your characters look alive. I recommend that you go checking out this book first at your local library before you buy it because you might not like it. This book only shows fight moves not actual battles between two characters. It is a book for intermediate artist who has mastered some drawing skills. This book is a good reference book because if you drew a character and it look "weird" there are hints in this book that will help you fix the "weirdness."

This is the fourth book in this series of "How to Draw Anime & Game Characters", and the illustrations in this book remain at the same high quality as in previous entries. This book charge into the action, and in general, is a good reference. However, this book is a bit lacking because it is about "mastering battle" without weapons. Granted, you can always derive those from other poses, but still a bit disappointing.

This is the contents in this book:

Introduction
Chapter 1 Know the Basics
Chapter 2 Runing and Walking: The Basics of Movement
Chapter 3 Action

The material in this book is of a good quality, but the bulk of this book is in chapter 3.

Chapter 1, present basic tips about motion and animation, a bit about human form (bones and muscles) and head movements.

Chapter 2 shows basic movements (walking and running) in full sequence, using dummies and characters. First this sequences are shown on profile, and later at an angle toward the viewer and away from the viewer.

Chapter 3 is where this book shines, and disappoints. Plenty of combat poses are shown here using wire model, block model, dummy, and characters. The same pose is shown a few angles angles, including extreme perspectives and foreshortening. In a few instances you get to see a sequence of movement of a specific move like in the case of the back fist, the lariat, the knuckle hammer, the upper cut, the low kick, the roundhouse, the back roundhouse, the ax kick, the jump punch and the back flip kick.

As extras, the book includes at the end an advice from a young creator (Chihiro Inoue) and a Questions and Answers at a studio (Studio 4C).

Overall, this book falls a bit short, but still remains a good reference to have.

Other books in this series:
How to Draw Anime & Game Characters, Vol. 1: Basics for Beginners and Beyond
How to Draw Anime & Game Characters, Vol. 2: Expressing Emotions
How to Draw Anime & Game Characters, Vol. 3: Bringing Daily Actions to Life
How to Draw Anime & Game Characters, Vol. 5: Bishoujo Game Characters

I actually do not use this series for cartooning, but rather for 3D computer rendering and animation. The entire set is the perfect reference guide for a computer animator/modeler. It's a must have series.

It teaches you all of the battle moves. From jabs to throwing!

When I first got this book it looked like it would help me with martial arts and japanese moves. Boy was I wrong. The very fact that this is japanese animation would make the reader ASSUME this was japanese Battling. Instead, I got HUGE Bozos, throwing punches and absolutely no martial arts. In this book, Tadashi was so busy showing the angles of just one kick, that he has absolutely NO variety WHATSOEVER! I'm serious, just one move takes him up to four pages to get his point across. Do yourself a favor and skip Volume 4 MASTERING BATTLE AND ACTION MOVES in Tadashi's work.