advice on drawing books

odinreln

hi

could anyone recommend any good teach yourself book for comic strips, or storyboards, and also character design and creation?

I'm a writer with a story and script in the making and want to get some half decent sketches to go along with them.

with regards to style of drawing, i dont want to draw real looking people, or manga, or cartoony drawings.

somewhere between y:the last man, and an tain would be where my vision is.

thanks for any help in advance

O

Fysh

Have a look through the resources thread as there are a good few books and links mentioned in there.

In terms of more specific advice, I'm not entirely sure I understand what you're trying to do - are you preparing some sketches in order to develop your script as a comic, or to put it into development as an animated/live action film? If it's a comic, are you planning on doing the artwork yourself or collaborating with someone else on art duties?

If you're not looking to learn to draw as a discipline of its own and just need to create some concept sketches and designs as part of a script pitch, I'd almost say you might be better off just copying from comics that are close enough to the style you want until you get something you like. It's generally recommended that you avoid working on a personal style too much until after you've got a good mastery of drawing the human body (because that way you can develop your style while having a solid grounding from which to build on).

odinreln

i originally aimed at teaming up with a friend of mine who is a professional animator. turns out hes busy for the next year. im trying to get the script, with decent sketches of how i want it to go, so he can pass it on, but he gave me the impression others will be busy too.

so, i might try and take the project on myself, and instead of doing it as a huge animation project, i think it would also work very well as a comic.

i did art in school and my drawing back then was getting good. however, its years later, and ive never done comics or animated styles.

in short yes i would like to pick it up as a dicipline, as i used to draw and would like work on it again.

thanks for the info, ill see whats in that section

O

Fysh

If you've got the underlying principles down from past art classes, then I guess you're in a better position to start working more on developing the style you want. Your best bet would be to look around for tutorials by any artist whose style looks to have any elements you like...

odinreln

cheers, will do.


O

dmcloughney

Hey odinreln,

I'm not sure if it's that good for character design but as far as storytelling goes and the use of scenes that will draw your audience in..... anything by Scot Mc Cloud is second to none. I've read making comics and understanding comics and both books will give you a serious insight into how people interpert a page.............. if thats what you are looking for?? anyway good luck with your project

Fysh

As regards character design specifically, it's discussed in How To Make Webcomics (albeit with the specific requirements of a daily/several-times-a-week perpetually ongoing webcomic). There's probably also some useful material on the subject in "Expressive Anatomy for Comics and Narrative" by Will Eisner, although I haven't read it so I couldn't say for sure.

I've found McCloud's stuff really interesting although it tends to be more about comics as a whole. Reinventing comics is probably the weakest of the three books he's done but it's still got some interesting ideas in it.

Thwip!

dmcloughney wrote: »

Hey odinreln,

I'm not sure if it's that good for character design but as far as storytelling goes and the use of scenes that will draw your audience in..... anything by Scot Mc Cloud is second to none. I've read making comics and understanding comics and both books will give you a serious insight into how people interpert a page.............. if thats what you are looking for?? anyway good luck with your project

McCloud is amazing

also Christopher Hart has some great books on many drawing topics

jacsruny

In the comic there is important part of the comic is drawing, in my point of view if your comic drawing is clear, effective and easy to understand your comic will get success, when you draw any think about your comic it is say all think that what the writer say us.