Webcomics Community
Main Content => Art => Topic started by: WilliamHuntJr on January 12, 2010, 09:33:43 AM
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Got another thread to start not sure if you want to keep it here or not. This thread is for any books or online manuals that have helped you out in your comic work.
Here is my list I recommend when I do portfolio reviews at cons. (some of these you have probably heard of before)
Hi-Fi Color for comics Published by Impact Authors Brian and Kristy Miller
This book has been instrumental in a lot of professionals careers It takes you step by step in coloring comics and comes with a CD to help you practice and has new brushes and scripts you can use on other projects in photoshop.
People and Poses Published by Impact Author Buddy Scalera
This is a photo reference book it also comes with a CD with over a 1k poses you can use for reference
what do you recommend?
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I can't praise "Anatomy for the Artist" enough. Most anatomy books are in the style of the artist who wrote the book, but in this case, the artist/writer, Sarah Simblet, only serves as another study in the book, where she discusses how other artists approach anatomy. The books true strength is the photography, and the medical book style muscle/bone overlays on many pages. You get to see a photo, and then the underlying structure on top of it on a separate transparent sheet.
The book can be bought here:
http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Artist-Sarah-Simblet/dp/078948045X
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You know, we have a wide range of drawing books that I've rarely looked at (I'm a "learn by looking at other people's work" kind of guy), but my wife swears by them. I'll repost with a list of what we have.
One book that I did pick up and enjoy working with was "Drawing Cutting Edge Fusion" by Christopher Hart (who has put out a bunch of other books that I would love to grab). It teaches a style he calls "fusion" (which I've never heard used anywhere else, but that's not to say it doesn't exist) which is a hybrid of Western comic art and anime/manga style. It's not bad, although the later chapters do seem to tip over more into the anime/manga style, which I don't like, but which maybe some of you would.
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Someone's bound to mention them, so it might as well be me:
Understanding Comics (http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-Mccloud/dp/006097625X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263332533&sr=1-1) and Making Comics (http://www.amazon.com/Making-Comics-Storytelling-Secrets-Graphic/dp/0060780940/ref=pd_sim_b_1) by Scott McCloud. The first one rocked my world when I first read it.
Also, I got some good lettering tips from DC Comics Guide to Colouring and Lettering Comics (http://www.amazon.com/DC-Comics-Guide-Coloring-Lettering/dp/0823010309/ref=pd_sim_b_4).
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You have to watch out when buying Harts books, he has a nasty habit of flooding the market with crud.
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You have to watch out when buying Harts books, he has a nasty habit of flooding the market with crud.
I will say that his best work in my opinion is his "Noir Style" book. It's great if you want to see someone place spot blacks correctly and well. I think it's some of his better artwork as well, as I don't like his "fusion" style that came out only because of the popularity of anime.
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I will say that his best work in my opinion is his "Noir Style" book. It's great if you want to see someone place spot blacks correctly and well. I think it's some of his better artwork as well, as I don't like his "fusion" style that came out only because of the popularity of anime.
The noir book is the next one I wanted to get, as I have an idea for a graphic novel I want to do in a noir style.
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The author of The Meek at http://www.meekcomic.com/ (http://www.meekcomic.com/) has some pretty awesome tutorials on her deviantart, http://alexds1.deviantart.com/gallery/#Tutorials (http://alexds1.deviantart.com/gallery/#Tutorials) .
As for books, I'd recommend Ben Caldwell's Action! Cartooning and Fantasy! Cartooning. His style is awesome, kinda reminds me of the art in Disney's Hercules. It's dynamic and full of personality. His site is also worth a visit.
Christopher Hart's Drawing New Retro Style Characters is also a great read.
Edit: I just found out about the book I've seen so many lonely pages of scattered around the internet. It's Preston Blair's Animation guidebook, certainly a must-read.
The first edition's good scans,
part 1:
http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/05/media-preston-blairs-animation-first.html
part 2:
http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/05/media-preston-blairs-animation-1st.html
(I fixed the link)
Downloadable pdf of the renewed version:
http://www.welcometopixelton.com/downloads/Animation%20by%20Preston%20Blair.pdf
(Not very good scan)
I found it very useful.
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Someone's bound to mention them, so it might as well be me:
Understanding Comics (http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-Mccloud/dp/006097625X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263332533&sr=1-1) and Making Comics (http://www.amazon.com/Making-Comics-Storytelling-Secrets-Graphic/dp/0060780940/ref=pd_sim_b_1) by Scott McCloud. The first one rocked my world when I first read it.
