Two types of books that I refuse to turn down no matter what is in it, if given to me. Cook Books and art books.

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

Same! Although nobody every offers me cook books. But I'm always taking old artbooks from friends and family.

"The Art of Yoh Yoshinari - Rough Sketches", one of my favorite animators at Trigger and of all time. Just seeing his rough sketches and ideas always gets me pumped to start drawing.

Some of my favorites: “The Illusion of Life” - Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston “Cartoon Animation” - Preston Blair “Drawn To Life” - Walt Stanchfield “How To Draw” -Scott Roberson “Drawing From Life” - George Bridgman “Perspective Made Easy” - Ernest Norling “Framed Ink” - Marcos Mateu-Mestre “Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth” - Andrew Loomis “Elemental Magic” - Joseph Gilland “Morpho” - Michel Lauricella “Keys to Drawing” - Bert Dodson “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” - Betty Edward’s

If you can get your hands on a physical copy of the "Famous Artists Cartoon Course" it is a real treasure. It shows up on eBay from time to time. Otherwise, it is in the public domain digitally. It contains lessons and tutorials from some of the most famous cartoonists from the mid-20th century. Well worth your time.

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

Just found it online. looks like it's entered the public domain for free! edit: ha! you mentioned that in your comment, I should have read fully before googling :D

I've had that first cartooning book for over 30 years, got it from my grandmother when I was a child. It's in my line of sight right now.

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

It's a classic!

A acouple of books I'd add to the list: How to Draw comics, The Marvel Way - Not only is it a guide for paneling comics and anatomy, its really a book about composition and entire scene outlining. George Bridgeman Constructive Anatomy - A really priceless book on gesture drawing in taking the form and understanding how it moves. literally breaking down anatomy and chisels out features as if you were sculpting.

@dplj4428

Ай бұрын

I spent a month daily drawing from Dynamic anatomy by Burn Hogarth. It was scary to see how much my pencil drawing technique had improved, not just my understanding of the range of human movement. I also have Bridgeman. But from Hogarth it was movement not just anatomy.

@ChrisArtsTube

Ай бұрын

@dplj4428 dynamic figure drawing is a good one!

@wastedinspiration

Ай бұрын

Was looking for someone to mention the Bridgeman books. Totally must-haves in my opinion, and I recommend Constructive Anatomy for EVERYONE

@ChrisArtsTube

Ай бұрын

@wastedinspiration bridgeman is definitely overshadowed by loomis but I find bridgeman to be more intuitive with his forms. Rather than just saying and showing proportions and a breakdown gesture, Bridgeman makes forms from moldings, hinges, architecture, things we see so regularly that it takes just a sliver of an imagination to anthropomorphise it.

@wastedinspiration

Ай бұрын

@@ChrisArtsTubeExactly! I found that Bridgeman was helpful in really UNDERSTANDING the forms, which was helpful in figuring out how to take a figure and turn it or adjust it if the reference wasn't perfect. It's almost sculptural.

I have all the the Etherington Brothers books, and just did the most recent Kickstarter. I can recommend these as being more than worth the cost. These books are completely priceless.

@kabobchanx

Ай бұрын

AHHH IVe gotta get my hands one one of those BOOKs!! gotta keep my eyes peeled for the next kickstarter

A book I got all the way back in 2013 was "The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics" by Freddie Williams II. I haven't really looked at it in some years ( _I would now, but I moved all my books already to a new place where I'll be living soon_ ), but I really like it. Something I still use from it is the "blue adjustment layer" action it tells you how to make. Now, it might seem like "just make the lower layer transparent a little." when inking, but I guess that didn't occur to me at the time, lol. I really liked how that made inking easier by making the lower "sketch" layers a light blue over which to draw the inks on another layer. I have it set to one of my "radial controls" when I'm on my desktop with an old Intuos 4 or Intuos Pro. If you like the Psychonauts 2 art book, you MIGHT like the Broken Age artbook, too. The lead artist for Broken Age was Nathan "Bagel" Stapley who has been with Double Fine "from the beginning" (according to Tim Schafer in the "Double Fine Adventure" documentary Episode 4).

i'm terrible at learning especaily from books but some good books you've not mentioned are - How to Draw Comics the "Marvel" Way Constructive Anatomy by George b. bridgeman and Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures - Volume 1. Forgot Morpho books like simplified forms is good too.

