Mr. Vince
MIC AGENT
Friendly Giant
Posts: 249
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Post by Mr. Vince on Mar 23, 2005 19:31:41 GMT -7
I thought I'd start a thread on books any aspiring artist could use to hone their craft.
Now, I've always had a grudge against Christopher Hart books. I bought one when I was sixteen, I didn't know any better, and yeah it probably set me back artistically. I mean, the book had little or no real teaching value, and many of the techniques were rarely taken through step by step. Now, in the last few years, there seem to have been a multitude of Chris Hart books released, I just thought it'd be cool to hear about some other, possibly better books to learn from. If you do know a decent Chris Hart book, then please let us all know.
But other than that, here's some books I would recommend:
Action Cartooning by Ben Caldwell - a good simple book on many basic and moderate cartooning techniques. At $16 its about half of what'd you'd pay for many of the other books on the shelf.
Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams - a good book for anyone interested in any aspect of animation and for all you non-animators, it has some really good points on motion and consistency.
The Art of Storyboard by Don Bluth - This book really delves into the art of composition and animated storytelling. Again, many principles can be translated over to comics.
There's probably alot more but I can't think of them right now. I'd also like to mention that anatomy is very vital to any aspiring artist. Whether its cartoony or realistic, I'd reccomend life drawing classes in addition to any number of anatomy books for artists.
So lets hear what you guys are reading.
-Vince-
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Post by Andrew on Mar 24, 2005 8:20:55 GMT -7
When I first started working (well, trying to work) with Platinum, editor Lee Nordling told me Robert McKee's STORY and David Mamet's ON DIRECTING FILM would change my life.
I hate it when he's right.
Both books are oriented towards filmmaking, but STORY is just a good all-around look at storytelling principles, and ODF (inadvertantly) has as much to do with comic storytelling as it does filmmaking.
I don't know if STORY would be of much use to those who are focused on art, but ODF certainly has applications for an artist, esp. if they're working from a plot, rather than a script.
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Post by attoboy on Mar 24, 2005 15:47:38 GMT -7
I have a serious collection of drawing instruction books. Our library includes all the classics: Bridgman, Mendelowitz, Kimon Nicolaides, Betty Edwards, Burne Hogarth. Went through lots of source material: Muybridge, Leibovitz, Skrebneski, and pretty much every anatomy book Mona Lisa carried. Even covered all the comics bases from Eisner, McCloud and all the recent (and quite decent) DC offerings. All told, I think we have several hundred books here. They are all pretty good and I've spent years reading them.
Conclusion:
Don't depend on books too much. They are okay as point resources, but you will learn faster, better and with greater retention simply by drawing lots and sharing with fellow creators. Learning how to draw from a book is like learning how to swim from a book. Nothing matters until you get into the water, and after that the book is irrelevant.
Don't get me wrong. Books aren't bad. But after teaching college drawing for a couple of years, I saw too many students struggling to reproduce a printed exercise or a sample rather than creating on their own and benefiting from that experience as intended.
So the next book you buy should probably be a sketchbook!
Cheers!
-Derek
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FC
MIC AGENT
life is a journey, not a destination.
Posts: 77
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Post by FC on Mar 24, 2005 21:52:55 GMT -7
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Post by Temperance on Mar 27, 2005 0:17:15 GMT -7
Will Eisner and Scott McCloud still maintain themselves with BEST books on comic books. Not art per se, but function and flow and storytelling. Even if you're the best artist in the world, if you can't tell a proper story, you're useless in the comic biz.
Other then that, I have some favorites, but it really depends on the story I am working on. "Posefile Reference" books from Antarctic press are freakin expensive, but I love them to pieces. Having poses from several angles is a god-send at times.
If you need good info books on military history (from any period or in any capacity) I recommend Osprey books. Phoenix comics on 16th ave, and Sentry Box on 18th street and 10th ave in Calgary have a good selection of them. I'm currently working on a sailing book and I found the best reference book on Pirates! Woo Pirates!
When I need good gun reference, I have two favorite books: "20th Century Guns" (a great book with pictures, origins and a brief history of each gun, all placed in the categories: handguns, rifles, submachine, and artilery) and "How to Draw Manga: Weapons and Military vol 1" (This gives a bit more info on things like holsters and bullets and the types of guns used around the world from police officers to cowboys).
Other then that, all of my reference comes from comics and magazines. I know comics are pricey at times, but I'm sure most of you collect already. If not, the library sells comics that are old or damaged for like 50 cents each. My boyfriend's mom works in a Library in Regina. She raids the sale bin and gives us stacks and stacks every few months.
I also picked up a scrabbooking habit... I cut out images I like from magazines and paste them into coil-bound notebooks. I have scrapbooks with art in them (usually old wizard, Diamond, Xbox and Gamer magazines), and scrapbooks with people (from like... time magazine or the newspaper or sport illustrated before they get thrown in the recycle bin) and scrapbooks with buildings and architecture (Architectural digest). The idea is space and time really... buy cutting out and keeping certain useful images I can just open up a scrapbook and filp through 20 pages, instead of flipping through 20 or 30 magazines. It also means I don't have to keep stacks and stacks of magazines, "Just in case".
Anyway, I hope this helps. Happy drawing!
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Mr. Vince
MIC AGENT
Friendly Giant
Posts: 249
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Post by Mr. Vince on Mar 27, 2005 0:59:29 GMT -7
Hey, great books guys! I might have to go hunting for some of those myself.
Derek - yeah, I agree experience is definately the best teacher. Though, I find that some people, myself included, were doing the wrong thing for years. It was a book or a class that really broke me out of the usual habits, so yeah, I'd say there's a balancing act between instruction and practice. And I do agree, get together with artists for both critique and technique.
Keep 'em coming.
-Vince-
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Post by creativesynergy on May 1, 2005 12:07:33 GMT -7
Two books that I highly recommend for learning the deliberateness of storytelling techniques are VISUAL STORYTELLING: The Art and Technique by Tony C. Caputo and PANEL DISCUSSIONS: Design in Sequential Art Storytelling by Durwin S. Talon.
VISUAL STORYTELLING deals with visual techniques that can be applied to sequential art (comics), animation, gaming, and film in general. Very informative. The "bonus" is the instruction provided by Jim Steranko at the back of the book in a chapter entitled "REFLECTIONS ON NARRATIVE THEORY", which gets you into the artist's mind. Just for your information, Tony C. Caputo had also written a book a number of years back on self-publishing that was a good resource.
PANEL DISCUSSIONS features a series of extensive, evaluative articles the writer had with such industry professionals as Mike Carlin, Walt Simonson, Scott Hampton, Mike Mignola, Will Eisner, and many more about the techniques they use and why they use them. Some of the topics dealt with are clarity, leading the eye, placement of text, use of color and lighting, etc. Each chapter ends with a focus topic. A very informative book that I read over and over again.
In my opinion, there are so many books out there that say absolutely nothing in way too many pages. That's why I love the library. If the book is crap, you can find out before you buy it. As a creator, you need to pick and choose what you're going to learn from because not everyone who writes a book knows what the hell they're talking about.
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fiona
MIC AGENT
Posts: 240
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Post by fiona on May 5, 2005 21:54:28 GMT -7
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Post by creativesynergy on May 6, 2005 21:08:26 GMT -7
Fiona, school textbooks are sometimes the best. They're designed for instruction. I still have "UNDERSTANDING MOVIES" close by in my bookcase from one of my college film classes almost 20 years ago. Kind of dating myself, but when you have a strong reference book, keep it.
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