Product Description

This is a guide to explaining manga creation and illustration styles to novices interested in trying their own hands at manga and comic books. The book's writing style and illustrations are all extremely straightforward. A comprehensive volume, this guide covers all of the key elements from the basic concepts in creating manga to techniques in character development, panel divisions, and developing manga with backgrounds. Contains 50 more pages than previous volumes!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4772802 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-02
• Binding: Paperback
• 190 pages

Customer Reviews

An excellent reference book for the beginner and beyond
I figure that there are three books in the 'How To Draw Manga' (HTDM) series that can really help someone starting out: HTDM Volume 10 (Getting Started), More HTDM Volume 1 (The Basics of Character Drawing), and this volume. While the first two books mentioned focus on teaching the reader how to draw and ink characters, Super Basics crams a much broader range of topics into a larger book.

Super Basics is broken up into six chapters, each dealing with a different aspect of manga drawing. Chaper One has twenty pages focussing on materials: pens and nibs, stencils and tools, and the drawing process. Chapter Two looks at how a manga of various lengths might be structured, incorporating the plot, it's development and resolution. Chapter Three offers a brief (twenty-five page) look at drawing the human figure and animals. Chapter Four is manga techniques: hatching, speed lines, dots and effects. Chapter Five covers outdoor environments such as gardens, trees, weather, props and perspective. Finally Chapter six is a brief discussion on correctly composing manga panels and pages.

I found that the ninety pages that comprise chapters four and five were well worth the price of the book. There is such a breadth of information covered, particularly in hatching, gardens, weather and props such as vehicles and everyday items. Be mindful that this book is more for reference than for teaching; some level of ability - even if it's only a basic level - is assumed.

HTDM: Super Basics will be an invaluable reference book for the beginner, and will likely remain so for quite sometime.