Mastering Manga with Mark Crilley: 30 Drawing Lessons from the Creator of Akiko

Step by step guide to all things manga. This is a great book and starts you right at the beginning and for someone like me who loves drawing but doesn't have a particularly strong talent for it, it was great. Each lesson is laid out in an easy to follow step by step fashion. It's very visual lots of pictures taking you through each stage of the drawing and colouring. It's a very friendly and fun book to work with and has you drawing real manga style characters in no time. What I also love about this book is that it's teaching is fairly generic you're not being taught how to draw a specific character so the lessons can be transferred to drawing all the manga and anime characters I know and love. My drawing has certainly improved for it and it's always a good reference point when tackling more complicated images. You also have a section on layout, perspective,expressions and panels so for the those not just looking to get into drawing but also into full manga creation this is also a good place to start. So if you're looking for a book that's great for the novice drawer and is easy to follow this is certainly well worth the money

This book is probably the best mange tutorial book i have ever read. its simple to understand. basic enough for younger people to use. and its got detailed step-by-step guides on how to draw; eyes, faces, babys, toddlers, children, teenagers, young adults, middle-aged adults and even old adults. i orded this book on the 6th of feb and im slowly working my way through all the tutorials step-by-step. what i end up doing is copying the first tutorial very closely then re-drawing it again but using my own style, different eyes, hair styles etc. so far i am very impressed with this book and is my auntie, the other day i went around to my grandma's house. packed with my sketch pad, pens, pencils etc, sat down and started drawing. then my cousins came over and wanted to have a go too, later that night i received a phone call from my auntie saying that my cousins where still sat at home drawing at about 10pm at night xD. anyway. back to the book.... what separates this book from other how-to drawing books is the fact that this is a real step-by-step book. in other books i have read, they show you how to do the face fine (eyes, ears, jaw, mouth etc) but then have a massive jump to the completed image with hair and all. what this book does it tells you to do rough guidelines for things like hair and creases, then to go over them later adding more detail and connecting lines. if you are interested in drawing manga and cartoony characters then this book is for you, if possible you should download the preview if you can but i can guaranty that you will not be disappointed and will end up buying this book anyway

I learnt of Mark Crilley from his videos on YouTube and was blown away by how good he was at illustrating characters on paper, plus the fact he was both a published author of his own manga and Mastering manga series was by far the most appealing beginner go to book for learning how to draw manga properly. It opens with a brief period on learning to draw eyes (a page is included detailing a lot of others eye illustration to emulate and develop your own take or twist on them, this is also included by similar pages on hair, hands, and feet) and followed immediately by drawing the entire face. It also details learning body proportions for all manners of possible characters and lessons on how to draw a fluent stride to create movement in the pages and the desired perspective to help make the drawing appear more lifelike. So far my drawings have benefited greatly from this book, as the basis of the face drawing facial placement can be transferred into fine art drawings, and bolstered my abilities in both art forms. I am working on integration between the two until I develop my own take or style on manga and illustration. This brilliant book is awarded 5 out of 5.

I Bought this book about 1 -2 weeks ago and i was really impressed with the time in which amazon delivered it to me, Not only was it within the promised 4 days it came a day earlier than predicted! The book itself, it has helped me learn the basics of illustrating manga art, as a novice myself, before purchasing this book i struggled with the structuring of faces and body shapes, however after following the guidelines given to me from Mastering Manga i am able to now create to my hearts content. Mark Crilley (Author/ Illustrator of Mastering Manga) gives you a very in depth outlook on where to place certain lines and also gives to you a variety of Hairstyles, Emotions, Hand Positions and Foot Positions to use for your very own Manga Character. However as great as this book is there are certain things i think that he forgets to point out for novices such as myself that are rather important. Such as when it comes to structuring the face he has left out how to draw the chin of the character, i personally find this one of the most challenging things when creating manga characters and im pretty sure im not the only one, Also he doesn't have a section for noses, it may be small, but as a amateur i would like to see a variety so i can input them into my charecters. Overall im very pleased with my purchase and would recommend this to anybody who is interested in creating manga art who is new to it as i feel that it has increased my skills dramatically.