These are incredible. The middle book, Reinventing Comics, however, doesn't reach their level. It's a little preachy, actually.
I recommend Bridgeman's Complete Guide To Drawing From Life for art. It's very good. Also, for those who dabble in Animation, Preston Blair's book on animation as well as The Animator's Survival Kit and The Illusion of Life. And for those who make their art with words, The Elements of Style and Stephen King's 'On Writing'.
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Yes, Making Comics is a must-read. It was mentioned, so I didn't wanna say it again :)
I have two dvds full of art books and some movies, I'm gonna get some titles now.
How to Draw Manga the Fred Perry Way: A film showing Fred Perry draw some archetypes. His style is quite american, don't worry about it looking very mainstream, it's cartoony enough. Female Villain, Villain, Hero, Sidekick, Alien, Alien Female. He draws smoothly and logically, very inspirational.
Books:
Figure Drawing Without a Model (Ron Tiner) - A great, modern anatomy book. It knows what artists do nowadays and helps them in that way, unlike so many classical anatomy books (With renessaince musclemen with their bodies covered in lumps called ,,muscles". Those are quite useless nowadays in modern art) Very useful, especially if you are going for more realistic drawings.
The Villpu Drawing Manual - Figure drawing book. Its anatomy is too classical (as said above) but it has tips for designing poses and constructing a figure, so it's worth a look.
Drawing Cutting Edge Comics (Christopher Hart) - Anatomy book, best used for superhero comics. It is really good, it also has tips on how to make your drawings look powerful, inking and business advice, etc.
How to Draw Comics the Marvey Way (Stan Lee) - Personally I don't like this book very much, but it collected so much good advice in one book it is definitely worth reading, no matter the worse parts.
Perspective - A Guide for Artists, Architects and Designers (Gwen White) - Detailed descriptions about the types of perspectives and how to use them. It can get quite complicated, luckily I have two classes per week in the subject. 8)
Manuale del Cartoonist (Robin Hall) - A book about the basics of the comic strip drawings. It teaches you how to draw the kind of drawings you can see in crossword books and in newspapers. I don't suggest learning the way he draws, more like take his advices and draw in your style.
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John K's Cartoon School - http://johnkcurriculum.blogspot.com/
The site is aimed at animation, but I believe everything he says can be applied to comics. Character design, writing, compositions, backgrounds, everything is there.
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A lot of the I'd reccomend are already in there. Anyway.
Perspective for Comic Book Artists (http://www.amazon.com/Perspective-Comic-Book-Artists-Professional/dp/0823005674/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264572564&sr=8-1) by David Chelsea is awesome.
Link-wise:
Panelling, Pacing, and Layout (http://lilrivkah.livejournal.com/168859.html)
22 Panels that always work (http://joeljohnson.com/archives/2006/08/wally_woods_22.html)
Panelling (http://innerspace.notonigon.com/?p=8)
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Some books that really got my creativity and urge to improve rolling...
➤ Ron Tiner's Figure Drawing without a Model (yay, it was mentioned already \o/)
➤ Barbara Bradley's Drawing People: How to Portray the Clothed Figure
➤ Ken Hultgren's The Art of Animal Drawing
➤ Burne Hogarth's Dynamic Anatomy and Dynamic Figure Drawing
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I can't stress how useful John K's blog is.
But this entry makes it worth mentioning again:
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2010/01/acting-tools-1-expressions-basic.html (http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2010/01/acting-tools-1-expressions-basic.html)
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Here are some more suggestions.
Comics & Sequential Art and Graphic Storytelling by Will Eisner are essential reading for comic artists.
The Art of Comic Book Inking by Gary Martin is good too.
How to Color for Comics by GURU-eFX is a good book to begin learning computer coloring.
If you can find any book by Andrew Loomis, get it! They are out of print and kinda rare at this point, but they're great!
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One I haven't seen listed yet is: Drawing Words and Writing Pictures http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Words-Writing-Pictures-Graphic/dp/1596431318/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265320852&sr=8-1 (http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Words-Writing-Pictures-Graphic/dp/1596431318/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265320852&sr=8-1) by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden
This one is written as a textbook. I really enjoyed it.
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Does anyone have any online resources for specific things? I'm particularly interested in my improving my biggest faults - drawing hands, feet, and folds in cloth.