“Comics & Sequential Art” by Will Eisner, “The Illusion of Life” by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

Ohh I need to read that. I hear it was a big influence on Scott McCloud

@dplj4428

Ай бұрын

“A Contract with God”, great storytelling by Will Eisner. A misdirected tortured spirit walks a mile in another man’s s shoes.

Thinking With A Pencil - Henning Nelms. It's less about art and more visualization. It helped me a lot when I was learning how to visualize on paper. The World of MC Escher - Escher & Locher The folio editions of MAD - Kitchen Sink Press. The first 4 years of MAD as a comic book in a folio size. Willie Elder is my hero, and you can't beat the printing in these volumes. "Restaurant!" alone is worth the whole series. Anything Brian Holland draws. Anything David Mazzuchilli draws.

Where is the OG "Cartoon Animation with Preston Blair" an absolute staple for cartooning and animation, also "FUN WITH A PENCIL by Andrew Loomis" from 1939 is the more cartoon oriented book, I would also recommend "The Art of Layout and Storyboarding" by Mark T. Byrne. The next 2 books are essential "Human Anatomy for Artists" and "Anatomy drawing school : human, animal, comparative anatomy" both from Dr. Gyorgy Feher (text) and Andras Szunyoghy (drawing). I've drawn every example of bones, muscles and any combination of both (homework), from these two books from front to back, both when I was in Applied Art High School and at Fine Art Faculty, and I can fully recommend them for any kind of artist if you want to understand anatomy at any level. And I used them as reference any time I needed to understand the structure of a body even for my life-size and larger then life-size sculpting. "How to draw Comic Book Heroes and Villains" by Christopher Hart, 1995, a nice, detailed guide for the stereotypical drawing of comic book characters, still viable till today. "The Mad Art of Caricature" from Tom Richmond.

"An Actor Prepares" by Konstantin Stanislavski. To get better inspiration for character design.

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

Nice! I'll have to look that one up

For beginners, especially those who lack confidence, I HIGHLY recommend Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain by Betty Edwards. I don’t have words to describe how far that book has stretched me and everyone I’ve ever met who read it. I had natural ability before I got a copy of the book (30 years ago) and it still helps me through slumps, to this day.

The how to think when you draw books are freaking amazing. If you can you get these books you are doing yourself a favour.

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

Yeah, I got the first 6 all at once which was a bit pricy but totally worth it. Amazing reference.

@bovineox1111

16 күн бұрын

In the uk on Amazon I think I get the in Japanese 😅

I've been having so much fun with Procreate on my iPad for years, and when they launched Dreams last year, I preordered it and dived right in. One of my friends has done some animation before, and studied art and animation in 3rd level education, and when he saw my childlike enthusiasm, he gifted me a copy of The Animator's Survival Kit. In fact, it was his second copy, which he bought because his first was literally falling apart. Somewhat foolishly, I skipped a bunch of the fundamentals to do an animation of a frog leaping early on, so I laughed out loud when I flicked open the book and just happened to stop on the page where Williams is showing off timing as it relates to a frog jumping!! I also have both art books for the two Spider-verse movies. Absolutely gorgeous! And just as I was writing this, I checked my local bookstore (Alas, not a small mom'n'pop store, but also not a soul-crushing, union-busting, billion dollar mega-Corp) and they have the Art book for TMNT Mutant Mayhem on discount! Yay! AND and, while I was browsing, they also have the artbook for Mitchell's vrs The Machines discounted! Double yay!!

