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Ben Krefta

The Art of Drawing Manga Paperback – October 1, 2003

by Ben Krefta (Author)

43 ratings

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Japanese manga is simply the coolest form of comic book drawing out there. It’s also the basis of anime cartoons. With this comprehensive manual on mastering the art, you can join the fun and create fabulous images and stories. Capture poses, action, and fighting; depict clothing and accessories; give pages a good flow; divide panels up well; use computer enhancement; and more. Not a step is missed!

Print length

144 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Barnes & Noble
Publication date

October 1, 2003
Dimensions

0.5 x 8 x 11.25 inches
ISBN-10

0760748489
ISBN-13

978-0760748480
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Barnes & Noble; First edition. (October 1, 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 144 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0760748489
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0760748480
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 0.5 x 8 x 11.25 inches

Customer Reviews:
43 ratings

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About the author

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Ben Krefta

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Born October 10, 1982 in the UK, he is a freelance manga style illustrator & graphic artist.

Krefta has created several 'how-to' books on the topic of drawing manga, including 'The Art of Drawing Manga' (2003), 'Step by Step Manga' (2004), 'Digital Manga' (2014) and 'The Artist's Guide to Drawing Manga' (2016).

Krefta currently works on a wide variety of art and design projects including: advertising, promotional artwork, web design and specializing in character design using a combination of traditional media and Photoshop. Some examples of these works along with more information on Krefta can be found at his home page 'BenKrefta.com'

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5

43 global ratings

5 star		68%
4 star		10%
3 star		9%
2 star		4%
1 star		10%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Randa

Great book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 25, 2012

Verified Purchase

This book has a pretty good variety of manga to learn how to draw. I would say it's at a very low learning level which is great for beginners. This is one of the first drawing books I purchased for myself a few years back and I gifted a new copy to an aspiring child artist later. I will continue to recommend this book!

One person found this helpful

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224perweek

Need talent.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 26, 2020

Excellent book for those who like to draw. This is not a beginners book though.

Helpful

Jules

Not for a beginner AT ALL.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 20, 2013

I received this book for Christmas several years ago, when I was just getting into the realm of anime and manga. I was ecstatic when I saw it, but that excitement quickly became despair when I opened up to the first tutorial.
Everything is in only four steps, which made it nigh impossible for a total newbie to see what was going on:

Step 1: Basic guidelines; outline of head, eye lines, neck, etc. No real trouble there.
Step 2: Very messy-looking, looks like a pretty-well-finished sketch. Harder to follow.
Step 3: Suddenly, ink. No pencil remaining. All details are well-established and the pen lines look incredible. Basically, this went from utter mess to total "perfection" (as I put it back then) with only two steps. No help was given on what to ink, how to do it, or what to erase.
Step 4: Colour. No explanation of how to do it (except possibly in the back of the book, and even then it wasn't a good explanation), just suddenly colour.

Not only were the head tutorials like this, but the entirety of the full-body drawings were, too! The amount of detail on the drawings was excruciating, I can't even explain it.

One person found this helpful

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D. Ridgeway

There are better books than this

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 19, 2009

Whilst this is not the best Manga drawing book I've bought, it's certainly doesn't deserve the scathing report by Rebecca Lynn. So he used someone else's art for the cover, I would assume he got permission to do so, and maybe she should rethink her statement about Manga and Anime. Manga is comic books, Anime is basically animated Manga.IMO Ben Krefta has tried to fit too much into 142 pages. There are much better books on the market to teach you to draw Manga. Hikaru Hayashi has some pretty good books in his How To Draw Manga series, and I like How to Draw Manga - Ben Dunn.Like some other reviewers, I thought the the pages on hands, eye's noses etc, were quite good, but the other subjects were too shallow. The article on colour and photoshop, for instance, doesn't even scratch the surface and was quite frankly a waste of paper. Colour is a very indepth subject, that requires a lot of study to get right, and Photoshop, takes a lifetime to learn. I bought the book for idea's,I liked some of the figures, and to that end, it suits me fine, and is welcome on my bookshelf. Oh and I forgot to mention, "all the art is copied", or words to that effect, by Ms Lynn. Ben pays tribute to two artists who contributed to his book, so all copies, I think not!

2 people found this helpful

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BCLV

A great book for beginners and intermediate artists!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 30, 2003

I've been drawing for almost 40 years and my style has changed over the years, but I had always leaned toward a Jack Kirby style of drawing. I am currently working on illustrating my first comic book; but I wanted to develop a faster method of drawing, so I started looking closely at Manga. I have read many drawing books, but "The Art of Drawing Manga" is one that I really like. One of my biggest trouble points was hands. This book showed me how do draw hands easily and quickly without having to burn eraser holes in my drawing pad trying to get them right. Now, I can draw hands that look great and with a lot more confidence thanks to this book!
My cousin's daughter who just started drawing for the first time in her life 2 years ago, now has become a fantastic artist thanks to this book! Her stuff looks just as good as any I've seen in any comic book!
The thing that I like about this book is that it instructs you on how to draw like a pro by illustrating the basics without all of the boring, detailed blah-blah about anatomy (although it is important to understand it). Although I understand the basics pretty well, it's always good to bone up on them from time to time. I think that this book has helped me to sharpen up my style a great deal. There are a lot of pros in the comic book business today who could probably use a little refresher course.
The book is divided into sections on differents points of drawing, inking and coloring. The illustration in this book is stunning!
I would highly recommend this book to any beginner seriously thinking of becoming an illustrator. I would also recommend this book to intermediate and even professional artists interested in improving their skills.

