How to Draw Manga: Mech. Drawing

Rating:
Summary: Great Mechanical Book
Review: I'll break it down like this; the book goes over several mechanical things. Cars, Planes, Helicopters, and Mechas. ( note there is nothing really on boats and only several pages on Mechas). It also goes over the main textures of mechanical objects. After reading the book and then drawing you can really feel an improvement. Now I feel it is much simpler to draw easier subjects such as people. The only downside I feel is that it really doesnt go into depth on guns. There is about 4 pages total on guns. Half of which is on Mecha's guns.( dont buy this book if you want to learn about drawing guns). Overall the book is a very helpfull refrence, it is probably not for begginer drawers though. I recomdend it strongly for anyone who wants to improve in their area of drawing.

Rating:
Summary: Great for texturing materials found in "solid" items.
Review: This book was great for showing various textures such as chrome, glass, plastic and rubber.

Not only can you apply these things to mecha, per se, but it can also be applied towards houses, buildings, fences, etc...
This was the first book in the series I ever bought, and I must say I have not been disappointed. It gives a lot of useful tips on how to draw cars and helicopters and shows you the basic of "showing speed."

If you look closely at the cover, you'll see that it incorporates everything the book talks about, except for speed lines, but it shows all the textures and detailing.
I liked how it showed that by adding a few straight lines and details, you could turn anything into mecha.

That being said, another thing I'll comment on is how much I've improved my drawings. Before I considered about textures, my drawings looked plain and "dead," but with the stuff about textures, they look alive and ready to battle it out with the next villain that comes their way. My villain characters are also as good, they look truly evil as well.



Rating:
Summary: Covers the other mecha's
Review: What I liked best about this edition is 1) how Yamakami shows you how to illustrate the materials of plastic, chrome, glass, and rubber and 2) how he illustrates a variety of normal vehicles and shows you how to modify and transform them into something else better. For example, turning a race car into a hovercraft auto.

Not just mobile suit mecha armor, this book covers your average mecha from cars, planes, helicoptors, and motorcycles. I would suggest you start with Hayashi's Giant Robot book and follow that up with this edition for those interested in drawing mecha.