Explains and provides step-by-step instructions on how to draw manga battle scenes, covering fighting, blows, punches, kicks, slaps, throws, grabs, and grappling.
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SKU: B5F538D4
$18.69
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96 reviews for How To Draw Manga: Illustrating Battles
4.5out of 5
★★★★★
★★★★★
5
★★★★★
3
★★★★★
1
★★★★★
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★★★★★
The book content us good but the pages are vaguely attached –
The material where the pages bend is really fragile and easy to rip apart, so do not try to put it completely flat and be extra careful in each bend, I recommend using something to keep the page from moving (Like a pen or something else), I love the style of battles from old mangas and this book has really a lot of references to use, if you are looking for references of fights this is the book you need
Helpful(0)Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
★★★★★
Cyanid –
This book is short, and is actually composed of a bunch of inked demonstrative drawings with short comments pointing to important details for each topic covered. There’s an additional interesting section in the back of a few other artists individually covering their process of drawing a featured full-page action pose shot with fully-envisioned characters and scenery.
Considering the dearth of books on this topic, the book doesn’t actually teach you how to draw real specific techniques for different martial arts styles as I hoped, but more general manga cliches, like how to draw a character cartoonishly dissolving into a whirlwind of blows in a heated action scene, to how to draw a character slapping another in the face for dramatic or comedic value. It assumes you already know human anatomy, so it’ll point you out more to focus on the awkwardness of the position of someone being tossed flying through the air rather than where each limb should actually be, how long an arm is compared to someone’s body, the bulges of the muscles, basics like that. It doesn’t at all cover fighting with weapons.
If you read a lot of manga with fight scenes, you’ve probably already noticed the sort of stuff covered in this book, such as drawing speed lines. But for what it does, the commented drawings are very clear and cover the action from multiple angles, so I can definitely recommend it if you want to plan out and draw fight scenes with a manga flair, and already know basics on human anatomy.
Note though that some of the drawings do include nudity, mostly of the female anatomy.
Helpful(0)Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
★★★★★
Quinn –
There isnt really a lot i can say about the book, its perfect for getting your combat and battle sceens just right. this book combind with How to Draw Manga Volume 7: Amazing Effects v. 7 (How to Draw Manga (Graphic-Sha Numbered)) will help any aspiring manga artist give their work more impact.
Buy it or miss out.
Helpful(0)Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
★★★★★
cesar –
This book show you how to draw fight escene of how to make the character to fight, to tell you the thruth it doesnt really show you much to draw the body, eyes, hand,expression ect. Anyway is a not a begginer book is more like advance people who know how to draw well. But anyway it is a really cool book to draw action scene and other cool stuff but i really like this book, hope you make a good choice!
Helpful(0)Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
★★★★★
Alex the great –
I used to get these HOW TO DRAW MANGA books at the Walden Book Store in the mall, when I was a middle schooler teen growing up. Every time I get one now, I get the nostalgia memories of sitting in the corner on the floor of the store near the display window being surrounded by white shelves of books, and the sound of the echoing voices of shoppers in the mall. I used to love to draw and watch anime. Though I haven’t sketched in a few years, I still like to buy these now and then to add to my collection. It’s sort of a nostalgic hobby I suppose.
They helped me a lot back then when I needed help learning the shading techniques and wrinkles in the clothing, and male and female body shapes and structure. Now they might be a little outdated, but I still enjoy going through them for the memories of those trips to the mall and getting these at the Walden Book Store. The Walden Book Store, Wizards of the Coast shop, and Sam Goody were my favorite stores and the highlight of the trip. *Sigh* Good times at the mall back then. I wouldn’t trade those days for anything.
Helpful(0)Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
★★★★★
The book content us good but the pages are vaguely attached –
The perfect book for aspiring mangaka, great help for illustrating battles, including drawing injuries.