15 people found this helpful

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Rebecca Lynn

Why do copiers make money?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 6, 2004

This book is terrible. Not just for the art, but for the fact that all of the artwork--including the cover--is copied. The main cover image is from a pinup poster from the Anime series, Noir. The only thing the artist changed were the colors and the hand, which was holding a gun in the original poster.

I don't see why anybody should support artists who rip off other people's hard work and dedication. When I saw this book on the shelves at the bookstore, I immediately recognized the design having seen the poster a week previously and pulling it back out to double check when I got home.

And why is this called "The Art of Drawing Manga," when this is drawn from Anime, and the 'teaching' in the book is all "How to Draw Anime," not manga? If the artists doesn't even know what 'manga' really is (how to draw sequential art, panel layout, build story, toning, speed line techniques, etc) then this book is far from informative. Take a life drawing class at a local community college. It's cheaper and more worth your time.

29 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Excellent for beginning and intermediate manga artists

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 12, 2004

Out of the four "how to" manga books I bought this one was by far the best. The only reason I didn't give it five stars was because some of the examples and guidelines still look a little americanized.
Even so, after twenty minutes I had great sketches with my first try. I highly recommend this for anyone trying to get started!

3 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

E. D. R. Jones BSc (Hons)

The Art of Drawing Manga Review

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 12, 2009

Verified Purchase

This book defiantly set me back a bit as wasn't expecting too much from it at first when I bought it. As I bought several different books and this one wasn't the one that I thought I would learn from the most in the sense of How To Draw. (Well what Can I say I was wrong lol) I rate the book 5 Star.

To begin with and as one might expect the book starts with how to do the basic's then goes into how to do more complex tasks such as drawing body's faces and things such as equipment and other more complex tests. Quite easy to pick up the style of drawing from this book defiantly good book for beginners and I definitely recommend this book for any manga or anime drawer advanced or beginner level. 5 Star all the way.

11 people found this helpful

D

The book is good, but the style is not for me.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 13, 2012

Verified Purchase

Allow me to give a bit of background about myself (feel free to skip the first paragraph). Art, and in particular drawing, has been a hobby of mine all my life, and I have been watching anime ever since Pokémon first made its debut on our TV screens when I was a kid. Recently I've been getting into anime (and manga) much more and have dabbled in drawing some of my own and with the help of youtube (big shout out to Mark Crilley and his fantastic channel!). I decided to look for a book which could give me additional insights into the style of art and how to better approach it, so I ordered this book and here we are.

The book arrived earlier today, and I've spent a fair amount of time looking through it all. Clearly a lot of effort has gone into it, and it feels very well put together. There are a lot of really useful tips in here, and the conversational style of the author is very easy to get along with.

Unfortunately, however, the style of drawing in this book is not what I would call 'typical' of the Manga I am used to, and indeed, was expecting when I ordered this book. Ben Krefta has his own unique way of drawing manga, and where I feel I was let down was the front cover. I 'judged the book by its cover' before deciding to make the purchase, and feel as though the style of manga depicted inside the book is actually pretty different from the girl on the front cover, who is more 'typical' looking (in a manga sense).

I would say that his manga fits into the 'pseudo-manga' category he himself talks about in the introduction. It looks very western influenced. I especially think that the noses, jaws and chins (especially from a profile or slightly turned away view) are particularly different to what I would call 'the norm' of manga.

I hope this has informed your decision, and I am aware I dwelled on the negatives rather a lot, but really do be aware that he does give some really useful advice and tips in the book too. If you see a seller which is offering it for a cheap price I'd say it's worth the purchase just for last sections which give tips and advice on photoshop, colours etc.

5 people found this helpful

Mr. I. Ahmed

Great For Beginners

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 22, 2011

Verified Purchase

For me, this is the first manga book i'v bought, being led by other reviews. And i cant say how great this books is. it gives easy step-by-step pictures and explanations to guide you through your work and gives you an idea on how to create your own work. this book tells you how to create effective character movement as well as showing how to emphasise emotions and body language and shows you how to create actions like juming, running, falling etc.truthfully, i cant love this book enough. ooh and great delivery too. i ordered with free super saver delivery, estimated for the next week. do you how long it took to come? ONE DAY. i ordered yesterday and it came today, although it was estimated for the 29th december. Amazon, i love you

One person found this helpful

Princess Mononoke

Perfect for beginners

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 19, 2011

Verified Purchase

Bought this for my 12 year old who is interested in Manga, it's an ideal beginners book as it takes you through each section in clear, easy to follow steps. It covers everything from faces to figures to clothes, how to position the figures and clothes to suggest action and movement and has a section on photoshop. The best of this type of book by far and at an extremely affordable price.

5 people found this helpful

Sandra

Brought this for my daughter as she loves drawing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 25, 2022

Verified Purchase

I not had a chance to look at it properly but my daughter loves it so all good

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