Mastering Manga with Mark Crilley: 30 drawing lessons from the creator of Akiko

Like most people, I discovered Mark Crilley from his excellent tutorials on Youtube. I had high expectations of this book because I know he's a great teacher, but I wasn't sure how it would compare with the videos. You're probably wondering what you get from buying a book that the Youtube videos don't show for free. I've watched lots of Mark Crilley's tutorials, but there's something special about seeing the drawing printed on the page in front of me, there as a reference. If you wanted to, you could trace drawings for practice. The book also allows you to go at your own pace, which may take much longer than a ten-minute video can allow for. I think the book works well on its own or in combination with the videos. The book is divided into three chapters: Heads and Faces, Proportions and Poses, and Setting the Scene. The bulk of the book is made up of step-by-step guides for drawing specific character types. Adults, teens, kids and toddlers are covered, as well as chibis. The written instructions give tips about showing the gender, age and personality of the characters. One thing that sets this book apart is that several pages are devoted to portraying fuller-figured characters, something that I haven't seen much in other manga how-to books. There are also more advanced tutorials for kissing poses and drawing a martial arts scene, as well as thorough instruction for drawing folds and wrinkles in clothing. Some of the most useful content is towards the end. There's information about inking drawings, laying out panels and adding speech bubbles and sound effects. One of the most interesting parts is a page showing Mark Crilley's process in creating a manga page from start to finish. Quite a few page spreads feature a large number of small drawings, for example 101 manga eyes or 50 ways to draw hands. These are good for reference and include some pointers, but there are some that would be worth expanding into a full step-by-step tutorial. I'd love a whole book based on the 20 classic poses! Perspective and backgrounds are covered in the third chapter, and this is another area that I wouldn't mind seeing expanded. The tutorials cover the technicalities of perspective, but they don't show much about how to work characters into these settings. I would also have liked to see more discussion of shading and color. Everything included in the book is great and it's absolutely packed with helpful information on every page, but I do think the author has even more to offer and I'd love it if this turned out to be the first part of a series. One final note: There's no nudity in this book; all figures are drawn either fully clothed or wearing simple underclothes. Busty vixens and muscle men are notably absent. There's no gore, the content is very family-friendly. This book would be an appropriate gift for adolescents interested in drawing manga. However, the detailed level of instruction would probably be too difficult for young children.

I've been a fan of Mr. Crilley's work for some time. My Daughter loved his work Miki Falls, and I have to admit I enjoyed it, too. I have to say without reservation, Mr. Crilley's book is better that 95% of what's out there. He's also one of the few artists who actually has recognizable work when it comes to comics, manga and graphic novels. I think the only other one I'm aware of is the Shojo Fashion Manga Art School by Irene Flores (She's one of the artists for Windstorm's Welcome to Tranquility.) I'm sure more than a few of us might have purchased other Manga how-tos from author's like Christopher Hart and been extremely disappointed at the quality of the artwork. I didn't get a sense of anything like that with this book. First of all, he's not trying to mimic anyone else's style. The drawings are done more so to illustrate technique then they are to look like someone else's work. I think he purposefully kept it that way so that people can use his lessons to develop their own style. He keeps the depictions simple and consistent throughout the book. It doesn't matter if you're looking at page five or page eighty five, all of the pictures are done by the same artist and its a good thing. One of the chief drawbacks of those other manga books is that they ricochet back and forth from one artistic style to another, confusing anyone who's trying to develop because instead of concentrating on one style, they're trying to do ten different anime styles. In addition, Mr. Crilley does an excellent job of giving little tips that are truly useful like the way he suggests laying out the hair when drawing. I hope that he makes a few more of these kinds of books. There were some things I would have liked to have seen covered that he didn't. Mostly, I wonder if he uses any tricks in particular to manage consistent proportions between characters. I wish that someone would touch on things like perhaps laying out facial expressions that concentrates more on maintaining consistency for one character, rather than illustrating a hundred different faces. All in all, though. I think this is one of the better guides to Manga for us beginners. I wish other books took these kinds of things into account. As it stands now, I keep two books in my bag next to my sketch pad. This is one of them, the other is the one I mentioned by Ms. Flores.

