The Monster Book of Manga: Draw Like the Experts [Paperback]

Fernando Casaus (Author), Estudio Joso (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 3, 2006

The popularity of manga continues to row, inspiring interest in learning how to draw in this exciting style of comics. Estudio Joso creates the ultimate guide to illustration—384 pages of manga instruction. The Monster Book of Manga is divided into sections focusing on the most figures and themes—Girls, Boys, Samurais, Monsters, and more. Each illustration is broken down into six stages accompanied by step-by-step instructions, taking the artist from initial back-and-white sketches to the final color piece. They are all accompanied by practical suggestions, hints, and tips.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Studio Joso is a leading anime school and studio specializing in comic and manga illustration.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers (January 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060829931
• ISBN-13: 978-0060829933
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 8.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #74,574 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #68 in Books > Arts & Photography > Drawing > Cartooning

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

86 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Straight in-your-face Pros and Cons, August 11, 2006

By 

MSD - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Monster Book of Manga: Draw Like the Experts (Paperback)

This is a wonderful book period. But wonderful for whom?
I am not a beginner in manga art but I am far from advanced. I found this book to be helpful AFTER I read other How to Draw Manga Books.
This is not a book for a beginner. The following are some pros and cons I have with this book.

First the Pros

PROS

1. The book is 377 pages long.
2. The artwork is incredible!
3.The Variety of characters examples it contains.The index is as follows, each is met with a brief explanation of what is in each chapter.

Introduction: Just as it says.

Girls: The girls shown are: The Shy School Girl, Sporty, Static Movement,Cat Girl, Fighter,Gothic Lolita(my favorite), Cybergirl, Pinup girl, and friends.

Fantasy: Male Elf, Female Elf, Knight, Explorer, Orc, Dwarf, Amazons, Goblin, Devil

Monsters: Succubus Dragon, Ghost, Worm, Werewolf,Mummmy, Monster from the Deep, and the every popular Vampire

Science Fiction: Demon ,Bionic Girl, Cyberpet, Android, Combat Mecha, Octopus, star pilot, princess nebula, and reflections.

Music: Is my fave section in the book. It covers characters in all the different styles of music from Hip-hop to traditional to children's music.

The samurai section is amazing as well. It has witches, geisha, princesses, ninja, ronin, wanderer, samurai, and Sakura(is a samurai that can fuse their body and spirit with their surroundings.

The final chapter is Drawing Digitally. This covers so much that I really can't type out the chapter titles.

4. For each character there is a page each of the following:
A summary of the character, shape, anatomy, clothes, ink and lighting, and color.



Now for the cons of this book.

CONS:

1. There aren't enough detailed descriptions on how to draw them although there are diagrams that you can look at.

2. No angels, faries or anything like that in the fantasy section or anywhere in the book. That is a downfall to me.

3. There is not a section particularly for boys. Just girls.

4. The digital tutorial is only for adobe photoshop.



All in all I say if you like manga then pick this book up. I think you will enjoy it very much.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More like a giant portfolio, January 18, 2007

By 

Charsya Paul "Manga publisher/manga writer/ar... (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Monster Book of Manga: Draw Like the Experts (Paperback)

I got my One chan,(Japanese for big sister), who is my best friend, to by this book for me for my B-Day. This book is huge!!!Now, I wouldn't really say that it shows you the steps to drawing your manga like the experts, but it does give you the basic steps to drawing the character shown for that example. Which is cool, if you already know how to draw! This book is filled with different characters and it shows you how to draw that specific charcter by using shapes to help you give the charcter correct balance and proportion. Another thing I found interesting to me was that they had a little section towards the back of the book for coloring tutorials. It gives you examples on using photoshop and another type of software that I can't think of right now. (gomen!) Anyway,I gave it 5 stars because I already know how to draw, and I found the tutorial pretty interesting. On the other hand, I would give it 3 stars for those who are beginners. This book wont be very useful to those who are trying to learn how to draw at this level that's in this book. All in all, I do recommend this book for intermediate and beyond artists', but I do not recommend it for beginners. You would be sorely disappointed since the title does say draw like the experts, and it really doesn't teach you how to draw so you can draw like the experts; unlike the 60 how to draw series that I own. So if you are a beginner, don't buy this book! It wouldn't be very instrumental to you at this point. I do recommend these following books:

How to draw manga ultimate techniques Vols 1-6
More how to draw manga vols 1-4
How to draw manga getting started (my very first book that I purchased!)
and how to draw manga vol 3 compiling application and practice.

42 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but Not Very Informative, April 6, 2006

By 

Antonio D. Paolucci "Collector of Entertainment" (Beaver Falls, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Monster Book of Manga: Draw Like the Experts (Paperback)

I'll start by saying that this book is huge. At nearly four hundred pages and more than fifty models, there is quite a bit to digest. To go along with that, there is also a section on digital manga production and all the required tools needed to produce manga on the computer. Another good thing about this book is that the models actually look as if they were taken out of manga and not some Americanized version of manga (I bought three how to dram manga books over the years and everyone disappointed me for this reason). And to add, the book itself is just beautifully made, with glossy pages and colorful artwork.

But it's not exactly a "how to draw" book but more of a "draw this" book. It presents a model, shows the steps in creating that model, and then moves on to the next. It never goes into the detailed anatomy of a manga character, it doesn't give variations on the models, and the steps aren't as detailed as I'd like (six for each model). Though you can learn some from this book, it won't be much since you're very limited to what you can draw. It left me disappointed in the end. I want to learn a craft on my own, yet it seems this isn't the book to start me in that direction.

As for recommendations, this book still isn't bad enough to be ignored. If you just enjoy manga art and want to learn the absolute basics, then this would be a good book for you. It has some interesting, stylized techniques that would be good to learn. If you know the basics, however, then I'd recommend skipping this and moving on to the superior, Japanese produced "How to Draw Manga" line of books.