Helpful(0)Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
★★★★★
TW –
I started taking martial arts a couple of years ago just to help my cartoon characters learn to fight in a realistic way… this book can save you a couple steps (and dollars!) Beautiful pictures, very helpful, but I would not recommend this as a “how to draw” book for beginners… it’s not good with ‘step by step’ stuff. If you can already draw, and want to figure out how to lay out ‘speed lines’ and dynamic action scenes, then this is a very good book for you! This book has shown me many moves I already know, but it puts it in an artists perspective, something my martial arts teacher lacks… It also has many other things I didn’t know, it covers many styles of fighting. Being a Japanese release, it also has a big “Girls in Sailor School Uniforms Fighting” chapter, very helpful if you are drawing girls fighting in Sailor School uniforms.(?!) You have to love Manga to have an appreciation for that… heehee. In short, you don’t have to sign up for Martial Arts lessons to learn how to draw realistic fighting scenes… this book WILL help. (I will continue to take my classes though!) The other books in this series are wonderful, as well, I can’t wait for them to release more!
Helpful(0)Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
★★★★★
Hansel –
First of all this is an amazing and deep book concerning the illustration of battle in manga. (But it can also help with comics and even battle paintings) after learning from this book you will seen a huge improvement in the showing of force and fluidness of your battle. Making your work look more professional.
The only downside I can give (not really a downside) is that this book is not the best if you are only starting. You will learn to draw battles better even if you can only draw a stick but the book assumes you already have some more advance knowledge of human proportion, expressions and anatomy. However it still get’s a five from me, is very good.
Update: Warning, if you plan to gift this book to a kid, take in mind that some pages do feature Topless women for anatomy purposes, the posses while not inherently sexual could he a tad suggestive.
Helpful(0)Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
★★★★★
Joanna Rachael Gowdy –
This a great reference guide with some really useful information for staging fight scenes/panels for maximum impact. Though there isn’t really a lot of “How To” in the sections of this book, there is some useful instructional information; it’s just not step by step. Keep in mind that this series was originally released for another market as well as specific target audience, so there’s some partial nudity and content that a parent might not feel entirely comfortable with a younger child having access to.
If you have other books from the series, this is more of the same. There is a lot of artwork, of varying degrees of quality, accompanied by notes in the peripheral areas putting everything into context. Combined with some of the more character or design driven volumes HTDM Illustrating Battles makes for a good supplement for the aspiring manga or comic book artist looking to add some hand to hand combat to their work.
The book content us good but the pages are vaguely attached –
The material where the pages bend is really fragile and easy to rip apart, so do not try to put it completely flat and be extra careful in each bend, I recommend using something to keep the page from moving (Like a pen or something else), I love the style of battles from old mangas and this book has really a lot of references to use, if you are looking for references of fights this is the book you need
Cyanid –
This book is short, and is actually composed of a bunch of inked demonstrative drawings with short comments pointing to important details for each topic covered. There’s an additional interesting section in the back of a few other artists individually covering their process of drawing a featured full-page action pose shot with fully-envisioned characters and scenery.
Considering the dearth of books on this topic, the book doesn’t actually teach you how to draw real specific techniques for different martial arts styles as I hoped, but more general manga cliches, like how to draw a character cartoonishly dissolving into a whirlwind of blows in a heated action scene, to how to draw a character slapping another in the face for dramatic or comedic value. It assumes you already know human anatomy, so it’ll point you out more to focus on the awkwardness of the position of someone being tossed flying through the air rather than where each limb should actually be, how long an arm is compared to someone’s body, the bulges of the muscles, basics like that. It doesn’t at all cover fighting with weapons.
If you read a lot of manga with fight scenes, you’ve probably already noticed the sort of stuff covered in this book, such as drawing speed lines. But for what it does, the commented drawings are very clear and cover the action from multiple angles, so I can definitely recommend it if you want to plan out and draw fight scenes with a manga flair, and already know basics on human anatomy.
Note though that some of the drawings do include nudity, mostly of the female anatomy.
