Everything you Need to Start Drawing Right Away! (Christopher Hart's Manga for the Beginner)

I recently bought this for my niece as a birthday gift, she loved it.
The only thing I was upset about was when I received the package, on the cover of the book at the corner, it was ripped. I wish whom ever handled the book, would've handled it with a little more care.

Not really for a beginner, got this for a young girl who begged for this but when I looked through it. I thought it was a little advanced. Maybe that's just me. I looked at the workbooks that are out there and I think that would make this book easier to work with.

I am a budding manga artist and this book has everything you need! Christopher Hart is definently your go to guy for anything manga. This book breaks down what look like really complicated and advanced drawings into amazingly simple steps. I have been able to draw things I never thought I could even begin to do.He covers a wide variety of subjects such as,the manga head from all views(front,profile,3\4,up view,and down view),the manga body,anthros,manga charectures, and much more.He also covers perspective, and much much more.All in all, a great book.

Christopher Hart writes a lot of books, on illustration in different genres. Generally, they are good books on the basics. This book is everyone one needs to get started drawing manga, with good illustrations, and text, and a good balance between the two. I passed it on to a teenager interested in drawing, who was delighted with it.

This book is packed with illustrations, but Mr. Hart doesn't give much information. He just tells us what it is, and then that's it. I didn't get the perspective part. I wish he'd shown us how to draw hands and eyes instead of giving us PICTURES of hands and eyes. The face, let's see, there are MANY types of faces, but he gives us THIS one. The eyes don't look too manga to me but I'm fine with it. The body...is not too much. There were some pages for that part. My favorite part was the animal and action poses part. But don't get to excited, it takes a lot of practice to understand that part.
Overall it's a good book. If you've got money to spare, then buy it. But the shoujo one is better in my opinion.

I thought there were more pages on each basic step to each drawing... They skip multiple steps and I am a beginner and I just can't keep up with the drawing. Don't waste your money. Unless you have some level of experience with drawing Anime. Because I don't have no experience and this book skips lot of steps and you will get confused how to draw this and that..

Same typical drawing books. It jumps from one stage of a drawing-in-progress to the next without much explanation of how the details/lines were put in.
Ex: Stage 1- circle, 2) circle with lines, 3) circle with more lines, 4) circle with more lines and now new circles for eyes, 5) finished product. With something like "just add some minor details" written next to stage 5.

The first two faces I managed to pull off to the point where I could do it from memory. So it wasn't terrible. But it wasn't really helpful either.

Plus, this seems to be some kind of Americanized manga style. Doesn't seem Japanese to me.

The parts on perspective and shading seem to be okay, but let's face it, those aren't why you're thinking of buying this book.

Amazing the work that is coming from my young daughter from using this book. The hints and help in the book is truly very easy for a young child to fully understand. The shipping was super fast so that is like amazing bonus

A good introduction book for any manga beginner. Good samples provided for eyes, body, poses, hands, clothing, some pets and drawings techniques. Happy to add this book to my Christopher Harts Collection

I very seldom like to give an average rating to any item. The author of this book had a very clear idea of what he wanted to accomplish but it wasn't necessarily a beginners guide. It does have some basics of beginning drawing and then veers from there. It doesn't cover supplies needed. I really wanted something that would go into the specifics of shading and that didn't happen either. This is a great intermediate book if you are looking. And I believe it is especially good if you are looking for Manga with a Japanese flavor. I hope to have this book be a great help once I reach the level it caters to.

This was actually a Christmas present for a 14 year old boy that I noticed was always trying to draw Manga. He has told me since opening it at Christmas that he loves it. He uses it all the time for reference and that even his younger siblings have attempted some of the tutorials.

Well my title says it all as well!

This book is exactly what most people need to start drawing manga right away. Starting with the most basic of all things, character design!

The book consists of a lot of different tips and guidance on how to draw characters. starting from the front view, the profile to the 3/4 views of the characters face,body and poses. It also has the basic tips and instructions on drawing weapons and clothes.

Just when you thought you are done by mastering those basics, the book teaches something more in a form of drawing animals, anthropods, shading ,colouring and drawing backgrounds!

