Customer Reviews

How To Draw Manga Volume 15: Girls' Life Illustration File (v. 15)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This must be the strangest volume offered so far the "How to Draw Manga" Series. "Girls' Life Illustration File" profiles the intimate details of the daily lives of several hypothetical young women, each with a distinct personality: "Sporty Girl," "Uppity Girl," "Shy Girl," among others. The book gives suggestions as to what types of clothing each character might wear according to her personality, going as far to show each girl dressed in their preferred style of lingerie! There are also comparisons of each girl's living quarters, daily activities, and body language.

To be honest, I don't think this book is even as useful as some of the other books in the "How to Draw Manga" series that focuses on drawing females. Admittedly, there are many males who haven't grown up with sisters, so there may be aspects of females' daily routine (like grooming) with which they may be unfamiliar. This book may be helpful for becoming familiar with those "rituals." Otherwise the book comes off as voyueristic (I should note here that a woman authored this work, so you don't think the book's a male fantasy).

Another caveat is that the book was originally published for a Japanese audience; even though nearly all Japanese women wear Western style clothes, what each of the girls wear in this volume may reflect in part domestic cultural concerns. And the section on kimono may or may not have relevance for readers outside Japan (of course, if you are creating a manga that takes place in that country, of are drawing specifically Japanese characters, then that culture-specific info is of great value).

The book's primary strength is demonstrating to would-be-manga artists and writers the importance of creating details, such as clothing preferences and lifestyle, that match or correspond with the personality of potential comic-book characters. This installment is more about theme and style than actual drawing technique. And please, don't just copy the characters and settings in the book! Use the models as a starting point from which you can incorporate your own creativity!

I'm very satisfied with this book - the only thing keeping me from giving it 5 stars is the price (then again, How to Draw Manga books are always overpriced).

This book is based on six stereotypes: Perky, Sporty, Dreamy, Precocious, Shy, and Uppity. It includes many details of each girl's behavior pattern, taste, lifestyle, etc. as well as general details of what a [Japanese] girl does in a day.

There are...
- five chapters that are literally illustration files
&
- two short tutorials... one is one page and is about - finally - "how to draw" the girls and the other is two pages and are pointers on how to improve the character design

However, although most of the book doesn't literally teach the reader "how to draw" a girl, the information is very useful for any artist interested in drawing young Japanese girls.

Chapter 1, Home Sweet Home, encompasses floor plans of each of the girls' rooms, the items each of them have in their closets, the way they organize their items, etc.

Chapter 2, Girly Stuff, prove to be useful (and I think that guys would especially find the information helpful!), as it has sections like Inside the Schoolbag, A Peek Into the Jewelry Box, Dieting, Skincare, Cosmetics, etc.

Chapter 3, Fashion Statements, is in full color!! (other chapters only have a few colored pages here and there) Every girl is drawn out in their preferred daywear, nightwear, yukata (summer kimono), and lingerie.

Chapter 4, The Bare Essentials, are literally, the BARE essentials. It's basically a collection of seven pages (all colored - that was nice), each girl had a page of her own (except Perky Girl, who had two) with their nude illustrations. I suppose it's a good reference for poses and it shows their personalities, but otherwise quite useless.

Chapter 5, No Boys Allowed!, is a look at some places where only girls hang out (i.e., the girls' locker room). I liked this because the black and white sketch illustrations showed how these places look like in Japan - it's useful for anyone who wants to make a manga that takes place in Japan but isn't familiar with the country.

While many(/all?) other HTDM books are in black and white, How to Draw Manga: Girls' Life Illustration File has many colored pages - it makes the highg price of the book more tolerable. Also, the artwork by the author/artist Kazuko Tadano (director of Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon R.: the Movie) is a lot better than the art in other HTDM books (my opinion, of course!). I would recommend this book. (I bought it for about $21 at Japan town in SF, but on Amazon it seems to be a bit cheaper - that's a plus!)