Quinn –
There isnt really a lot i can say about the book, its perfect for getting your combat and battle sceens just right. this book combind with How to Draw Manga Volume 7: Amazing Effects v. 7 (How to Draw Manga (Graphic-Sha Numbered)) will help any aspiring manga artist give their work more impact.
Buy it or miss out.
cesar –
This book show you how to draw fight escene of how to make the character to fight, to tell you the thruth it doesnt really show you much to draw the body, eyes, hand,expression ect. Anyway is a not a begginer book is more like advance people who know how to draw well. But anyway it is a really cool book to draw action scene and other cool stuff but i really like this book, hope you make a good choice!
Alex the great –
I used to get these HOW TO DRAW MANGA books at the Walden Book Store in the mall, when I was a middle schooler teen growing up. Every time I get one now, I get the nostalgia memories of sitting in the corner on the floor of the store near the display window being surrounded by white shelves of books, and the sound of the echoing voices of shoppers in the mall. I used to love to draw and watch anime. Though I haven’t sketched in a few years, I still like to buy these now and then to add to my collection. It’s sort of a nostalgic hobby I suppose.
They helped me a lot back then when I needed help learning the shading techniques and wrinkles in the clothing, and male and female body shapes and structure. Now they might be a little outdated, but I still enjoy going through them for the memories of those trips to the mall and getting these at the Walden Book Store. The Walden Book Store, Wizards of the Coast shop, and Sam Goody were my favorite stores and the highlight of the trip. *Sigh* Good times at the mall back then. I wouldn’t trade those days for anything.
The book content us good but the pages are vaguely attached –
The perfect book for aspiring mangaka, great help for illustrating battles, including drawing injuries.
TW –
I started taking martial arts a couple of years ago just to help my cartoon characters learn to fight in a realistic way… this book can save you a couple steps (and dollars!)
Beautiful pictures, very helpful, but I would not recommend this as a “how to draw” book for beginners… it’s not good with ‘step by step’ stuff. If you can already draw, and want to figure out how to lay out ‘speed lines’ and dynamic action scenes, then this is a very good book for you!
This book has shown me many moves I already know, but it puts it in an artists perspective, something my martial arts teacher lacks… It also has many other things I didn’t know, it covers many styles of fighting.
Being a Japanese release, it also has a big “Girls in Sailor School Uniforms Fighting” chapter, very helpful if you are drawing girls fighting in Sailor School uniforms.(?!) You have to love Manga to have an appreciation for that… heehee.
In short, you don’t have to sign up for Martial Arts lessons to learn how to draw realistic fighting scenes… this book WILL help. (I will continue to take my classes though!)
The other books in this series are wonderful, as well, I can’t wait for them to release more!
Hansel –
First of all this is an amazing and deep book concerning the illustration of battle in manga. (But it can also help with comics and even battle paintings) after learning from this book you will seen a huge improvement in the showing of force and fluidness of your battle. Making your work look more professional.
The only downside I can give (not really a downside) is that this book is not the best if you are only starting. You will learn to draw battles better even if you can only draw a stick but the book assumes you already have some more advance knowledge of human proportion, expressions and anatomy. However it still get’s a five from me, is very good.
Update: Warning, if you plan to gift this book to a kid, take in mind that some pages do feature Topless women for anatomy purposes, the posses while not inherently sexual could he a tad suggestive.
Joanna Rachael Gowdy –
This a great reference guide with some really useful information for staging fight scenes/panels for maximum impact. Though there isn’t really a lot of “How To” in the sections of this book, there is some useful instructional information; it’s just not step by step. Keep in mind that this series was originally released for another market as well as specific target audience, so there’s some partial nudity and content that a parent might not feel entirely comfortable with a younger child having access to.
If you have other books from the series, this is more of the same. There is a lot of artwork, of varying degrees of quality, accompanied by notes in the peripheral areas putting everything into context. Combined with some of the more character or design driven volumes HTDM Illustrating Battles makes for a good supplement for the aspiring manga or comic book artist looking to add some hand to hand combat to their work.