Draw 50 Magical Creatures: The Step-by-Step Way to Draw Unicorns, Elves, Cherubs, Trolls, and Many More
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
Draw 50 Magical Creatures: The Step-by-Step Way to Draw Unicorns, Elves, Cherubs, Trolls, and Many More Details
About the Author About Lee J. AmesI’ve been married to Jocelyn for sixty-four years (either I’m lucky or I must have been doing something right). I have a son, Jonathan (his wife’ s name is Cynthia), and a daughter, Alison (her husband is Marty). I have three grand kids named Mark, Lauren, and Hilary. And I dare not omit our two magnificent hybrid canines, Missy and Rosie. All of the above are the makings of my lovely adventure!Me? At eighteen I got my first job, at the Walt Disney Studios. Counting travel time across the country, that job lasted three months. I’ve been cashing in on the glory ever since! I’ve worked in animation, advertising, comic books, teaching, and illustrating books (about 150). I’m the author of more than thirty-five books (mostly the Draw 50 series). All have helped me happily avoid facing reality. We now live in the paradise of Southern California, but I still maintain membership in the Berndt Toast Gang, New York’s chapter of the National Cartoonists Society. About Andrew MitchellAndrew Mitchell writes and draws from his hometown in Orange County, California He was the recipient in 2008 of a Tomie DePaola award certificate for children’s book illustration. He became the first cartoonist in the world to be published on cell phones with his comic strip Hot Rock, finding an audience of readers around the globe. Mitchell is the president of the Cartoonists of Orange County and his illustrations and cartoons have appeared in newspapers (LA Times; OC Register; Snicker), magazines (Relix; Boing Boing), books (Random House ; Writers Digest Books) and videogames (Activision; Bandai America). His book Draw 50 Magical Creatures, a how-to art book for kids, hit bookstores across the country in October, 2009. Mitchell is a founding member of Studio Five. Read more Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. As you work, it is a good idea to have a mirror available. Holding your sketch up to the mirror from time to time can show you distortions you might not see otherwise. As you are adding to the steps, you may discover that they are becoming too dark. Here's where the kneaded eraser becomes particularly useful. You can lighten the darker penciling by strongly pressing the clay-like eraser onto the dark areas. Read more
Reviews
I have about a dozen of these "Draw 50 --" books, and this is the first to disappoint. The other books start with the basic shapes such as circles, ovals, squares, etc., and lead one from there to creating the desired drawing. This is a most excellent method of learning to draw whatever interests you, and it is fairly easy to then use the same techniques to put that subject in different poses.This one, however, seems to have been made from the finished picture backwards, as if he had just kept erasing lines and details to get back to step one. So, you are just drawing the outline and filling in the details. If you make even slight variations or even mistakes, you will not even come close to the same finished drawings. The characters are a bit hokey, but would have been fun to draw if there had been some basis for building and then changing them. This way there is only the opportunity to draw them exactly as Mr.Ames has drawn them. I think that minimizes the usefulness of this book quite a lot. I can, however, recommend most of the others in this series as 5 star products. Check out the Draw 50 horses, cats, dogs, animals, and baby animals for some first rate drawing lessons.
