Customer Reviews

How to Draw Manga Volume 1 : Compiling Characters

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

 

 

This book is a wonderful start-to-finish guide for drawing manga. (What this book is *not* is a step-by-step guide for drawing anime/manga characters -- for that, get the related Drawing Anime and Game Characters series.) It goes over the processes of professional mangakas getting published, usings pens and tones, planning a story, designing characters, drawing faces and bodies, creating a manga-type mood, drawing dynamic scenes, all with the aid of a mini-manga of "Mr. Mangaka" and all his assistants acting everything out for your personal enjoyment. I have never, ever encountered any book, online or in print, that covers so professionally such a wide range of topics. (Someone noted correctly that this book requires a little bit of talent and practice on your part -- after all, it's a "how to draw manga" book, not a "how to draw halfway decent" book, so supposedly you already have some interest in drawing and anime to even take a second look at this book.)

The rest of the How to Draw Manga series is specilization; this book was all-encompassing. If you get no others from this series, get this book, if you seriously want to draw pro manga right away.

However, this book has one weakness, and, unfortunately, it's huge: the translation. I happen to have access to the Japanese version and all I can say is... dang, the English version hurts. The diction is off on every page, the grammar has shadows of Japanese syntax, the fonts (Chicago and Arial, everything!) and the spacing are horrendous, and most rules of layout and white space management are thrown out the window -- making that aspect of the book look amateurish. They didn't even doctor the SFX correctly -- in some places they are whited out with no attempt to clone the background, leaving ugly white holes, and the English SFX they replace them with (if any) are bizarre and stilted, and usually in a stupid font like Chicago.... In other places the SFX are left completely untouched -- left in Japanese, so those who can't read katakana can scratch their heads in confusion. (As stated in the book, SFX contribute heavily to the mood. In this case, they fracture it .)

Conclusion: Would have been a 5 star if the translation was done better...even slightly so. However, the content is sooo good that it's still completely worth getting the book -- unless you know Japanese and can easily get the Japanese version, in which case, go for the original by all means.

(Warning: there is some mild H (perverted) content on less than half a dozen pages -- nothing much, PG+ or PG-13 tops, and nothing at all compared to the nudity and more offensive poses that can appear in the other books of this series.... In any case, just a heads up.)

Well, when I bought this book, I wasn't disappointed. It gives you very good information on figure-drawing, how to render expressions, proportioning for different types of characters (i.e. children, men, young women, older women, etc.). There are also sections on how to render character and plot which are useful if you're a beginner, although you would want to find additional material at a later date as they do not go into depth. There was also information that would be quite useful if you wanted to be a professional manga artist, covering tone, the types of brushes and pens you need, etc.

Some of the side drawings (NOT what is used to instruct) are ecchi (a little perverted), but not over the top. Also, the translation is lacking. Some people might find that this book is not in-depth enough for them--there are other books in this series that go more into depth on the desired subject.

Another book to try would be "How to Draw Anime & Game Characters, Vol. 1". It would be useful for anyone, because it shows commonly made mistakes and how to fix them.

However, do not expect that this book will automatically make you better (this goes for any "How to Draw" book)! There's something important required... it's called PRACTICE. It seems like too many people buy "How to Draw" books and immediately expect to be better. Umm... not if you don't draw until you never want to draw again, and then some. If you draw with technique and practice, you'll improve.

This is a good addition to any collection.

While "Getting Started" deals with the very basic aspects of How to Draw Manga, This book in the series seems to extend beyond the very basics and gets more in depth with the aspects of Drawing, character creation, and the elements of making a Manga comic.

Though as an afterthought, this book, "How to Draw manga: Compiling Characters" could probably replace "Getting Started", as it does cover just about the same topics, in fuller detail. So if you don't feel like spending the $20 some odd dollars on "Getting Started", this one can easily take its place. but it certainly doesn't hurt to get both

Note: Since Amazon doesn't tell you in their description, this is Volume 1 of the How to Draw Manga series.

This is a rather short book, only about 100 pages once you take out the title pages and index and whatnot. Furthermore, the first 15 pages are a short comic whose informational content could have been summed up in a page of text. So, there's not a whole lot of room left for instruction.

The informational content of the book is high quality, though it may not always discuss what you want to learn about. Some of it is only likely to be useful if one was going into the professional manga field, such as discussions of manuscript paper, and how a work needs to be prepared before being sent to the printer. A section at the end very briefly discusses character and story design, but goes so shallowly into it that anyone planning on creating complete stories would be much better served by taking a course/reading a book on creative writing. There is also no explicit discussion of how manga differs from other styles of drawing.

All in all, I would say that if you already know the basics of figure drawing and facial expressions, simply picking up a real manga and examining it will give you a better idea of how to adapt your art to have a more manga-like style. If you're a novice, then this may be a good book, but you may want to pick up a more general drawing book in addition to or instead of this to get more breadth.

This particular book of the "How to Draw Manga" series helped me a lot when I was starting out. I think this is one of the best books they've written and frankly I hope it helps others as much as it has helped me.

I borrowed this book from a friend, and though there are some useful diagrams and things that show you how to draw the basic shapes of anime people, the book skips over the detail pretty quickly and I didn't find it very helpful. What also bugged me was that it has one page telling you how to draw hair movement, and none on how to actually draw manga hair. That's one of the things I've always found hard and I was annoyed that this book didn't teach it. As well as all that, possibly worst of all, the translation is awful and the grammer makes no sense at all sometimes. I would only recomment this book to those who have a basic understanding of the body and face already, and want to draw with more accuracy.

I enjoy learning from this book.I'm 13 to say the truth and i'm not an amateur or professional.I had brought other manga drawing books parts of this series, and I think this book could really help anyone who wants to learn to draw manga style.They explained how to draw the face really well.It was easy to follow and it explained the parts of the face.Facial expressions was a good section and shows the key to drawing many kinds!They also helped me learn to draw the body better.Shows varties of movements.I was happy that they show how to make a good decent manga.
But! the materials they tell you to use,are all worth good in japan.^^; Well it's not their fault but really,so many materials >.<And last of all,they didn't really help in drawing hair but they did explain in breif of hair movements.
Overall,this book is really good^_^ if you overlook the lack of exlaining in the hair section and the confusing needs of materials @.@ you'll love it:)

This book is good for people who have never even tried to draw manga if they can already at least kinda draw. I read it on the day I got it and the next day at school I managed to draw a pretty good head part just from memory. It isn't a miracle... I have gotten other books and I use them all for reference but I have a friend who is a really good artist(better than me I think) and she asked me to teach her to draw manga. I didn't give it a full 5 stars because they didn't have different styles of eyes which are one of my favorite things to draw and I always love learning new styles... Still it is good overall.

Since it explains every step to draw a character completely, this book could be used as a reference for amatuers and professionals alike.

Before having this book, I had never drawn an impressive character like the ones I can darw easily now! Every thing is explained here; Drawing heads, hair, bodies, hands, Feet...etc. The only thing absent here is drawing clothes on characters. But generally, the book explains the basics and helps everyone to improve their drawing skills with some talent. I suggest buying this item with(How To Draw Manga Pretty Gals) of the same series.

I agree with the other reviewers. The translation is horrible and a lot of the book was wasted on the dicussion of materials and such. However, the book also contains very useful information, like body types, character types, and basic manga face drawing. This is a good book to start out with, as long as you have some drawing skill and want yor pictures to look more manga-like.