Customer Reviews

Kids Draw Manga

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

 

 

I bought this book for my daughter who is 12, and she loves it. She said it has helped her learn how to draw Manga character arms, hands, and facial expressions better. It is easy to follow with lots of examples.

My sister had bought this book because she was interested in drawing manga a small bit. I flipped through the pages and found it very misleading for a "manga" instruction book.

First off, this isn't manga; though it may seem very stylistic and similar to the real thing it's not showing you how to draw manga, it's showing you how to draw American cartoons. The reason that it's not manga is that they pinpoints in the style of Japanese comics were missed a bit. The eyes were probably the worst aspect of this book being "fake", they were opaque circles with random shines within them--all style, no substance. The hairstyles did not show diversity, all spikey, while real anime/manga hairstyles had meaning to them or certain patterns. The sections on drawing character stereotypes were very pointless and long, considering that the author could have just written "here are the features of a [insert anime stereotype(s)]" insteading of having a detailed instruction that wasn't even necessary.

The best aspect of this book was the detailed instruction to drawing anatomy and proportions, not manga. That seemed to be the only somewhat useful part in the book.

Overall, this book receives about a 15% in grades, not good. If you're looking for an introduction to drawing MANGA, buy Katy Coope's book, but if you're looking for a simplified version of drawing anatomy and proportions, buy this--don't let "manga" in the title delude you into thinking that it is the real thing.

Excellent book, excellent drawings, great instruction. Christopher Hart shows the development of his drawings in a clear, step by step fashion, allowing you to see his thought process. This is fun for the whole family.

I loved this book for its innovative way of simplifying with out loosing the creativity.
Basic four to six steps to creating the figure, motion & expression that makes up the character. Brining the book home instantly drew kids from our neighborhood to our kitchen table where they all gathered around for a morning full of fantasy. I'll probably back to purchase another one of the series soon.

This is pretty bad... Its actually laughable. If you want to read one of Chris Hart's manga books, read Manga for the Beginner: Chibi. It's way better. Or, better yet, buy a how-to-draw manga book from someone who is a professional manga artist.

I bought a collection of Kids Draw Manga books for my niece for Christmas. She is only nine but is quite the artist already. I grew up on these cartoons as a child so it is something we can relate to together and I was very excited to buy these for her. The books are organized so that it was easy to pick ones that were age appropriate as they range from very childlike cartoons to ones that would appeal to teenagers and even adults (I highly recommend you preview first). She was very estatic to receive them and started on them during her Christmas break. Her first drawing is amazing. I bought her a collection of books so I asked my mother and father to contribute towards the color pencils (pricey but make all the difference and a "must have"). Her first drawing is unbelievable and she has worked through the books enough that she is creating her own characters which she is posting onto her DSi. The books area a great "quiet time" project for children (be careful to buy age appropriate ones) and a great outlet for your creative artist. The books are very reasonably priced books but look for specials from Amazon.com to combine books into a package which is the best deal. Be sure to buy the Manga colored pencils-also available at Amazon.com. Worth every dime!!!

I was completely terrible at drawing, but I wanted to learn how to construct manga characters. This book is good for basics, a few eye shapes, head and body shapes, basic motion. There's even a bit on robots, so mostly what I expected. My only qualm, no mention of hair or clothing technique. Now, I've only had it a day, and I can spit out a generic face. Also, I can draw a much nicer circle.