Action! Cartooning

I recently changed my at style from manga-inspired to more "traditional" techniques. I first picked up Mr.Caldwell's Fantasy!Cartooning (another recommended purchase) and the techniques were so helpful and informative, I immediately looked up his other books. Don't let the title fool you- this book offers more than just straight action techniques. There are a lot of basic methods that really boost your style, such as using body structure to portray personality, etc. I don't think this is a book for total beginners or someone who doesn't know at least a little bit about anatomy and structure, but the language of the book is easy to follow and very informative. Even more experienced artists can learn something from Mr. Caldwell. I've been cartooning (off and on) for over 20 years and I found myself experiencing a second renaissance after reading this great book. After a year-long personal slump I feel like an artist again and it's thanks to Mr. Caldwell.

Yep. It's that good. Ben's style is infectious. This would be in my top 5 how-to-draw books that I keep close by on my drawing desk. I respect the advice passed on in these pages. His breakdown instruction on heads, figures, faces, women etc is second to none! He is a master of his art. I would definitely buy another one as a gift for a budding cartoonist or even an established cartoonist. This is one of those books you wish you had when you were first learning to draw cartoons. I highly recommend it.

I've bought this book, read it (noticing some instructional errors - but nothing you can self-correct) and started to draw (rather copy) the examples. The results: Self-satisfaction. This is a good book to start with if you plan to animate action cartoons in the future (on paper or on the computer). After I draw all the examples in this book, it would be a good excercise to use Mr. Caldwell's principles and draw my own characters. I wish though that this book had examples on non-human characters like robots, machines, animals, aliens, monsters, etc. Another book of this nature perhaps, Mr. Caldwell?

"Action!Cartooning", by Ben Caldwell, is a great book on drawing cartoon figures. I am a professional caricaturist myself (I own caricature concessions in a major theme park, and wrote the book "Let's Toon CARICATURES"), and a lot of the info Ben gives about "pushing" the characteristics of your characters, in order to give a clear, instant insight into their personalities, can be applied to caricaturing as well. There's a lot of great things about this book, and a lot of beautiful drawings. If you want to learn to draw good, cartoony action figures, then this is the book for you. It is so much better than any other cartoon or comic book anatomy books on the market, that is isn't even funny. I have recommended it to all of the artists I work with, and many other artist friends, already. I'd like to know what else Ben's done, because I'd love to see more of his work!