|
 |
|
Digital Manga Workshop: An Artist's Guide to Creating Manga Illustrations on Your Computerx$2.39
  (10 reviews)
Best Price: $24.95 $2.39
The unique Japanese cartoon style known as manga, with its exaggerated stylistic characters and vivid colors, has caught the attention of America. Now, with the advent of digital tools like Photoshop and Painter, manga artists have discovered new ways of bringing their artwork to life and onto the computer -- with astounding results! This complete guide presents a wealth of information by exploring the digital possibilities of creating manga-style artwork. It details the entire process, from initial rough sketches, to the finished color image, with in-depth instructions and illustrations that demonstrate the intricacies of each technique. It also deals with a variety of inking and coloring styles.revealing the secrets of how to achieve smooth, highly detailed line art directly on screen, how to recreate the appearance of traditional animation with cel-art techniques, and how to achieve a soft, dreamy, or traditional look with airbrush, watercolor, and painting tools. It also explains how custom backgrounds, special effects, and the use of filters can add the finishing touches that exemplify professional results.
|
Customer Reviews
|
Generic anime style
By A2805TXIJ7Y2EA on 2005-08-06
This book is a good reference for cutting edge CG methods. It has some basic drawing tips, tutorials on coloring in different programs such as Photoshop and Corel Painter (if you use any other programs than these dont bother with this book), and covers cell style shading, airbrush style, and "digi paint" style. The latter, airbrush and digipaint, is very vaguely covered. Most of this book is about cell style shading very generic anime style characters. And I do mean anime style, not manga style, as I think this book is mistakenly titled. It doesn't contain any information about using the computer to color in black and white manga style.
If you're completely new to this type of stuff, don't get this book, it'll just overwhelm you. This is an alright book to have on the shelf for reference but it doesn't contain anything you can't get by searching on the internet for a CG tutorial in your program of preference.
Misleading title; really digital anime style
By AKMOT9LNGSM2P on 2007-01-18
I wish I could give this book a good review. Unfortunately, I can't. The title is very misleading. If you expect this book to teach you how to draw manga images digitally (as I did), you will be very disappointed. 99.9% of all manga images are black and white, and use frames, speech bubbles with text, sound effects, black and white line effects, and tones (black and white patterns that read as gray when printed). This book does NOT cover any of this.
It also contains some ludicrously incorrect information. For instance, it says that unlike American comics (where you have a penciler, inker, and letterer), Japanese artists do everything themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth, as any interview with a mangaka (Japanese manga artist) or perusal of the copyright page will tell you. In fact, most manga are created by a primary artist and several assistants.
Here's an even worse example. In the introduction to digital inking, they say, "In manga-style artwork, inked lines are usually contour lines...the linework of a character's hand would depict the outline of the fingers, but wouldn't show shading, wrinkles, or folds in the skin. It is up to the colors to show depth and texture." Um, except, manga is published exclusively IN BLACK AND WHITE. There are no colors! Have they ever read a manga? My mind boggles. Pick up any manga and open it and you will see for yourself. They go on to say, that "inking techniques such as hatching, stippling, and spotting black...are atypical in manga style art, but can be employed for stylistic purposes to achieve a distintice look."
This would be news to CLAMP, the studio that created many manga bestsellers, who are famous for their beautiful black and white line work. Or to, well, any of the mangakas, really.
This book teaches very basic color, digital techniques in anime `cel' style. It focuses on Photoshop and Painter, and ignores Illustrator and the manga-specific software (such as ComicWorks and Manga Studio) completely. They don't even cover the fact that most Japanese mangakas as well as most American digital art, is done on the Mac platform.
I gave it two stars because it does teach some simple techniques to create layered, color digital art, but these techniques are better covered in the many free online tutorials available on the web or in other, more comprehensive art technique books.
Digital Manga for Dummies.
By A1L2NJFEESHC39 on 2005-09-22
With the ever increasing popularity of manga art, Digital coloring and CGing have became something common nowadays. Lindsay Cibos and Jared Jodges work you through everything you'll need to make the backbone of an excellent manga character--from the character itself to the coll background behind it. This is a MUST HAVE for any aspiring manga artist--and this book makes it easy for anyone with a computer to use.
A great intro to digital coloring
By A1WV2R4QR9M4H2 on 2007-02-10
As many have already stated, this book has little to specifically to do with manga. I personally think the title and drawing style were probably chosen to be more catchy and specific than just "digital coloring." There's no shortage of digital artwork out there that has nothing to do with manga or anime style, and this book is relevant to anyone wanting to learn to color their artwork digitally, regardless of how it's drawn.
Whereas many web coloring tutorials are either very locked in about techinque or horrendously general, Digital Manga Workshop covers several specific options. It shows not just how to color in the typical cel style of a lot of digital artwork, but also airbrush, painting and watercolor styles as well.
The book gives instruction in both Photoshop and Painter depending on which is best suited for the style being covered and even offer some low-to-no cost alternatives to those programs.
The book also covers the important step before and after the coloring process, such as scanning and digitally inking drawings so you have god base to start with, and export so all your hard work doesn't end up as a blotchy web graphic.
Digital Manga Workshop definitely isn't the be all/end all book of digital coloring, but considering the wealth of information covered for such a low price, it's surely a worthwhile book to have around
Fantastic
By A3TMXUVUEHGX3A on 2005-10-09
I love this book, I picked it up after I saw the interview on G4tv and fell in love with it. My art has expanded so much since I read this book. I've been thinking about using my computer for my art for a long time and when I saw this I said to myself " wow this was just what I'm lloking for." If you even think you would enjoy this style of art I highly recommend this book.
|
|
You may also be interested in...
|
|
|
|
|
|
