Super Basics

this book really helped me in my drawing so i recommend this to any one who wants to start drawing their own manga

Angel Matsumoto's style of drawing isn't like the other how to draw manga artists' at all, but that's not a bad thing. Her style is more kid friendly to me and that's totally fine. Her book's content includes: Chapter 1- Materials and simple means of usage, Chapter 2- Creating manga, Chapter 3- Drawing people and animals, Chapter 4- Manga techiques, Chapter 5- Depicting greenery and 3- dimensional objects, Chapter 6- Creating well- composed manga, and as a added bonus this book talks about: In depth discusion: 1. What is masking? 2.All about tracing 3.Creating new characters for publication submissions 4.Exaggerated people and animals 5.Cut and paste and 6.collecting reference materials. If you ask me, this book has it all! It is extremely useful and it gives you a little nudge to coming up with your own unique style. This book is perfect for those starting out with manga and need a little help with certain areas. I would definately recommend this book! This book doesn't have any nudity at all, so it is perfect for those who are offended by nudity.

This is hands-down the most complete book available that covers drawings and making manga out there so far! It's chock full of info (191 pages!) and covers everything - even making your manga title, types of manga genres, props (machines, daily items, etc), adding text, manga layouts, and lots more. I would recommend this book as the first book you should get if you're really interested in making manga (even beating out the HTDM Getting Started or the HTDM Vol. 1: Compiling Characters book, in my list). Each chapter is subdivided into their own topic sections. For example, under chapter 5, there is: Insects, Flowers 1, Flowers 2, Grass and Trees 1, Grass and Trees 2, Grass and Trees 3, Water, Rocks and Stones, and it goes on. Considering this book touches upon a lot of topics, it only gives out the most important info about drawing or doing something. From here, you can opt to get more topic-specific books like the HTDM Giant Robots or other specific How to Draw books. The characters depicted in this book are more on the Saturday morning cartoon end but don't let that turn you off, though, as the information in here is priceless and helpful even to an intermediate artist as myself. This is an excellent book to get for the beginner artist or aspiring manga-ka and becomes an all-in-one reference book about manga even if your skill improves.

This volume is literally packed with several dozens of "mini-lessons" in creating Manga, including drawing, story layout, character design basics, lettering, and plotting the story. Each lesson is about a page or two in length, so there's quite a bit of useful information in the book. Other books in the "HTDM" series cover many of these topics in much greater detail; however, "Super Basics" is handy for quickly reviewing a particular technique or concept. If you aspire to draw manga, the book will give you a taste of what goes into producing a Japanese comic. And if you hit a creative block, I bet you'll find a lesson or a tip in "Super Basics" to get you going again. As other reviewers have mentioned, "Super Basics" assumes you already have some proficiency in drawing; it is more concerned with the down-and-dirty details of producing the comic itself. Even if you have some manga-drawing experience under your belt, I suspect you will learn some new tricks from this book.

Of all the books in the How to Draw series, Super Basics is a great introduction to the art form. No other book offers as much basic information on manga: from inking technique to generating story ideas, the book is quite comprehensive. However, to fit so much information in this 190 page book it does keep the "lessons" brief, in some cases one or two pages per topic. But then again, that's why it's called "Super Basics".This book won't show you how to draw manga a specific way, but it doesn't intend to. It offers tips and ideas so that you can create your own original story and style. If you're just starting out or are simply looking for a source of inspiration, you may want to give this book a try.