The tips on drawing from perspective is in fact, in my opinion, a very useful tip for any artist in particular.

Overall, the book has everything the beginner needs to learn to start drawing right away! but, advanced or even intermediate artists may find this book a bit lacking, but why buy a book for beginners when you are higher in skill level in the first place?

Apparently I'm too much of a beginner for this book. It has some good advice about how to start out drawing heads in different perspectives, which was nice and helpful, but then it quickly starts giving advice like "now draw some hair" or "now some eyes" without the helpful step-by-step on how to do that.

For the record, I'm absolutely terrible at drawing and was hoping for something to help me work on the bare-basics of drawing manga style. I feel like, if I were a little better and more familiar with drawing in general or if I were skilled at another style then this probably would have been helpful, but for a complete newbie like myself it went off the rails quickly.

I don't know a thing on how to draw manga so I bought this book. I fell in love with it when it taught me how to draw a proper head but I became heart broken when i found that it does not have instructions on how to build a body from start. Very dissapointing but great it you already know how to do the basics. If you become frustrated like me try looking online for the basic body tutorial.

This is not what i would really call a start drawing right away book it's hard to understand even for my friend that knows how to draw magna,anime & chibi.was not what i was excepting cuz i not only bought this for myself but bought it for my "adopted" nephew in england who is 10/11..would not have bought it if i would have seen it first hand..bit sad..

This is a great book if you are not a beginner but if you are don't get this book. Me as a beginner I need detailed step by step instruction on drawing and this book just does not give it. This book will give you a few examples and some witty comments and thats it.

i shop the store for my granddchildren who live 300 miles away and who are now 13, 10 & 6. their mother creates a "wish list" on the store for each child and that's how i learned of this wonderful service for
grannies who don't see their precious ones daily or weekly. Phoebe was truly ecstatic with all of the Manga products i bought, as well as Henry's pleasure & delight with the Xtrasaurus (or whatever those things are called), and my 13 year old Phoebe was THRILLED as only a 13 year old girl can be with the
Stylus Mouse Pad. of course, i am clueless about all these items, but the point is the children were
happy, entertained, and joyous the several days we were together. thank you the store. (i tell all my friends with out-of-town grandchilren about this service.)

must say, we live in Texas, 50 miles South of Austin, Texas, and my husband is a Texas ex,
so "HOOK 'EM HORNS!", stem the Crimson Tide and win another Crystal Trophy!! Tonight is the night! Rose Bowl will rock.

linda blevins

As the title suggests, this book is way too Americanized for my tastes. "Manga for Beginners" is closer to regular american cartooning than real manga. Only on a few pages does it actually look like anime. Also, I would not suggest this for a beginner. Mostly it shows pictures and has tips but doesn't have that step-by-step process that most beginners really need to learn how to draw. Overall, I'd say this book is good if you're not too into anime/manga and if you're good at looking at something and copying it without a step-by-step description of how to get to it, otherwise it would be my very last choice for learning how to draw manga.

-- Beware revues are manupulated for that item, and all items from that author, I got already have 2 bad review on my comment. --

It got all kind of nice drawing and there is no step by step. It's some kinda all dressed book. Just showing some bones and and a between, then the end. Click on the page. I rarely don't read reviews, the book title promise alot and the first pages. But it dose not tell what pencil to use, it just shoot you: here you go draw this. I never draw before, I am the real beginner, that book is not healping me much, IT'S TO HARD FOR BIGENNER.

I got this book a while ago when i got more into manga/anime. This book contains 8 chapters which are very good and solid. It gives you an overall of manga characters and even Chibis, manga animals, anthros, clothing, action poses and Shounen.

Overall: The whole book is very good in itself and it guides u step by step on how to draw each of the subjects that this book covers, the only thing that i believe is missing "big time" are the Eyes. This doesn't give a lot of details or step by step on how to draw them. Now this book is straigh japanese manga style from around the 90's, i believe so.

My suggestion: Get it while you can and get one the covers the eye in more details.

