Becoming a professional artist in visual media, is a largely self-taught endeavor or at least it requires a lot of practice. Still, a few tips can always benefit a student as she/he begins to formalize process, experiment with tools and techniques and pick up industry vocabulary and methods. Instruction and/or mentorship from a working artist is invaluable. However, a good book or two on the subject can offer a good start.
Here are three books that I can recommend to any one learning to draw, and certainly do as well or better than anything I have to offer on the subject.
How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way
Lee, Stan & Buscema, John. (1978) How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, New York, NY, Fireside.
ISBN 0-671-53077-1
$11.98 (paperback, Amazon)
About the authors:
Stan Lee is the prolific and legendary writer who is responsible for co-creating most of Marvel Comic’s long-lived super-heroes including Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, the X-Men and many more. John Buscema is the artistic powerhouse behind Silver Surfer, Conan the Barbarian and the Mighty Thor.
Book review:
The book’s twelve chapters covers nearly everything a budding artist of super heroics needs to know from the tools, through anatomy tips and page composition to inking. The black and white pages leave out discussions about coloring. The information is excellent for a solid foundation of drawing, even in today’s digital age.
Cartoon Animation
Blair, Preston. (1994) Cartoon Animation, Laguna Hills, CA, Walter Foster Publishing
ISBN 1-56010-084-2
$13.02 (paperback, Amazon)
About the author:
One of the fine artists of animation, Preston Blair designed and animated the hippos for Disney’s “Dance of the Hours” segment of Fantasia among other notable things. Blair would continue to direct and produce animation.
Book review:
With over 200 pages, Blair has assembled a comprehensive instructional for creating character animations. The first chapter, “Character Development,” contains tips an insights valuable to all artists not limited to animators.
100 Tuesday Tips
Grim and Norm. (2015) 100 Tuesday Tips
ISBN-13: 978-0-9908750-0-0
$55.00 (paperback, Amazon)
About the authors:
Normand Lemay and Griselda Sastrawinata-Lemay is a husband and wife team currently working as feature animation artists at the Walt Disney Animation Studio.
Book review:
Building on the foundations laid out by previous artists and authors on the subject, Griz and Norm distilled concepts into bite-sized lessons which they continue to share on social media, which is the origin of “Tuesday Tips.” Born of the current digital-age of art and media, they cover color theory, and add a few tips specific for a digital artist.
