Manga For Dummies,   ISBN:9780470080252

Customer Rating: 

Like most "Dummies" books, you get not only the "how to" but also the "why" and "when" (history). While this book is heavy on the history, it offers tips on drawing, too. It's not the best book for learning how to draw the characters, but for those who want to learn more about the art form known as "Manga," it's a valuable tool. Well-written.

Customer Rating: 

the book is tempting, but offers little in the way of actual drawing physics that explain why a design works, and therefore NOT a dummies guide to drawing manga.

if i may be biased for a second... the drawings in the book are your typical oddly proportioned American manga, and therefore inaccurate. if this does not bother you, then that's good. but in sheer honesty, i would rather spend my money on a book that has the correct traditional anime/manga proportioning because it just looks far more aesthetically pleasing and would inspire me to draw... not to mention accurate.

if your a Mecha junkie like me, you will NOT find your holy grail here. the book vaguely goes over MINOR and BASIC mecha theory, but NOT deep enough to actually make any difference WHAT-SO-EVER to your robot drawing skill. i do not know where you can find a decent book for this... i my self have spent the last 3 years studying mecha theory by trying to find patterns in the robots from famous mecha creators. studying the shape relations in Mamoru Nagano's Five Star Stories is both mind boggling, but if you survive you will learn the tricks of the trade that many of us die for... and what people like him get paid for.

while there is a mountain of "how to draw manga" books, i have seen few that really grasp the concepts. "How to Draw Manga" by Hikaru Hayashi seems to have MUCH more substance to his teachings, and the drawings are authentic anime; not this sloppy newbie-american stuff; (yes i'm caucasian, but i know my anime.)

the truth is with mecha theory is that it's immensely extensive. it would easily be a book on it's own. so if you buy a slim mecha design book, or a book that doesn't have a decent sized chapter, then your not going to learn the fundamentals. i would love to explain them all but doing so would create MANY "review" pages.

i will give you this hint for drawing: all angles, edges, lines and shapes are repeated through out a mecha. similar shapes that are close by become nearly un-notice able. curves a beautiful and difficult to see, while triangles/points/corners will catch the eye; and you must control those to prevent the eye from darting everywhere. the area of focus is at the head, chest, waist, and shoulders, therefore the design must be catchy. the top of the head, relates to the length of the foot. evry shape has 3 properties: solid, negative, and detailed. the detailed shape acts as a negative shape and helps divert the eye... or catch it. negative space must reflect the leading theme shape. theme is what makes a design sell. and always separate similar shapes with un-similar shapes to create a triangle. lastly... all of these properties apply to color, and be concious of the "stereotypes" for color, because they will help you mecha. remember color represents weight, mood, skill level, ethnicity (occasionally), and general visibility. parallel lines also create control, you will find this property EVERYWHERE (especially for gundam), it's in tree limbs, in anime faces, in cars... everywhere... it is a governing principle for design control. look for where lines end, because they lead to the next important area to study. shapes may be different, but similar thickness will greatly help. and figure = function can ruin your elaborate design, so don't get too hung up in it.

for mecha: Hajime Katoki, Mamoru Nagano, Kazumi Fujita, Izubuchi, Kunio Okawara are the pros (not so much for Izubuchi. he's a worth mention because of his Char Counter Attack mecha.) study them WELL. if you think you see a pattern, study it HARDER. lastly, to solve proportion problems, flip the image over. use "Borden and Riley" semi-transparent paper (it's GODLY). and NEVER be afraid to trace your fav design, and if you need to rip off a design just to get it out of your head... DO IT.

well.. i think i've uncovered enough drawing-physics secrets. it's up to you to experiment with them

Customer Rating: 

Bought this as a christmas gift it arrived in great shape and in record time

Customer Rating: 

What we have here is a disorganized, schizophrenic text which alternates between irrelevant hyper-detail and total disregard for the student as the author neglects to provide key instruction on fundamentals. I am amazed at the positive reviews for such a shallow, monkey-see, monkey-do book. Let me give some examples.

Mr. Okobayashi begins with teaching the drawing of the head. All is going well, even if he just kind of tells you what to do without providing much underlying rationale other than how it relates to the overall manga style. Close attention to his drawings will show, however, that he is failing to mention some key issues in regard to the contour of the line, the methods of shading, etc -- but not that big of a deal so far.

Now, he makes it quite clear that it is a good idea to master "simple" characters before going on to attempt more realistic portrayals. Then why in the world does he then devote one of the very first lessons on how to sketch out a hyper-realistic ear? He even suggests taking a picture of your own and studying all of the folds and creases. What? We have not even begun to learn the first elements of assembling a character yet. It's like a lesson from an advanced figure drawing textbook inserted right in the middle of learning how to draw cute manga girls.

It gets worse. After barely learning to sketch out the different parts of the face, exclusively from the front and side views, on page 78 all of a sudden the book leaps ahead and tells the student to draw 3/4 perspective heads and portray advanced expressions! Come again? We barely even know how to draw a 3/4 head much less place its constituent parts within it -- not to mention the fact that we can't even draw these individual parts (eyes, mouth, ears) in this perspective. In fact, there has been nary a mention of perspective technique thus far. He does not even indicate so much as where to place an "eyeline" within the sphere of the head-shape. It's a stunning lapse of instruction and utterly incompetent.

Page 89: He has just started a chapter on how to approach the concepts of figure drawing when the first "visual exercise" is to draw an entire character design sheet. This is before the first chapter lesson has been started. Did "Manga for Dummies" have an editor? Having ignored face drawing after Chapter 4, the subject then pops up again nearly 200 pages later in Chapter 12. So after endless examples of drawing all of the accessories and minutiae for different archetypical characters, we get back to basic eye structure. Brilliant.

Like so much of our culture and media these days, Okabayashi's tone is casual, familiar, and unassuming -- but when it comes to what's actually under the hood the substance is seriously lacking. While there is some good insight into manga style and methods (he certainly can draw well), it does not result in a successful lesson when there is no follow-through.

Compare this book to a classic text like Bert Dodson's "Keys to Drawing" and the shortcomings are abundantly clear. While it is true that Dodson is teaching a more intuitive, freeform, and expressive kind of technique, his methodology is to get you to think for yourself and he provides you with everything necessary to succeed. Okabayashi, like the worst instructors, seems unable not only to approach drawing with anything close to an artistic sensibility, but on a strictly technical level his book is a haphazard, frustrating experience.

To Wiley: I see you have been a respected publisher since 1807. If you would like some editorial assistance, please feel free to contact me.

Customer Rating: 

I am a 29 year old that used to love to draw, and have wanted to get back into it, but needed a place to start, and some help along the way. I found this book, and it's one of the best books that I could find about drawing, and probably the best Manga drawing guide out there. It covers everything that you could ever imagine about the genre of manga art. It's detailed history on Manga, it's artists, and the step by step instructions are like nothing I have ran into. I plan on using it just for the fun of drawing again, and putting together my own graphic novel. If you're looking to improve your skills, want to know how to market yourself, or just want to brush up on your art skills while learning Manga at the same time, I highly reccommend this book.