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One of my favorite stock artists posted these packs for hand practice:
http://cobweb-stock.deviantart.com/art/Hands-Classical-Pose-Pack-17104890
http://cobweb-stock.deviantart.com/art/Hands-Grasping-Pose-Pack-17104938
http://cobweb-stock.deviantart.com/art/Hands-Reaching-Pose-Pack-17104993
foot tutorial: http://kitten-chan.deviantart.com/art/Tutorial-Feet-and-Shoes-35374927
I really need to redo this tutorial, but this is a tut on clothing I did: http://raerae.deviantart.com/art/Basic-Clothing-Tutorial-27888236
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Another good foot tutorial: http://alexds1.deviantart.com/art/Foot-tutorial-90158269 (http://alexds1.deviantart.com/art/Foot-tutorial-90158269)
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Wow, thanks a lot. Very helpful advice in those. I find that when I find out a good trick to something it becomes a lot easier for me. Especially raerae's tutorial about stress lines made me consider how cloth works in a way I hadn't yet thought of, with the stress lines. It's a good thing to know.
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Just downloaded the first set of hands.
I'm thinking "William Shatner School Of Acting". Dreadfully tempted to use them for a throw-away comic with characters who... EMOTE... like William... Shatner. SPOCK!!! KHAN!!!!
Thanks for the link. I will practice them to see if I can learn to do better than arms with little squids on them...
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RaeRae: I LOVE the sign sticking in Timmy's head. That really made me laugh.
Very helpful tutorial for those of us with no edumacation in art.
Thanks!
jeffa
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WHAT ARE SOME OF YOU PEOPLE oh my god. I wish I could do
a page in less than a week lmao.
For me I get distracted very easily... =[ [i have massive add, which
i don't take meds for anymore. BECAUSE I AM STUPID 8((((]
I tend to sit down and sketch about 5-8 pages at a time... this can
take me anywhere from 3 hours to the entire day, depending... then
I will work on the first sketch, ink it, flat colour, and start on the bg...
that is generally a day's work. Next day is spent mostly on the bg. And
maybe I will start the shading on the charas after that. Third day I
finish... but there are times where it only takes me 2 days...
other days it will take a whole week.
After I run out of sketches, I do 5-8 more and start again xDD
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Haha, glad you guys found the clothing tutorial helpful.
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http://www.karmatoons.com/drawing/drawing.htm (http://www.karmatoons.com/drawing/drawing.htm) This is a good thing on the basics of figure drawing and suggesting motion.
And here's a good hands tutorial http://www.tomrichmond.com/blog/2008/12/18/drawing-hands/ (http://www.tomrichmond.com/blog/2008/12/18/drawing-hands/)
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The karmatoons one was linked already, but that hand tutorial is really good, thanks.
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Any online resources for photographic reference material for drawing anatomy? I've tried google, but all I get is muscle breakdowns and porn.
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So draw the porn!
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But that makes me uncomfortable considering I do most of my drawing in full view of others. If I'm just drawing models I can still feel moderately classy, I don't find drawing porn face very acceptable at all despite what recent Marvel Comics artists seem to think (I'm looking at you, Greg Land).
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http://www.human-anatomy-for-artist.com/
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I thought that was behind a pay wall?
I guess if I can't avoid that, I'm going to have to.
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Sorry you didn't specify you wanted free. There are a bunch of free samples. :-\
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No need to apologize, I didn't mention it, so it's my fault. I don't NEED free so much as that I prefer it. :P At least there's a couple of samples I can use, so thanks. :)
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DeviantArt has a pretty extensive photo section, including Artistic Nudes if you're looking for nudes.
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Aren't we all Gibson? :P
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Aren't we all Gibson? :P
I LOL'ed
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Not me, I found em!
Yok, I say yok.
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If you set up a mirror near where you do most of your drawing that can be pretty helpful, you just have to be wary of drawing all your characters as clones of yourself.
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Yeah, and also, I can't change my gender. ^_^
So far the free samples and things on deviant art (I completely forgot about that, I browse deviant art in public places a lot so I had an age filter thing on) have been enough, though, so thanks!
If anyone finds something else, I'd still like to hear it though. But that's what this thread is for.
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Yeah, and also, I can't change my gender. ^_^
Not with that attitude you can't
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Here's a thing on musculature that came up on Stumble http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs38/f/2008/327/0/0/How_to_draw_all_sorts_of_crap_by_Coelasquid.jpg
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Since I think that there is some useful stuff in here i decided to post even though its quite an old topic. :P
Something on folds:
http://solfieri.deviantart.com/art/Clothing-Folds-Tutorial-194453484
Heroines:
http://ratcreature.livejournal.com/175099.html
And on composition if you are interested:
http://kuschelirmel.deviantart.com/journal/Know-your-Basics-Composition-the-manip-way-260343771