Crilley provides clear step by step instructions for the beginner. In the book, he emphasizes the importance of precise placement of facial features in order to achieve manga facial structure. He provides concrete suggestions as well as various grids/guidelines to help you learn the proper distances between eyes, eyes to nose, eyes to chin, etc. in an easily understandable way. As an added bonus, since Crilley has a strong youtube presence, you can watch his videos where he demonstrates a lot of what is in the book. At first, I was frustrated a little (as expected when you are learning new skills) that the faces I was drawing had an "almost" manga, but not quite right appearance. I'll add that I'm also new to digital drawing so I was learning two skills at the same time. Anyway, in case this tip helps someone else, I'll describe what I did to get over that bump. I copied Crilley's guidelines right into my digital program, then repeatedly traced over them to get a feel for his guidelines (I was especially having trouble drawing chins). Right next to my tracings, I would also draw equal sized guidelines (without tracing) and draw in the features. I learned two things. (1) for some reason, when I'd been marking the center line (horizontal) on my circles, I was drawing my line too low. I don't know why, I mean I'd been going for the "center." (2) when I put the manga features on Crilley's guidelines, or on the guidelines I drew next to his, I was succeeding in getting my drawings to look like real manga. Basically, his formula (feature placement) works, but you have to do it right or figure out where you are going wrong and fix the problem. I should add, while there is a formula for feature placement (and even that "formula" changes to age up/age down a character, etc), each character looks different because you draw the eyes/expression/hair in different ways. I'm really enjoying the lessons, and mostly seeing progress. I highly recommend the book and have purchased his two subsequent books as well. I'll review them once I've got a good grip on the lessons in this book and graduate to those books.

The very first thing I noticed when I got this book was that it was rather thin, but the pages within the book do contain a lot of helpful information and tutorials for beginners. The key word is beginners. Artists that are just starting out and have little to no drawing experience will benefit greatly by getting this book. There are step by step instructions on how to draw a manga face, body, kids and people of all ages, and many other things. As helpful as these lessons are, there are some parts in this book that may prove to be quite challenging and maybe even frustrating for beginning artists. For example, Mark included sections on how to draw hands, feet, hair, various poses for your characters, and much more. However, instead of guiding you through the entire process, he just throws illustrations of said subjects on the page and just shows you what it's supposed to look like. As an experienced artist myself, I have no problem looking at these illustrations and knowing exactly how to start drawing, but as I mentioned before, a beginning artist will find themselves at a loss as to how to start drawing these subjects. Now let's move on and talk about how helpful this book can be to artists with years of experience. Even experienced artists will find some key points in this book that are helpful. Going back and reviewing the basics is always a good thing, but when it comes right down to it, most, if not all artists with experience will look at the pages in this book and think to themselves, "I know how to do this." In short, Mastering Manga is a great book aimed mostly at beginners with the intent of helping them learn the manga style and improve their art quality. It serves as a nice reviewing tool for experienced artists, but that's about it. I'm looking forward to Mastering Manga 2 with the hope that it includes more intermediate lessons. It is the second book in the series after all.

I've always had trouble drawing the eyes and body. But thanks to this book, I've been slowly improving. The best part, it gives you different styles to try out, and that's the best part. This book isn't designed to say, "hey, this is the way to draw manga." In fact, it's the opposite. Now I can't say I've seen or read other how-to-draw manga books, but it really is a good deal. First and foremost, it gives you tips, and illustrations to demonstrate the certain style. And there are many to choose from. Secondly, it does help to lay down a solid foundation if you want to create your own manga or characters. Thirdly, he has a youtube channel in which he shows and draws to inform and entertain you, and he covers a wide variety of subjects. So for the price, I say get it, you won't regret that decision. Now as stated above, those are all the pro's, if you want any con's, please stay tuned. I've only got one so far, so I may come back and edit this. The only one I have is that, this can go both ways, the details are lacking in a sense, it feels a bit to simple and basic, yes you get many different illustrations, but they're just there. And the instructions that are given are minimal. But like I said, this statement is a double-edged sword. For me, that's a good thing, it puts emphasis on trying it out yourself and pushing your limits. It's hands-on. For others, it might feel like it's not enough, and might need more detail so that they can visualize it in their head, instead of trying to draw and constantly correct as you go.