I understand now why Christopher Hart's books sell so well. He speaks like he's a master of the subject and convinces you that every step of the way will be easy as long as he's guiding you. That's not true, though. Manga is hard to draw, and I find it discouraging that Mr. Hart makes it out like it's going to be easy. If this had been the first how to draw book I ever got, I'd have given up, assuming I'd done something wrong because my drawings aren't as good as his and I had to work so hard to make them. Manga's hard to draw, but he doesn't tell you and you've got to find out for yourself. Also, not everything he says is right. For example, cyberpunk is almost always used as a reference to a genre, not a character. Besides, the "cyberpunk" he draws is not a cyberpunk character. Also, Mr. Hart is not shy about drawing racy. I wouldn't get this book for young children. If you ignore that, though, the pictures are rather pretty. That's the book's only redeeming aspect.

This book really did get me started drawing manga. The directions are easy to follow with good tips for drawing. The only part I didn't understand was the vanishing points section but I pretty much got everything else. One part I wish it would've gone over was the wrinkles in clothes. Although the book was pretty good, I'm working on realistic drawings but for anyone who wants to draw manga, this is really the right book to start off at.

I see a lot of more experienced and accomplished artists and illustrators complaining about details , but as a beginner I found it very rewarding, very quickly. I don't think that I am learning anything too specific that will harm me down the road, I couldn't draw a frog or really a square very well. My first picture was better than I would have hoped for after a month...

If I can find where the store has moved the add a picture button, I will try to post a pic of my first drawing.

This book is really good at teaching the beginner the basics, like making a circle and creating the center lines and placing the eyes, ears and nose properly.

I do think it could spend more time on the eyes. But really, if you want to get a book that will have you drawing faces in a DAY it is pretty amazing!

Although this might look like a nice manga drawing book to buy for your daughter (Or yourself) It's really not. I draw manga, so I should know. Although he can do sparkly eyes, pretty shading, fancy clothes he can not get the basics! Seriously, even though you might consider manga as a silly art style where you simply add sparkly huge eyes and funky hair, we do have rules. This guy can't even get the eyes to look the same direction. It's kind of pathetic. Christopher Hart is a great cartoonist, but manga and cartoons are not the same thing. If you want a real manga book, get Mark Crilleys Mastering Manga. It made me such a better artist. Or just look at real manga! You can find it at a library. A good artist to copy is Natsuki Takaya. Try anything but this book.

I bought this 2 years Ago or so. When I first started to draw out of memory it was terrible. This book helped me so much! Now I can draw out of memory perfectly. I always loved art and painting so I had to learn how to draw manga because I love anime and manga. So now I draw perfection! It helped me with how to design there clothes and there hands and faces out of memory. When I began to learn I could draw exactly like the book but if I tryed to do it out of memory it came out terrible. If it wasn't for this book I'd never have drawn anime out of memory. I bought it a bookstore. Now I gave it to my friend and shes practicing. I LOVE THIS BOOK!~<3 ^.^ This book just keepes on giving <3

This book is good for all levels. I have
other books on the subject but this one
is one of my favorites. The drawings
are well done and the instructions are easy
to understand. And it covers many different
areas of drawing manga not just one. I recommend
this book to those who are learning to draw and
those who want to get better at it.

Let me be frank. DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. It teaches nothing. While some may be wooed by it's pages of drawings, it does little to teach someone who does not know much about drawing how to actually... draw.

While this is a common folly of many "How to draw Manga" books, it is especially evident here. The only real tutorials he gives are on face construction and those are brief. The rest of it he gives a little bit of advice (usually not helpful) and pictures, other than that you're on your own, and that's at it's best. A good half the book are just series of drawings teaching people how to draw extremely clichéd character.

Except it doesn't teach you how to actually draw those characters. It shows the steps of construction but not WHY you do things nor the theory behind them and it is the theory that is much more important when learning to draw well. How to foreshorten, when to foreshorten, how to go about constructing the body etc.

A much better book is More How To Draw Manga Volume 1: The Basics Of Character Drawing. Unlike this book it has pages dealing with the basics. How to construct a body, how to draw hair so that it's realistic, how to ensure charachters look the same at different angles. The stuff that is worth learning, the stuff that makes the difference between a good drawing and a bad drawing.

