Xtreme Art: Ultimate Book of Trace-and-Draw Manga

3 Books in 1

by
Christopher Hart

Watson-Guptill, June 2009, 192 pp.
ISBN: 978-0-8230-9806-4

Genre: Non-Fiction

Subgenre: Instructional / Drawing
Reviewed: 1/30/2010

Reviewed by: Conan Tigard

Book Cover

Excerpt

Xtreme Art page
 

Synopsis
Manga is coming on strong here in the United States. With more and more publishers, like Del Rey Manga, picking up Japanese titles, manga books are flying off the shelves. As the popularity of manga increases, so does the desire of the readers of these book to learn how to draw like their favorite Japanese manga artists. Along comes Xtreme Art: Ultimate Book of Trace-and-Draw Manga. This large book is actually three books in one. It contains the following books: Xtreme Art: Draw Manga!, Xtreme Art: Draw Manga Chibi!, and Xtreme Art: Draw Manga Monsters!.

Have you ever wanted to learn how to draw manga characters, manga chibi (a short person or small child), or manga monsters? Christopher Hart has sat down, put pencil to paper, and created a book that will teach you how to draw your favorite characters. Not only does he show you, but this is a trace and draw book.

Each of the three sections contains a chapter on the basics of the section (which are the three books) and then about twenty-five lessons on either manga characters, manga chibi and manga monsters. Each lesson has four panels showing a progression of the manga character until a full page version of the character appears in the fifth panel.

Xtreme Art: Ultimate Book of Trace-and-Draw Manga is a instructional book on how to draw manga, manga chibi, and manga monsters by Christopher Hart.
 

Review

I used to read a ton of manga book: maybe up to 50 or 60 a year. I witnessed both good and bad manga artists in all those books that I read. Some of the most awesome artists, like Masaki Segawa, absolutely blew me away. His drawings look like artwork and I just sat there absorbing the pages. But then there were quite a few artists that couldn't draw perspective, were inconsistent with the looks of their characters, or just , in my opinion, were absolutely horrendous.

Christopher Hart seems to be on a mission to teach everyone how to draw manga well, and I thank him for that. Xtreme Art: Ultimate Book of Trace-and-Draw Manga is a wonderful book that can easily teach the budding artist how to draw manga. Whether they want to draw characters, chibi, or monsters, this book is a great first step in learning the basics of drawing forms. Manga is not a complicated art form, but an artist should learn the basics, and this book could really help with that.

Overall, Xtreme Art: Ultimate Book of Trace-and-Draw Manga is another fantastic instruction book by Christopher Hart. So, if you are a beginning artist, or have a child that wants to learn how to draw manga, you really should pick up a copy of this book. It will be well-used and well-appreciated.

This site was created and is maintained by Conan Tigard
2010