I'm a fairly new artist(Started about 4 months ago). I just bought this book last night and I'm so appreciative that it exists. I can draw better from memory due to the way it teaches the mapping of the face. I'm barely at page 43 but this book has motivated me a lot. I feel the excited and accomplished and it has increased my faith in that about the time I have finished learning from the book my drawings will be much better. I highly recommend for new people or even people who feel they have drawn some great pictures but feel like they have to guess where to put certain features. The pictures I've included are all from today as I learned from the book. I will improve and believe anyone that gets the book will also.

Aside from being a subscriber of Mark Crilley's youtube channel, I was really pleased with this book. It covers some basics of different aspects - face, body proportions, perspective...and it has some great reference pages. I've gone through a few manga drawing books and this one is a good starter. If your looking for something with more to it or that focuses on one particular aspect, you may want to try different books. There are plenty of series that cover specific manga topics in individual books. The "How To Draw Manga..." series is pretty good and another favorite of mine are Christopher Harts books. This book is great though. My favorite part is the Full-Figured drawing tutorial. I have not run into a book that covered this yet, so I was happy to see it. The reference pages are awesome, and even entertaining! :D Every artist has a different style, and as a fan of Crilley's style of manga, I enjoyed the art in the book along with how the book doesn't just feel like an instruction manual. It is an encouraging book, that shows you many options. Okay, to sum this up: As a manga "how to", it's a very basic book, but it covers many options and different topics. Since there is going to be a Mastering Manga 2 (yay!) I'd say this was a great first book to a series if there are many more to come. As a fan of Mark Crilley, I'd say this book was not disappointing!

I don't know Mark Crilley personally, but I feel like I do. He seems to be a genuine nice person aside from a great artist. That has little to do with his teaching ability, but I like to support nice people. After watching his very popular how-to videos on Youtube (how I found Mark's work) I started looking for more substantial material in the form of books. I don't have a Kindle device, but I do buy loads of books in Kindle, to use with iPad/iPhone and Mac. So I bought his book. It's just as I expected, it's a great book with loads of techniques and reference materials to use and is as good as his youtube videos, but I do miss his upbeat comments in his very recognizable voice, which I find very funny and lightens the videos a lot - I mean, it's a video of a guy drawing... . The videos are, of course, much clearer on how the drawings come together, and the book will point you in the right direction but not tell you the end of the story. I like that about Mark, he will try as hard as he can, not to interfere with your "developing" style. He doesn't want us to "copy" him but to develop as artists and this really comes through in the book. You may not think you're developing a style, when you can't even draw a simple straight line, but you are. He's very aware of that, even if we're not. It's about process, it's about the tool that you need, that eventually - with loads of practice - will make you better. He also comes across as a humble guy. He will tell you that he finds some techniques difficult. He will tell you that drawing hands is difficult, therefore there is no substitute for practice. Same with hairs, proportions, faces, eyes... It's 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration. He will not mask this. All the tools are there, lots of coverage on all manga styles, including chibi, which I absolutely love. Buy the book, already...

I liked the way the book gives a simple overview of each area and then a couple of well thought out examples for beginners and up. Can be re-read again and again. I would recommend it to anyone starting out, and who needs something that they can come back to for inspiration and quick a refresher.

Genial todo lo que esperaba. Muy explicativo y con dibujos. . . . . . . . . . .

Great starting book for all inspiring and out of touch artists, it tells you almost everything you need to get started as a manga creator (except the most important part, NEVER BUY YOUR SUPPLIES AT THE HIGHEST QUALITY, just get the bare minimum to see if this is a medium you want to get into and use them to the fullest) but aside from that this book is great has drawing tutorials from how to draw a child from all views (except the back head but that's mostly hair) to fat and old characters, and great tips on how to draw emotions, eyes (so many eyes), poses, clothing wrinkles, backgrounds, proper proportions, styles of faces and bodies, Chibi, hands, feet, walking poses, fighting stuff, and much more. If your still not satisfied then go to the author's youtube channel for more art tips.

O livro aborda diversos aspectos do desenho de mangá. Para maiores aprofundamentos, talvez seja conveniente adquirir os volumes seguintes do mesmo autor, mas este já oferece um ótimo começo para quem quer se iniciar na técnica.

I bought mastering manga 1 and 2, both came in good condition, about the book, it's for basic to intermediate, easy to understand, I would suggests for those who want to learn manga this is the best . Worth the money.