Perspective! For Comic Book Artists: How to Achieve a Professional Look in Your Artwork

List Price: $21.95 Discount Price: $12.27

Customer Reviews:

Very complicated, poorly organised, but lots of interesting pictures for reference. [Posted on 2008-05-17]

Positive aspects of the book: Unique style- comic book form. Lots of interesting pictures.

Negative aspects of the book: the writer is autistic to his reader's individual needs and capabilities coming into this book. He communicates to a fictional character called 'Mugg', who automatically knows more than I do, and so by the end of the book, Mugg graduates from his lesson and I'm in the corner left wondering, "what the hell is going on?" The problem was that the author needed to make the book a sufficient length, and so he writes more than he needs to- he even admits this in the final chapter, "Shortcuts to Perspective". The result is that the book is poorly organised and with so much information ploughed on to us, it is easier to use the pictures for reference. Consequently, I have to shop for another book on perspective because this book doesn't quite do the job. Nevertheless, I'll still keep it for future reference because the pictures are unique and intriguing, revealing an active imagination communicating with unique symbols- and that's the essence of graphic novels.

Waste of paper. [Posted on 2008-06-07]
Since I'm a storyboard artist I like a good book on perspective; I bought this one. What a disappointment. It only teaches the basics, and takes a long time doing it. It spends 3 whole pages teaching us that things bigger are closer and things smaller are further away. I kid you not. About 20 pages are spent on 1 point perspective. And so on. The examples are teensy, about 2 inches by 2 inches, so even if you're trying to learn the basics it doesn't give you much room to see it. The jokes are lame. Some of the perspective is even incorrect! (Check out the way the characters stand/sit in some of the panels. Also there's a frame on how to draw women's [...] in perspective...I've honestly never seen anyone with as badly drawn "perspective" as that.)

If you want to get a book on perspective, you don't want to get a sissy book like this. You want to get a man's book. Check out Brian LeMay's layout books, or even "Perspective Made Easy" by Norling. I'm a little crabby I got suckered into this book.

Very well done, superb quality [Posted on 2008-06-15]
I've really come to appreciate such high quality work. This book ranks near the top for providing effective, entertaining, clear instruction at a level that will not disappoint. Very impressed with author's efforts and finished product; compare this book with the brief attempts in many other books by other authors at explaining perspective. The depth and useful illustrations haven't been matched in any other known source currently available. If you find a better source, please post.

Incomprehensible [Posted on 2008-08-08]
I purchased this book for it's intended purpose, to aid in the production of realistic comic books. Apart from it's routine treatment of one, two and three point perspective drawing, the book is by and large incomprehensible. I simply could not follow the author's diagrams and explanations in any way that made sense. The fact that it is written and presented like an actual comic book may have something to do with this.

A comic book artist needs to understand perspective in the same way as an architect. You have to understand scale, plan drawing and how to project a drawing in three dimensions. For example, a room layout sketched as a rough plan and placed into perspective and scale. This book offers the reader very little easily understood or practical instruction in these crucial techniques.

The Andrew Loomis books, sadly, are long out of print, but if you can get hold of 'Creative Illustration', 'Successful Drawing' and 'Fun With a Pencil' do so, as the subject is beautifully, almost magically explained.

'Vanishing Point-Perspective for Comics From the Ground Up' by Jason Cheeseman-Meyer is a very good book for the comic artist that lucidly explains the basics as well as providing many 'cheats' and solutions to specific problems.

However as far as perspective is concerned, you are better off biting the bullet and learning the whole thing from the ground up. Your drawing will take on a totally different, life-like quality and will progress much quicker.

Knowing perspective inside out will take your art to another level, but not with this book.

Great, I didn't learn perspective at all, but great anyway [Posted on 2008-09-19]
If you are looking to learn how to render great backgrounds for comics of your own, this may be not the best option.... look, I really enjoyed the book. When I saw some pages in the preview I thought " boy, this may be what I've been looking for" I have always tried to learn perspective, and I have had real problems copping with it... I thought this book will show applied examples of backgrounds in comic pages... but in the end, it tackles the topic pretty much as every other book does it and I personally feel the book should have gone deeper in how to render backgrounds for comic books after all that was the pledge of the cover.

The intro was really good, The Mug character showing the pages with lousy backgrounds (almost like the ones I make)I thought the book will teach how to solve this specif cases but in the end turn out to be really technical and sometimes even boring.

It is really a great book, it worth the money I paid for it, because in the end I learned some stuff that some of my many other books about the topic does not say.
The best part I guess is the layout pages that has in the end, you may trace them and you'll come up with a decent background (this if you can decipher them)

I may recommend "How to draw comics the Marvel Way" in a couple of pages tells you how to tackle the issue for the specific case you mean it; comics.

Cheers!

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