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Fun Stuff => MAKE => Topic started by: LiterSize on 10 Jun 2005, 09:21

Title: Resources?
Post by: LiterSize on 10 Jun 2005, 09:21
Hey gang,

I was at a convention and attended a panel by Fred Gallagher of Megatokyo.  I learned that he is a self-taught artist, all he did was a lot of reading so he's familiar with the theories, but no official art class per se.  Anyone else in that boat?  What kind of books did you read for reference and such?  "How to draw Manga" and all that stuff?
Title: Resources?
Post by: Sideways on 10 Jun 2005, 09:42
I'm not in that boat.  My parents had me in night-classes for art at the age of 5 (because I'd drawn some very typical 5 year-old crap, and they thought I was a savant or something).

I took art all through school, while taking night-classes for fun, all the way up until I was about 14 (at which time the night classes weren't teaching me anything new, and were just a waste of money).  I continued with Art Honors classes all through High School, and took 3D animation & design classes in College.

Resources; 'Bridgman's Guide to Drawing from Life'... it's easily the best resource for an artist interested in drawing the human form.

I never bothered with manga-styled artwork, because I figured it was going to become far too popular one day, and would - probably - become very limited.  I think I was right, in a lot of ways, looking through the webcomic, webart communities now.

However, I took an almost 5 year hiatus from drawing (didn't have the desire, or drive to do it), which only ended this January.  It's not something that you just hop back up onto... I've been drawing almost constantly for the past 6 months, and I'm NOWHERE near as good as I was when I was 16, 17, etc.
Title: Resources?
Post by: twentyfour on 10 Jun 2005, 10:54
Howto draw the Marvel way is great old classic that teaches alot of the basics. I didn't find it until my second year taking animation but it's still a great refresher every now and then.

http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671530771/qid=1118425358/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/701-8533425-2139534

Burne Hogarth's Dynamic Anatomy for the artist is great reference. Lots of people give it flack for being a little too... exaggerated. As long as you take what you see as an exaggerated version of what their is then it's a fantastic book.

http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0823015521/qid=1118425415/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1_1/701-8533425-2139534

Glenn Vilppu's....well he's just damn good. And best of all the lessons are free!

http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=Columns&column=vilppu

Ummm... I think I'm out right now. But Sideways' suggestion of George Bridgeman was a great one! Gotta love how that man draws hands, eh?

Just an opinion here, but I feel it's best to learn how to draw then learn a style from there. Books like "how to draw Manga" are usually crap... actually 90% of the books Christopher Hart is linked to are crap(I'm just assuming he's tied to a couple since he dabbles in pretty much every genre of art instruction books).

rant rant rant
Title: Resources?
Post by: reva on 10 Jun 2005, 21:55
I think Scott McCloud is too obvious to even bother mentioning, so I won't (though, i suppose, i just did).

Anyhow, although it took years of art teachers telling me this to finally get me at it, draw from life. life life life.  especially for human figures.  just watch people and their mannerisms.  and draw them. rough sketches are fine.  i've never had a finished-looking piece from drawing a figure from life.

eventually, you get a lot of basic positions and proportions in your head that you're able to draw without these, or you can draw finished pieces from sketches.

oh, and drawing random people who don't know they're being drawn (or, as my figure drawing professor called it, "commando sketching") is damn fun.
Title: Resources?
Post by: Primate on 11 Jun 2005, 12:37
I'm going to assume that Scott McCloud isn't obvious and throw out some of the 'mechanics of comic storytelling' books to go with the 'drawing reference' materials.

Understanding Comics - Scott McCloud

In one book, Scott manages to cover a ton of story tricks for the medium and makes it mildly entertaining.

Comics & Sequential Art - Will Eisner
Graphic Storytelling - Will Eisner

The first predates Scott's book, but both make points that Scott doesn't.

Those three are available just about everywhere, or at least easily ordered.

After that, you have to do some hunting and searching to find resources you'll find useful. I don't recommend "Drawing Comics the Marvel Way" because it's far too shallow to be useful as anything other than a starting point. It doesn't cover anything in depth, and a bit of depth is needed to be more than a raw, amateur hack. The DC books are a bit better in exploring the specialized areas of writing or penciling or inking but are not perfect. However, the DC book for coloring and lettering is pretty good, if only because there are so few reference books out there for those areas. Antartic Press has also put out a few comic books called "How to Color for Comics" that shows some interesting techniques for coloring on the computer. For script writing, I liked "The Writer's Guide to the Business of Comics" by Lurene Haines, published by Watson Guptill, in part because of its solid explanation for full scripting and Marvel scripting. There are also a couple of books that collect full scripts from various writers, but I've forgotten what they're called.

And remember, formal training is merely practice structured by others. Have fun.