Book Review: How to Draw Manga: Sketching Manga-Style: Volume 1 Sketching to Plan

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How to Draw Manga: Sketching Manga-Style is a series of instructional manga drawing art books. The 'Sketching Manga-Style' in the title means the only pencil used in the series. The artists whose work are featured are Hikaru Hayashi, Takehiko Matsumoto and Kazuaki Morita.

Volume 1 is a 184-page paperback.

It starts with the very basics at sketching and planning, more specifically on figure drawing. It teaches stuff like drawing heads, faces and posing characters - in manga style of course. There are many examples of different body parts and types of poses. The examples drawn are very nice because they are from professional artists. Also included are two step-by-step look with photos at the drawing process of the manga artists. Great for getting a feel on how they work.

There are lots of helpful drawing tips on beside every example, on every page. For example in drawing the neck, there would be examples on different gender, drawn in different perspective to show the muscles and there are commentary on how the neck works. Same goes for other body parts.

Having prior knowledge on anatomy is beneficial prior to reading this book. The anatomy section in this book is very thin. And since manga is a form of stylization, knowledge of basic anatomy is fundamental and will be useful while following the examples.

For those interested in learning to draw manga, this is a book I can recommend easily.

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This book is available at all Page One bookstores, and should be stocked by Basheer Graphic Books also. ISBN: 9789812459312

If you know German, they have the whole series in German and available on Amazon.de

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It seems that the series was originally published by Graphic-Sha Publishing but now out of print and selling at crazy prices on Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | JP).

Page One is now publishing the books now.

Comments

Can you provide a link of the product from the Baseer website? I cannot find the product in theri website =(

Yeah I managed to pick up a copy from a local University book shop locally in Australia for $54 AUD. So happy. Great book BTW!

Do you think it's good idea to buy german version of this book (and vol.3) ? I'm worrying about it bcause I almost dont know this language (but its cheaper & avaliable!)...

In reply to by daemonofpain (not verified)

@daemonofpain
I won't recommend getting the German edition if you can't read German. You won't be able to understand what they are teaching. It's easier to learn if you understand why drawings have to be done a certain way, rather than just following along.

This series costs way too much even when used. The books are great but I can't imagine anyone paying what's being asked for them. I'm surprised the price hasn't dropped more yet sense the company must be losing money from people resorting to downloading scans of the pages online. I ordered a copy of volume one from Border's a long time ago when it was still just $20 USD, but then they canceled my order for some reason I can't remember and the price immediately shot past $400 USD.

Thank you for the great blog and review with the very great pictures. Love all the details you put them down together to make a review.

the content is very educative, but consider the crazy price (It is a very good Book, Really) don't buy it unless u can read the material inside....

I would never buy a book that cost more then 400$
in germany it cost only 17,90€ = 23,46 US$ .
i'm so lucky that i live in germany.:)

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