I have some of them, but this book of Charley Harper is crazy ! Perhaps not the simple to find in France but the design is fantastic ! Thanks for sharing 👍🏻

"Strength Training Anatomy" by Frederic Delavier maybe for fitness only, but it's also an amazing resource for artists wanting to learn anatomy. As for cartooning, Preston Blair's "Advanced Animation", Famous Artist School cartooning books, and "Draw the Looney Tunes" by Dan Romanelli are also invaluable as well.

I legitimately found that first book (with the same 1960’s cover) in a little free library when I had my kids at a park. Grabbed it up for my collection!

I would suggest you check out Simon Stålenhag. All of his art is digital but some isn't. I have some books of his series ^^ in English of course, there are Swedish and other languages too. He makes his art more into an art storybook. There is one at work right now and can't wait for it ^^

Hi Brad, love the video as usual. Just a suggestion: you should have a section on your website also for books that you have found useful.

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

That's a great idea!

Thanks for sharing the Charley Harper book...amazing art!

Charley Harper is one of my favorite illustrators.

I love western comic book drawing styles so Christopher Hart is one of my favorites. He has done books on Easy Anatomy, Heroes and Villains, Gritty, "cutting-edge" Comics, and entire book on Comic Book Vixens and Heroines, and I was surprised to find out that he even has books on drawing Anime and Manga too (including Japanese horror, sci-fi, and romance, all of which I now own). I have SO MANY of his books from when I was a kid but never took the time to draw from them because I was more focused on painting and graphic design, ultimately ending up in web design and... I am currently going through Brad's digital drawing course! Took some time to take care of personal issues but am trying to get back at it. I also have the last three (?) 21 Draw series and all of Jazza's resources in his store. Every single one of them. Seriously, Christopher Hart... check him out if you haven't already. Lastly, if you think it is too late to take up art know that Grandma Moses didn't paint her first masterpiece until she was in her 80s and the architect Frank Lloyd Wright's career did not take off until he was in his 60s. So long as you can still breathe, you have time. Much love yall. 🤗

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

I've never heard of him, definitely need to check those out!

You just made me want to go to my local library and spend a day there. I just started drawing last week and I've watched some of your videos. I'm really enjoying myself most of the time and hopefully I'll get better.

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

NICE! it's a great hobby! Keep going!

Mr Brad! Again and again your generosity is a blessing to me and my craft! Than you!!!

Hi Brad! Just wanna say this is another great and entertaining video, love it🙌

The cartoonist's walk cycle has become so standard that people accept it without thinking. But that's actually the walk of someone in a swimming pool. In real life, the foot glides just above the floor. Something to understand, because most people today are applying these things to 3D, not cartoons. Even in line animation, it's important to remember that not every animation is a kid's cartoon. The more realistic you make it, the less this gait works.

Took me two years to work my way through cartooning the head and figure. I really should go back and brush up on my basic skills.

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

I should do the same, it's been sitting on my shelf unused for to long.

Do more of these videos!! I love this!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

This was a great idea for a video, Brad.

The iOS version of the Animator’s Survival Kit takes the book a step further and has a lot of the material fully animated.

(13:05) Following an old Twitter post some years back that I vaguely remember, I only buy art books and art tutorial books that were created by artists and illustrators whose art styles I like. (3:26) When I saw one of the Lorenzo Etherington ‘How To Think When You Draw’ books in the KZread custom thumbnail for this video, I knew I had to watch this video! I love his art style, and of course I had to get all of the Draw (Lorenzo) and Write (Robin) books, as well as related books! One thing Brad may have forgot to show in the video is that the Etherington Brothers (as Lorenzo and Robin refer to themselves together as) include a little 'encyclopedia' that's updated with and provided as part of the Kickstarter campaign for each book (one for the Draw books and another for the Write books), and is basically a unified table of contents for the entire series sorted in alphabetical order. If I recall correctly, there are currently 7 volumes of Draw and 2 volumes of Write. Besides those, the only other art tutorial book I know I have is ‘The Essential Guide to Comic Book Lettering’ by Nate Piekos, which isn't exactly an art tutorial book but a comic lettering tutorial book, specifically covering digital lettering in American style comics. He features many of his fonts in the book, including (as displayed in system font menus) ‘Might Makes Right BB’ for the comic dialogue font shown in examples and ‘Budrick BB’ for body text in the book, and the book covers Adobe Illustrator, but I'm sure I can translate some of the concepts over to Inkscape (and/or Krita vector layers). I also have copies of both Joby Carter signwriting books! (‘Signwriting Tips & Tricks’ and 'All the Fonts of the Fair’, if I recall the titles correctly) I have a number of other books I have digital copies of, but they're Humble Bundle copies currently stuck in the unorganised tag of my Calibre library due to me not having the time to organise them. As for art books, I have some but the only ones I can think of right now are all of the Derek Laufman art books. Thanks to you and others here who have also commented, I have more books I can add to my reading list. (The rest of this comment are about books I don't have copies of) (9:42) Gaaaahhhhhh I forgot about art books for fiction media!! I don't have any but may look into getting some for media I like.

