Customer Reviews

Perspective! for Comic Book Artists: How to Achieve a Professional Look in your Artwork

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you are a serious artist then you will probably have to study a few perspective books before you learn all you need to know about the subject. This book deserves to be in that collection. It covers the nuts and bolts of the correct methods for drawing in one, two and three point perspective and offers hints for shortcuts that you can use to build drawings with a perspective look, even if they are not technically accurate, when you have to work with a deadline.

What I like about the book is that it provides thorough context for understanding not just the how, but the reasons behind the perspective techniques. If you know the rules you can do it, but if you understand the context in depth you can make informed decisions about when to follow the painstaking rules and when to use the shortcuts.

The book is also written in a very approachable visual medium. Basically it is a comic book following in the tradition of Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics".

The book also includes some facinating bits of trivia about 3 point perspective, when it was developed and why, and the lengths that some artists, like M. C. Escher, had to go to in order to properly employ it.

The book has two shortcomings. The first is a consequence of its comic format, there are a large number of pages which present more character development than is strictly necessary to get the information across. By contrast, most perspective books are very condensed, explaining as much as can be explained with illustrations and diagrams. This not only goes into detailed discussion of perspective, its uses and theory, but does so within the voice baloons of two characters.

The second shortcoming is one that I can't think of any other perspective book that treats, that is, it leaves out curvileniar or 5 point perspective, though apparently the author is aware of this kind of perspective, he tantalizes us by using it in a couple of illustrations in the book.

A tome about comic perspective in comics form, this book helped me discover new principles in perspective and the REASON for these principle. Not just for your scenery, human bodies in perspective are also covered... but you had better know anatomy before hand. The reason for the missing star is because Chelsea uses two forms of curvilinear perspective, but suspiciously absent is the chapter ON curvilinear. Even with this oversight, Chelsea has written an engaging and fairly complete perspective guide. Look closely at the icecubes on page 131 and try to find the hidden pictures!

I found this book extremely helpful, in more ways the one. Instead of your usual text with diagram format, it has a refreshing comic book format. This means that examples are almost always right there, WITH the text that discusses it - so you can absorb what's being talked about with out having the "break concentration" and look for the relevant connection between explanation and example. Also, rather than discuss only the "terminology" and the like, I found the explanations were geared so that anyone who can read could understand them - without a dictionary being close to hand! I'd highly recommend picking up this book - to the beginners and pros alike! The gains from it's knowledge are definately worth the price.

Nothing more need be said about this book other than that one of the great Disney layout men, Kendall O'Connor, loved it when it was given to him as a Christmas present. High praise for a fine book.

It's the best guide to perspective for cartoonists, who are often not known for following 'normal' perspective. Celsi knows his business but also knows how to entertain. This is a must have for any comic artist or animator.

David Chelsea has produced an informative and entertaining resource in this book. He's cleverly managed to sum up perspective lessons from numerous sources into one compendium for comic book artists, fans of the genre interested in learning how it's done, or even the casual artist.

After the opening chapters dealing with depth cues, the picture plane, the horizon and vanishing point, and the use of cubes in illustration, he divides the book up into several tutorials covering one-point perspective, two-point perspective, three-point perspective, the use of circles and ellipses in perspective and the human figure in perspective.

You can easily sit down with a sketch pad (I would also recommend some graph paper) and go through his lessons one by one to get a more hands-on approach (I intend to do this soon!). The three-point perspective lesson is very complex but worth the effort, especially for the burgeoning comic book artist. Three-point perspective, as Chelsea points out, allows the artist to render some pretty dynamic scenes.

When I first saw that the majority of the book was written in comic book form, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. However, once I got into it, I found it to be very entertaining. I was learning the process of perspective illustration while enjoying the medium I love: sequential art!

I highly recommend Chelsea's book. Even if you never sit down and attempt to use his methods, it will help you get your head around the whole topic. He also provides several short cuts for those who want to achieve those dynamic perspective effects without doing all the tedious legwork.

This book is probably the best perspective book i have ever read. I dont see how anyone can give it a bad review or call it useless. Author not only explains how to draw the perspective in the simplest way but also explains a bunch of different techniques that might work for you. The book is written as a large comic strip wich makes it very enterntaining and at times alsmot like you are watching a movie. Explanations are very straight forward and not hard to undestand with a little bit of thinking. It is quite amaizing what kind of depths about perspective this book goes into. If you draw, you got to have it. I also hope it will be printed in hardcover someday

If you are just learning to draw, learn some of the basics first. I suggest Doug Dubosques' Drawing 3-d and Ernest Norlings' Perspective Drawing. Then buy Mr. Chelseas' book. The book features 11 chapters, everything from diminution to 3-point perspective, ellipses; even short cuts and sampling of perspective grids. I hope you find this book as helpful to you as it is to me.

I bought this book since I was interested in creating my own comic book for my amusement.

I found the format quite engaging and entertaining, pretty much like Scott McClouds Understanding Comics (whom the author's format is inspired by). The explanations are pretty straightforward and user-friendly, especially for the general introduction and one point perspective.

Personally, I wish that it had more examples for implementing three point perspective (which is heavily used in the more dramatic/dynamic shots and scenes).

Overall, it's a pretty good book, although I'm now purchasing other perspective manuals to clarify some of the more difficult aspects of this.

Thorough explanation of perspective but at times it becomes "too thorough". Some things become too technical for the general reader.

At the same time, there's no section that deals with the really complex aspect of perspective - such as multiple perspectives in a single plane (for example, how do you draw a tilted boat on a beach?). Also, it doesn't deal much with putting people in perspective. Ok, so he does mention that you can use the horizon line but what if you're dealing with a single picture that has a person coming down a stairs, and another looking out a window, and another walking down the street? He doesn't explain how to draw them so that they look right. At least, he should have included how to tackle this issue.

For a book this thick, it's certainly lacking. This would be my only disappointment.

The only book I've seen that is much more helpful than David Chelsea's is the one written by Andrew Loomis (Successful Drawing, and Creative Drawing). But don't get me wrong. This isn't a bad book. It's quite useful but not that useful.

David Chelsea recognized a great book that was easy to learn from when he read "Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud". His talents and knowledge as an artist are demonstrated with the formost understanding of illustrating in perspective with this great technique. I'm a better artist because of this book. He demonstrates his technique step by step to make accurate illustrated perspective and gives you what you need to know to break the rules and get away with it.