I have gotten many "how to draw manga" books in the past and this is by far the best one of them all. Let me tell you why! Most how to draw books have many pages that the author is just waffling taking about all the technical stuff (which is sometimes good but most people would like to get along with drawing!) And every single page of this book is useful and it is just ram packed with stuff look amazing! Colored pages, step by step guides for beginners and reference pages for the more advanced levels. Let me give you an example... Theres a section of the book that is titled "101 Manga Eyes"... Its self explanetory! Mark Crilley has fit onto four pages 101 diverse manga eyes including cartoony manga and realistic manga with annotations Mark Crilley is very aware that there is more then one style of manga, so he tries to fit in different styles into the book so that everyone can benefit from this I recommend this book to BEGINNERS, ADEPT and ADVANCED levels... EVERYONE will benefit from this... a MUST buy! If you don't know who Mark Crilley is and how great he is at teaching Manga, YouTube him! He's VERY popular and has written novels such as Brody's Ghost, Akiko and Mikki Falls.

I've recently got back into drawing and wanted to try and learn the anime / manga art style. This book is perfect for explaining step by step and I'm thoroughly enjoying following it. I'm not even a quarter way through the book yet and I'm excited to see how my drawing skills will grow considering there is already an improvement!

First off, the book comes from an established artist with a background in Japan, so the author certainly knows the techniques and character creation. It's highly detailed in that it doesn't just show you how to draw faces and characters but how to draw actions, layouts, backgrounds etc the book really covers everything. Furthermore it gives details on how and when to use certain types of techniques to make characters different, for example giving long haired males thicker necks to distinguish them from female characters. The book contains pretty much everything you need to get started, after that I'd say it's just a matter of practice. A definite for anyone looking to get into drawing manga

I had wanted to learn to draw proper manga for a while and when I got this book I could not have been any more forfilled. It's perfect! It has every lesson you need to get started on drawing all ages in manga style. It also contains lessons on how to draw backgrounds and how to set out a page if you're wanting to start a manga graphic novel, but that's only once you have worked your way through the book. Each page is really easy to read and follow. Seriously, if you haven't tried this style of art before and want to try it out... Buy this book. You won't regret it!

I liked the way the book gives a simple overview of each area and then a couple of well thought out examples for beginners and up. Can be re-read again and again. I would recommend it to anyone starting out, and who needs something that they can come back to for inspiration and quick a refresher.

Genial todo lo que esperaba. Muy explicativo y con dibujos. . . . . . . . . . .

Great starting book for all inspiring and out of touch artists, it tells you almost everything you need to get started as a manga creator (except the most important part, NEVER BUY YOUR SUPPLIES AT THE HIGHEST QUALITY, just get the bare minimum to see if this is a medium you want to get into and use them to the fullest) but aside from that this book is great has drawing tutorials from how to draw a child from all views (except the back head but that's mostly hair) to fat and old characters, and great tips on how to draw emotions, eyes (so many eyes), poses, clothing wrinkles, backgrounds, proper proportions, styles of faces and bodies, Chibi, hands, feet, walking poses, fighting stuff, and much more. If your still not satisfied then go to the author's youtube channel for more art tips.

Crilley provides clear step by step instructions for the beginner. In the book, he emphasizes the importance of precise placement of facial features in order to achieve manga facial structure. He provides concrete suggestions as well as various grids/guidelines to help you learn the proper distances between eyes, eyes to nose, eyes to chin, etc. in an easily understandable way. As an added bonus, since Crilley has a strong youtube presence, you can watch his videos where he demonstrates a lot of what is in the book. At first, I was frustrated a little (as expected when you are learning new skills) that the faces I was drawing had an "almost" manga, but not quite right appearance. I'll add that I'm also new to digital drawing so I was learning two skills at the same time. Anyway, in case this tip helps someone else, I'll describe what I did to get over that bump. I copied Crilley's guidelines right into my digital program, then repeatedly traced over them to get a feel for his guidelines (I was especially having trouble drawing chins). Right next to my tracings, I would also draw equal sized guidelines (without tracing) and draw in the features. I learned two things. (1) for some reason, when I'd been marking the center line (horizontal) on my circles, I was drawing my line too low. I don't know why, I mean I'd been going for the "center." (2) when I put the manga features on Crilley's guidelines, or on the guidelines I drew next to his, I was succeeding in getting my drawings to look like real manga. Basically, his formula (feature placement) works, but you have to do it right or figure out where you are going wrong and fix the problem. I should add, while there is a formula for feature placement (and even that "formula" changes to age up/age down a character, etc), each character looks different because you draw the eyes/expression/hair in different ways. I'm really enjoying the lessons, and mostly seeing progress. I highly recommend the book and have purchased his two subsequent books as well. I'll review them once I've got a good grip on the lessons in this book and graduate to those books.

O livro aborda diversos aspectos do desenho de mangá. Para maiores aprofundamentos, talvez seja conveniente adquirir os volumes seguintes do mesmo autor, mas este já oferece um ótimo começo para quem quer se iniciar na técnica.