This book was great. It showed me ways to draw a girls--happy,sad,dissapointed, etc. It opened a wide variety of clothes to me. Parents who complain that this book is too showy,erotic, ect. are wrong. This is art, and art is expressed in many ways. I'm not kidding when I say that... just check out some of the art of most famous artists (Picasso, Henri Matisse, Etc.).

I bought this book and was Very pleased with it! I give it a four out of five stars, four because there is sometimes unnecessary nudity in the book. The nudity occurs mostly in section four subtitled "The bare essentials." Section four is only useful if you're looking to understand the different reactions by the different personalities given.
The title of this book is "A Girl's Life: illistration file," so you can expect that it's going to give a lot of information on the qualities that you could expect to see from different personalities, versus information on drawing the characters. I suggest a different book if you're interested in drawing diversified characters and need the 'know how's' for figure frames and so on.
As for me, this book fulfilled my every expectation. I draw on an intermidiate level, I'm generally satisfied for now with that, so I was looking for some material to strengthen my understanding of character psychology so to speak so I could break out of my cosier and bland character selection and give my characters more defined personalities. This book gives plenty of starting base with its clothing styles, hair styles, typical poses, and environmental affects to accomplish diversity in characters.
So, if you're like me and you're needing something more than suggestions for setting up frames and general stuff, I highly suggest this book!

im 11, and i found NOTHING provocative because im a manga artist and sometimes when i draw comic or a pic you need to draw them putting on make-up, or taking a shower!
aleast its not show there private parts!
and i found it very useful, sometimes you need detail like that.
and i have a brother who draws too and he being a boy he dosen't know all about girls like i do, so it was helpful.
so if you need a book to help you draw girls and things like their rooms and stuff. its a VERY good book!
and all the revews that kids wrote found nothing wrong with it! only the parents found something wrong with it! and its not going to wreck your childhood anything!

When I saw this book, I knew I had to have it! The illustrations are wonderful, and packed full of ideas you can use for a girls manga. This book contains info about the kind of things young women like to buy. It gives you examples of different kind of girl personalities, what that specific girl would wear, how she would behave, and what she enjoys doing. If you're looking for a book that shows some Yukata's, as well as how young women put on makeup, then this is definately a book for you! I think it is very adorable. If you are looking for more than what the title suggests, then you will be sorely dissapointed. This book is not misleading at all. It depicts exactly what the title advertises, girls' life illustration file. I would definately recommend this book if you would like to have a reference on girls activities.

Obviously, many parents writing these reviews are misled in thinking that this volume is 'corrupt'. It's FINE for older kids to draw; it's a way of expression. So what if it happens to be of unrealistic, disproportioned girls; it's not so bad, considering a LOT of the manga I've seen.
This book won't ruin any young minds, but rather will help in learning figure drawing and of what their own limitations will be when drawing.

Generally, this book isn't really essential for beginner manga artists, but it does go into a considerable amount of detail. This book provides six different girls as examples and explores how they arrange their rooms, their clothing, cosmetics, kimono-style, whether they prefer a bath or shower, what they wear to bed, and many other details (there are even examples of how they paint their nails!). Almost all of this is illustrated in detailed, full-color images, many of which are looking through more than once.
Overall, this is more of a guide for a for someone who has already grasped the basic drawing concepts of manga. However, Girls' Life Illustration File
is fully capable of keeping it's readers interested throughout most if not all of the entire book.

This is a great book to give you an idea of various girls of variours personalities ranging from a perky girl to a shy girl. This shows some of the most loveliest illustrations that are both black and white and color. It's mostly in color though which is absolutely amazing and great! I recommend this book for those who like to draw females to kimonos to various other things. Perfect if you want to make your female character come out great

How to Draw Manga: Girls' Life Illustration File is a book not useful for beginners. But this is a very useful book though, I recommend this book! This book at some pages have colors ; some don't. This book is at least about a girl's life and wich shows what's in a girl's life ; some of the clothings, how their home are, and much more. There are some of the girl's stuffs ( so that you don't know really and exactly ) And my favourite part is "the 10 musts in bishojo character design". It teaches you, like, you musn't draw like this and that... THis book is very useful for the ones who'd like to draw girls.