That was really helpful! Thank you 😊

I need a pt 2

I just added that Spider-Man one to my Amazon wishlist. I have that “Todd McFarlane's Spider-Man Artist’s Edition ” as well. Thanks for sharing.

I remember checking out the Scott McCloud book as a kid. So nostalgic. I still have my animators survival kit book

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

I have the same nostalgia. Understanding comics was the first book about art I ever read as a kid.

Patty cool art book it nice to lean the way of art and animation

Oh wow that Charley Hopper book is great!!

Out of all the art books you mentioned in this video, I already have one of them in my collection, and that’s “The Animator’s Survival Kit,” by the late Richard Williams.

I have a Jack Hamm book on drawing animals that I've had for 40 years. Love his sketches.

It's like 1day ago I was really searching on Google which books I should get for basic animation and now luckily I found you with this video

I love getting "The art of" books for games with unique art styles or have incredibly detailed and strong environment design. I don't have a large library yet but I do have the Breath of the Wild art book and Star wars Jedi Survivor book

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

Ohh, I need to check out the Breath of the Wild art book. It is my favorite game afterall!

@NightFoxZero

Ай бұрын

@@thebradcolbow it's a huge art book with over 400 pages. It's title is legend of Zelda breath of the wild Creating a Champion

Sir please upload videos on Art's school I love to learn from those videos❤

Great list. Perspective! For comic artists by David Chelsea is my recommendation.

There is a wonderful Scott mccloud interview in the Stripped documentary

Nice job. Much appreciated.

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

Thanks Bill!!

I like to hear what books other artists find valuable. There is not enough discussion of these outside of mentorships and friend circles. One of my favorite anatomy books is Anatomy for Artists: A visual guide to the human form by 3DTotal Publishing. It has four different depictions for each breakdown. As for others: Art Fundamentals and Beyond Art Fundamentals also by 3DTotal, and Mastering Composition by Ian Roberts and Interaction of Color: 50th Anniversary Edition by Josef Albers. All recommendations from the school of knowing the rules to be able to break them.

Excellent recs! I was happy to see another comment recommend The Noble Approach by Todd Polson. It's a treasure. I'd add Hand Bacher's Dream Worlds, and his second book, Vision. Both are excellent. For understanding composition simply and efficiently, Molly Bang's Picture This. For animation heads, if you can find a copy, Setting the Scene by Fraser Maclean.

I definitely suggest Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life for anyone looking to get into drawing disney type characters, especially for animation type art!

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

Good stuff, might check that one out for a future list!

Great video. Thanks.

How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way is an absolute must for artists.

An excellent book to consider is "Dynamic Figure Drawing" by Burne Hogarth. This author has some other excellent books as well ("Drawing the Human Head", "Dynamic Drapery"). My impression with these is that you could learn to draw realistic human figures without the aid of live models.

1:30 recommended while I studied animation back in the day and still one of the few books I believe every animator should own

Great info!

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

Thanks!

Into/across the spiderverse made me fall in love with art again.

I have the whole set of Etheringtons books.

I had (maybe have it still?) that red book by Jack Hamm about 30 years ago. I would trace the heads and figures and accidentally got some ink onto the pages. Great book.

