Customer Reviews

How to Draw and Sell Digital Cartoons (Barron's Educational Series)

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

 

 

I subtracted one star because the author heavily favors drawing with pencil and paper and then scanning the image into the computer and going digital from there. You can scan the Mona Lisa into the computer, that doesn't make Da Vinci a digital artist. I felt it also gave short shrift to vector based art, as a result of the paper & pencil origins.

From four stars, I cut the rating in half, because there is only half a book here. If it had been called "How to Draw Digital Cartoons" I would have left it at four stars, but the title says "and Sell" so I expected something about selling. In fact, that's really what I was looking for in this book. There are only three pages about making money, and over 1 page of that is graphics. The bottom line, apparently, is that you won't make money with digital cartoons. Fine. But if that's the case, then the title is very misleading.

This is an excellent look at the multi-faceted concerns of those interested in digital cartoons and comics, from inspiration to drawing, page layout, computer techniques, character design, coloring and publishing, both on the web and in print.

It's wide-ranging enough to touch on almost all aspects of the creation of digital comics, but focused enough to deal with specific techniques.

A fascinating and highly useful book that's also chock-full of beautiful digital art by many of the leading digital cartoonists and comics artists.

We first checked this book out of the library (I have an 11-yr-old would-be cartoonist son), then ended up buying our own copy. Great introduction to different cartooning styles, composition, and a better hands-on description of using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator than you find in the owner's manuals! Nice layout, colorful, thick, glossy pages. Beautiful book and useful reference.