Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Foundations in Comic Book Art by John Paul Lowe

book cover
Foundations in Comic Book Art
by John Paul Lowe


ISBN-13: 9780770436964
Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: Watson-Guptill
Released: August 12, 2014

Source: Review copy from the publisher.

Book Description, Modified from Back Cover:
Artists seeking a way to break into the exciting world of sequential art first need to master the tools, techniques, and habits used by their favorite pencillers, inkers, and digital artists for creating dynamic, exciting comic artwork.

In Foundations for Comic Book Art, the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) enlists one of its top instructors, John Paul Lowe, to provide aspiring comic book makers with a thorough primer for creative comics. This book features must-know concepts like contour drawing, mastering perspective, using photo-references, and adding digital patterns. Examples from the works of SCAD faculty, alumni, and students are paired with Lowe’s easy-to-follow, step-by-step lessons and exercises for readers, demonstrating the vital processes all would-be sequential artists have to know.


My Review:
Foundations in Comic Book Art contains concise, easy-to-follow information on the principles of drawing for those interested in sequential art.

Throughout the book, he gave interesting exercises for the reader to do to improve their drawing. The author talked about the basic materials needed to start. He explained freehand drawing, contour lines, perspectives, and figure drawing. He explained some information specific to laying out sequential art and the materials needed to thumbnail, pencil, and ink the images. There were detailed sections on using pen nibs and brushes to ink and basic and advanced inking techniques. There was also a section on using Photoshop to create grids and to add patterns to scanned-in artwork. The illustrations did an excellent job of showing what the author explained in the text.

So it's a very informative and useful book. This book is probably best for a beginner artist interested in drawing comics and the artist who doesn't know the technical processes involved in drawing comics. However, this book didn't go into what it's really like to be involved in comics as an artist or how to best tell a story using the art (since the art carries half the storytelling load in comics). It's also pretty light on using digital tools to make comics. But it does well at what it set out to do.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Read an excerpt using Google Preview.

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