****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I was going to read the sequel to this book (Character Mentor) as it was recommended to me by a great teacher at my art college, but I went ahead and read this one as well.I started drawing characters since I was young, so a lot of these things were there, in the back of my head while I did my thing. It's nice to have it all spelled out for you in an organized, compelling easy-to-understand manner.The star I removed was for how shallow the female character design was treated... "All curves" "all grace" "don't overdo the muscles" "smaller than the man so she can look more vulnerable when getting rescued"...As a female artist, I've always noticed that no matter how experienced and skilled the artist may be, if it's a man, he most usually will take this basic approach... It's not all that wrong, just shallow... Very shallow and underwhelming... Having an entire chapter dedicated to "drawing (beautiful) women"... Of course not one on "drawing (beautiful) men" or even "drawing men" because who cares, right? Only the women have to look *beautiful*.I get that this is a slightly old book, but this is still upsetting since to this day it's the most-used approach when it comes to designing female characters sadly... Hey, the beauty standards have always been out of this world... We don't actually have 1 inch waists, huge hips and perfect hair (with some few exceptions)...Everything else I agree with, besides this shallow chapter and take on designing female characters.I'm excited to see how he expands on these concepts in the next book, and hopefully the female design will evolve into something more expressive as well!
