How to Draw Manga: Giant Robots

Rating:
Summary: ALMOST AS GOOD AS MECHA MANIA - STILL A MUST HAVE FOR MECHA
Review: I know some of you may go to this page and might not be sure if you should go ahead and buy the book, saying maybe you should just get Mecha Mania instead. I say get both, like I said before in a previous review, tutorials and resources on drawing mecha are rare, so you should grab this book alongside Mecha Mania. I would have gave this book 5 stars, but they didn't show how to draw a robot step by step through a pretty good progression like in Mecha Mania. Instead they just show the finnish product and show you the shapes and methods you would use. That is a fault this book has compared to Mecha Mania. On the good side though, this book has some advantages over Mecha Mania in many ways. First it shows you more different examples of robots and has a large number and variety of accessories and styles. This book is also pretty much set up the same way Mecha mania is set up, even show how to draw cyborg women but a little more realistic.

This is how the book is set up:
SECT 1: BASIC ROBOT DESIGN
A. FULL BODY
B. HEAD
C. TRUNK
D. CHEST
E. HIPS
F. SHOULDER AND ELBOW JOINTS
G. SHOULDERS
H. HANDS
I. ARMS: OVERALL DESIGN
J. LEGS
(WITH MORE SUB SECTIONS FOR EACH)

SECT 2: COMBAT ROBOTS
A. DESIGN BASED ON KNIGHTS ARMOR
B. ROBOTS BASED ON COMBAT UNIFORM
C. DESIGN HEAD
D. WEAPONS
E. MAGAZINE ARRANGEMENTS
F. TRANSPORTATION UNITS
G. COLOR EXPRESSION AND SPEACIAL EFFECTS
H. DESIGNING ORIGINAL ROBOTS
(MORE DETAIL FOR EACH)

SECT 3: FEMALE ROBOTS
(GOES THROUGH ALL OF THAT, COMPARING A REGULAR MANGA STYLE FIGURE TO A FINAL CYBORG LOOKING CHARCHTER.)

All and all it is an excellant companion to Mecha Mania. You must and I mean must go get this book! Dont let the no image scare you, just look for another site where you can see the picture. In conclusion, just get this book if you are serious and want to learn how to draw mecha, it is an extra source of information where information on this subject is scarce. Peace out, untill another book or product worthy of my praise and review!

G Money a.k.a Guardian
"I eliminate all obstacles"
- Heero Yuy

Rating:
Summary: The best so far on learning to draw mecha
Review: There are few books on this subject - this is an excellent primer on drawing robots of all sorts. If you are looking to draw mecha and robots of all kinds and flavors this is the one to get above all other books on this subject so far. Covers various styles of mecha from 'hero'-style super robots (gaiking, mazinger, etc), to Transformer-type robots (including faces - useful) to the more Gundam-style mecha.

Only gripes is a section towards the end covering designing a robot - it uses CGI and wireframes and is difficult to visualize - this book deals with illustrating but this section explains with CGI modelling- doesn't work at all as a visual example. Better to have had 7 pages filled with more 'stuff' like more examples of articulation, weapons, heads, thrusters, etc - for inspiration. Could've also shaved a few pages off the female robot section for more mecha examples.

If you want the ultimate mecha duo, combine this book with the Model Graphix Special Edition "Gundam Wars III Gundam Sentinel" book (in Japanese, but has pages and pages of mecha, weapons, tranformation sequences) and you'll be on your way in no time! Or research on the Internet - plenty of additional inspiration to complement this book.

Rating:
Summary: The best so far on learning to draw mecha
Review: There are few books on this subject - this is an excellent primer on drawing robots of all sorts. If you are looking to draw mecha and robots of all kinds and flavors this is the one to get above all other books on this subject so far. Covers various styles of mecha from 'hero'-style super robots (gaiking, mazinger, etc), to Transformer-type robots (including faces - useful) to the more Gundam-style mecha.

Only gripes is a section towards the end covering designing a robot - it uses CGI and wireframes and is difficult to visualize - this book deals with illustrating but this section explains with CGI modelling- doesn't work at all as a visual example. Better to have had 7 pages filled with more 'stuff' like more examples of articulation, weapons, heads, thrusters, etc - for inspiration. Could've also shaved a few pages off the female robot section for more mecha examples.

If you want the ultimate mecha duo, combine this book with the Model Graphix Special Edition "Gundam Wars III Gundam Sentinel" book (in Japanese, but has pages and pages of mecha, weapons, tranformation sequences) and you'll be on your way in no time! Or research on the Internet - plenty of additional inspiration to complement this book.

Rating:
Summary: Great, but lacked some important "mecha" parts.
Review: Wether you're designing your own mecha and want to make them more "realistic," or just beginning to get into the entire mecha genre; this would be a great book for inspiration.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who's even partially interested in giant, walking "death-mobiles." There's lots of good ideas for the externals of mecha, and what their functions are.

However, it didn't earn the fifth star only because it had no information about the cockpit or any of the various power sources that are often talked about in mecha animes or manga comics. And a section on the various parts of a cockpit would have been extremely useful.

But on the plus side, it had useful information about joints, weaponry, and arm structure. It even used examples of a crane and compared the movement to a mecha. I also really liked all the different military weaponry displayed. In fact, there's a good 4 or 5 pages devoted to missile launchers, rifles, machine guns, etc...

Like one of the reviewers said, though, this book is really useful when used in conjunction with "Mecha Mania," which describes differences in Japanese and American mecha. And let me tell you, there are differences.

The last part, which is on female based mecha, is quite comical. There's even a "playboy bunny" type mecha, which I found quite hilarious. But in its own twisted way, the techniques can be applied to any type of mecha and even can be used for inspiration. But I guess any of the "How to Draw Manga" books has quite an array of useful techniques that could be applied to anything.

Hopefully a counterpart to this book will be published to fill in the holes left by this one, but it is, after all, the basics of drawing Giant Robots.

Rating:
Summary: This book kicks "bot"!!! (okay,bad pun)
Review: What I really liked about this book is how it translates a robot body by using the basic human shape and making it blocky and reshaping it accordingly. (Mostly because I was arguing with someone that this is the right was to draw robots and he said otherwise - ha! ^-^) This way, you can use your knowledge of anatomy and easily, with some practice, make robots as well.

Hayashi simplifies matters by classing each part as much as possible with shapes. For example, eyes being either circular, triangular, or squarish. He takes the same concept to the body, arms, and other areas making easy to understand how to robots are drawn. He even shows how you can get ideas from everyday objects, animals, and humans and turn them into robots.

I was surprised not to see any powered suit-types but then I guess this is strictly robots and powered suits is more of an armor. Otherwise, you can use the information in the last chapter of how to draw female robots and apply it to worn suits.

If you love drawing mecha, I suggest you pick up HTDM Mech. Drawing as well.