The only one I have is Animator's Survival Kit, and it's gold.

@FabledFrame

Ай бұрын

Do yourself a favour. Get 'timing for animation' by Harold Whitaker. It's a smaller book so easily referable at a desk or travel situations. It has as much info for timings with a lot of the fat of the survival kit trimmed. Both are great companions for the other.

@OliveOilBird

Ай бұрын

@@FabledFrame Thanks, I'll check it out!

Those 'How to think when you draw" books look very intuitive and fun. I often feel that these kinda books don't cater to the creative mind ... at least in my case :) Scott McCloud's reached my narrative mind like no other had when I got mine -- and it sure seems like "How to think..." does something similar. Great video! Oh! BTW > what is Wacom up to, they've been flooding my email, IG and FB with adds about something?!

thanks man.

Books you should own if you want to compose like everyone else

One of the art books that I look at the most in my library is a “How to Draw Shoujo Manga” book because, for no discernible reason, the mad lads who made it decided to put the world’s most hardcore perspective tutorials in there. There’s a part about doors and stairs that my dad saw over my shoulder and was like, “Oh yeah, they covered that in my Masters’ of Architecture program.” I used it to solve a perspective problem where I had a horizontal line of tiles that turned an inside corner on a wall by looking at how they did the doors. They even cover things I never understood like how to apply perspective to create a natural-looking picture. I had struggled to make perspective drawings that didn’t look distorted or extreme. Then they were like, Hey, you still have to use your taste and eyes to make it less distorted. I seriously go back to it all the time. (I don’t exactly know how you can find it, but it’s book 5 in a series and it was translated from Japanese)

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

Oh wow, That might be exactly what I need. I started drawing some perspective city backgrounds recently and things got out of proportion fast, especially stairs.

@wastedinspiration

Ай бұрын

If you still have it, might be worth sharing the ISBN

Oh snap! you got a Fractual north PC case aswell?? I bought the exact same just a month ago :D

Hey, does the new Wacom one standard pen gen 2 works with Samsung tablets? I couldn't find anything related to it. Although it shows that it uses EMR.

I'd also recommend "The silver way". Check it out!

Thanks for this great and inspiring overview! I definitively want to get a copy of the Charley Harper book. I also can recommend at least one book: “The Silver way - Techniques, Tips and Tutorials for effective Character Design” by Stephen Silver. Its nearly 250 pages are packed with tons of illustrated tutorials (e.g. gesture drawing, art construction) and inspirational sketches. Greetings from Germany!

1:31 everybody seems to recommend Scott McCloud. A true example of good work being its own best advertiser.

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

Yep! it's taken on a life of its own.

Ahhhhh that Charley Harper one has been in my Amazon cart for ages I better go buy it before you sell it out 😂

What is that music in the intro? Sounds cool😀

How to draw comics the Marvel Way great resource and Framed Ink which I'm half through definitely puts things in perspective 😁

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

Several folks have mentioned the marvel book, I might have to track that one down.

And of course all of Marcos Mateu perspective books

I got the book as a child when my uncle passed away, "Learn to Draw - Jon Gnagy" (apparently from the 1950's, so my uncle probably had it as a kid).

@dplj4428

Ай бұрын

Me also.

Awesome list! 😎 I have 6 out of 9. I don't have the Charlie Harper one, but if you like that style "The Noble Approach: Maurice Noble and the Zen of Animation Design" is a fantastic book - that 40's and 50's Warner style. It looks like it's out of print, so the hardcover is $200 on Amazon, but the Kindle version is $3 as I write this.

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

I just googled Maurice Nobile! wow! I had never really looked at the old loony tunes cartoons for the art before, but wow those backgrounds are fantastic!!

@nancycutler5561

Ай бұрын

Thanks for the kindle tip-I have checked that book out several times, but could not justify the used price. It’s now in my kindle!