If you don't care to learn the basics and want to have a book full of cliché's by all means buy this book. If you want to actually learn to draw and draw well, I recommend More How to Draw Manga in concert with a few other books, from which you can piece together the needed information to draw well because, as I've found no one book covers everything

You gotta be already pretty functionnal at drawing before reading this book. It goes right to the point and explains specifics details about mangas and how to draw them.

In no time, I was drawing pretty fine faces. There's a lot of explanations about eyes which is usually the main point of focus about mangas.

For the body, I found the list of tricks a bit short. So... I'm still practicing that part... understanding things on my own takes a bit longer.

All in all, Quite satisfied with the book!

Christopher Hart is a excellent cartoonist. But when it comes to manga, he is simply dabbling. His books on how to draw manga are insipid and lacking in any real substance. They teach you how to draw things incorrectly and lack any real and solid instructional value. If you want to learn how to draw manga, refer to Comickers or How to Draw Manga. Avoid Christopher Hart's books like the plauge.

This is a good how to draw manga book, the characters that Chris Hart shows are very authentic to that of Japanese manga. However, I have to agree with some of the reviews that this book isn't exactly for beginners. I recommend that you practice your drawing skills till you are comfortable with drawing before using this book.

In my late 30's, the biggest qualm of my youth was the Japanimation used in the "Speed Racer" cartoons - Why couldn't they be like the rest? Well, such is not the case with today's kids. My 12 year-old stepdaughter, who's a fan of both art and Japanimation, can't put this book down. It takes up hours of time. She showed us a picture a few days after receiving it - while a disturbing image of a busty half woman, half animal - was very well drawn. So, I can only assume that the book is a great "how to" for the age group.

Christopher Hart has been around since I was a kid. When you're a kid, anyone who seems to be able to draw is an artistic wizard. Then you grow up and if you really love art, learn how to draw correctly.... and learn the best advice to give is to AVOID ALL SO CALLED art instruction by Christopher Hart. He jumps onto whatever is popular without truly understanding it.

Now, I suppose this book wasn't really for me, because I am not a "beginner" I've been trying to learn manga for about 5 years, and I've already learned a few things like how to draw faces. I got this book to try and help me draw anatomy, and, well...It doesn't really help me with that. I feel like it isn't doing a very good job at teaching you stuff. If you're like me and want to know anatomy better, I wouldn't recommend this. I would recommend "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Drawing Manga: Illustrated." I just feel like it explains things better, and more worth the money.

It is said that this book is 'A simple way to learn manga.' Well, two things are wrong with that statement.

1. Drawing manga is not simple, never has been and some book will not change that.

2. This is barely even manga. It is cartoon, and is lacking too much.

I don't recomend this. I say you go with something that drawing manga is, complex. Even for a beginner, starting with something more complicate give people more of a feel for what manga really is about.

I checked many books from the library on drawing manga. This is the one my 9 year old loved and learned to draw from. She is a budding artist now because of the book. I would highly recommended this book. I'm buying it now so we have it all the time.

If you want to learn how to draw in an anime/manga style, don't get these books. The person who creates these books doesn't really know or understand the first thing about a "good" anime/manga art style. He refers to all anime art styles as "manga", even though manga is actually what Japan calls their comic books.

Christopher Hart is a truly rude, horrible person who does not deserve your money. Someone very politely and respectfully gave him critique on an art piece of his online, and his response was, "in the future, if you offer someone a lesson, be sure that you draw at least as well as the person whom your are lecturing." How rude!

I will never, ever buy this person's books, or anything else he sells. If you truly want to learn to draw in a Japanese style, check Deviantart and Pixiv for art tutorials. There are THOUSANDS of free ones, and a lot of people on tumblr have compilation blogs for tutorials. And they're all written by actual artists, and explained by actual artists who use the styles (Hart claims to be an artist, but has no knowledge of sketch construction or anatomy, which can be seen in his books and on his DA - you'll be learning artistic methods incorrectly if you use only these books to try to improve).

This book doesn't help you learn how to draw manga. This book isn't basic at all. The art in the book isn't manga. The art style is very "American-ized" but if that style appeals to you and you are already an Ok artist then I recomend this book. If you are like me and prefer real manga and some what basic steps, then you should look elsewhere.