@MikeCurranNJ

Ай бұрын

@@thebradcolbow Right, they’re just so good that they don’t get in the way of the story but at the same time contribute to the story. If that makes sense…

@MikeCurranNJ

Ай бұрын

@@nancycutler5561 It’s an amazing resource. I’d love to get my hands on the hardcover one day, but way out of my budget!

Omg psychonaughts is fantastic 🎉

Live this vid!

"How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way" still resonates with me!

I do have the copy of the Animator's survival kit as a pdf format. It was recommended by my Professors when I went to school to become a 3D animator. I really need to make an art library, heh

Just by a nata course book 😂 . I have one and ot includes everything except for the animation category

Maurice Noble is my recommendation

Hello Brad thanks for the video and I love that you're expanding your range, but I wanted to ask - can we get a new 'procreate brushes' video? If my search doesn't lie that last one was THREE YEARS ago and in procreate time that's eternity. I'd love to hear what you use, free and paid

Brad, do you also feel that figure drawing for all it’s worth by loomis is worthwhile?

Could you review Lenovo tab M11?

Wigging hands distract 1:06

Interesting

just wait for Soul Ai ... ;) hehe

Marcos Mateu books. Believe me

The art of adventure time… 600€… But I need it.

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

oof, that's a lot of money but sounds amazing. Also I'll have to check out Mateu

Tha k you for giving me some new books to check out! (⁠☆⁠▽⁠☆⁠) My favorite art books are a pair of art instruction books titled Point Character Drawing by an artist called Taco. There are so many fantastic anatomy references and they're all broken down in such easy-to-remember steps so you know exactly what you're looking for when you're drawing -- two thumbs up!

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

Any book made by someone who calls themselves Taco is definitely going to get my attention! edit: I just googled those books and they look amazing!

Wait-wait-wait! Why is there not a single academic drawing book? Oo

@dplj4428

Ай бұрын

The Scott McCloud “Understanding Comics” qualifies by content and use. I dare you to read it or “Making Comics”. Ooooo!!

@thebradcolbow

Ай бұрын

I would put the Loomis book and the pen book in the academic category. like DPL said, Understanding Comics is also taught in universities. But I get your point, this list was animation/cartoon heavy more than core drawing principles.

I gotta hard disagree with the Loomis book. I think it's harmful for beginners because it makes them start with idealized measurements, and a rigid structure, that are disguised as realism, especially for an artist-at-home who's not going to have the instinctual conclusion to temper the ideas of the book with studies of actual people like you would in an art school or art class. This in the pretense that they have to learn it if they're serious in art even if they use any other style, not just anime or cartoon or comic but also actual portrait artists and prospective realism-oriented concept artists. They really don't need it and I think are more likely to be misled. You're not going to expect typical art-oriented beginners to read those walls of text and digest his words and criticize his ideas properly. I've seen it play out way too many times. Loomis's insights and methods have been covered to oblivion by various teacher-artists on KZread and many of them put him in better context with much better synthesis, and compare them well to other methods, and show the blind spots and good points. To the point that everything most artists need to know from Loomis is better learned from other people. "Every artist" doesn't need the Loomis book. IMO, it's a novelty item, or at best, reading material for experienced artists that has diminishing returns for insight at this point, considering the greater wealth of drawing knowledge on the internet that has built on top of his work and discarded the less useful parts. I couldn't judge the other books in the list in quite the same way. Every Scott McCloud book in his "Comics" series though, highly recommended. It's not just useful for comic artists or comic readers. He has a lot of useful things to say about abstraction and style and communication and artistic choices that really apply to every artist. I wish the video format of Animator's Survival Kit was more available. I really think it's the superior format vs the book because Richard (RIP) actually walks you through and shows the animations in various permutations, but I think they only sell a ridiculously expensive DVD set and an outdated iPad app (I'm not even sure if it still works on modern iPads). There seems to be an iBook format which has videos. but based on the reviews, it seems to be hit or miss so I really can't vouch for it either.

Comics and animation are a rather specific area. The selection may be good, but clearly not for “every” artist.

Aa an artist, most of these books are kinda useless to me. They don't go into depth all that much, just long paragraphs and not enough step by step examples.