[.ca] Cartooning for the Beginner (ISBN 0823005860)

This is an excellent reference, beginner or not:
I found this to be an excellent learning tool and reference for cartooning / animation. He clearly states step by step with many examples, and almost all the art in the book has the rough "circle" sketch going to the full cartoon final (in color). The color illustrations are excellent, the perspective and clothing tutorials are well-done and easy to understand. A reviewer below stated that he didn't even specify how to erase the guide lines, and was confused and didn't think that this book was for a beginner. I highly disagree. Page 10 "Creating a face from a basic head shape" specifically states at the bottom to erase your guide lines at the end. If you can follow instructions, you can learn from this book. I use this book to supplement the Flash cartoons I've been working on, and in fact, instead of taking pencil to paper, I have followed all his guidelines drawn directly into Macromedia Flash (with a Wacom Intuos2 graphics tablet). When it says to "stretch" a ball shape, no problem, all done digitally, all quite simple. Even someone who can't draw a straight line can benefit from this book if they use it in conjunction with Macromedia Flash to learn to create cartoons. Excellent reference and learning tool, I'm going to the store today to purchase three more of his "how-to" books.

Plenty of drawing concepts and techniques inside one book!:
I'm impressed with all the information that one book like this covers. This book doesn't teach you how to put your pencil to the paper to draw shapes other than explaining the concept of what needs to be done, but there isn't a substitute for practice. I too started cartooning as a hobby(not too far from 29 years of age myself) and have always been frustrated and gave up whenever I attempted to learn because it seemed too hard. This book is excellent! If you aren't worried about "how" to draw the basic shapes and want to know "why" and "what" is needed so that you can practice the "hows", this is the book to be without. I had immediate results after only practicing for a couple of hours. You have to take the time to practice and use your eraser (can't get lazy). The human mind is fussy with drawings. It's never a challenge to spot badly-looking art, but learning what you did wrong when you finally get it right is what teaches you how to be a good drawer. Practice! Practice! Practice! Your eraser is going to be your best friend, better get used to it. This is the book to have if you want to learn as much as you can about cartooning in the shortest time. The coloured illustrations are fun to learn from as well. The more advanced parts of the book dealing with more detailed drawings will also be a good transition if you ever want to go into comic book style drawings.

NOT a beginning book at all:
I bought this book as a "non-artistic" person who decided to try and "learn to draw" at the age of 29. I never was really into drawing (since I was always so horrible at it I never enjoyed trying.) When I asked an artistic friend, he mentioned that "anyone could learn". OK. I thought I would give it a try. I bought "CARTOONING FOR THE BEGINNER". Guess what? After spending HOURS trying to do a "basic toon head" and giving up I asked my artistic friend. One sentence and a 10 second description told me. (Add lines to the circle, erase the old instead of trying to free-hand draw the shape). Instead of sound advice, and TELLING the person HOW to draw, you are met with a set of "toon hands" stretching the drawing, with no mention of any further instruction other than "start with a circle, stretch it out, squash it" without the details on HOW to do it the easiest way. This book is more of a "Look what I've done!" to other artists than an instruction book. The artwork looks nice, but I have to wonder if the author REALLY wants to teach drawing (or knows HOW to teach) or just sell dozens of "how-to draw XYZ books" with have few differences than the pictures in the book being displayed. If I were the author I would be embarrassed at this extremely poor attempt (if thats what it was) to teach drawing. The only reason I give this book a "2" rating is because of the interesting pictures inside. But I'll spend my money elsewhere and find a REAL book on how to draw next time.

Great reference book; bad drawing instruction book:
This book gives some very valuable information. It is a great reference book for instruction on such concepts as point of view, perspective, horizon lines in relation to characters and scenery, cartoon drawing versus realistic, the importance of full body emotion, etc. But when it comes to instruction on the step-to-step drawing process is where the book fails. There is virtually no instruction on how to actually draw the concepts it presents. To sum it up--great for reference on concepts--poor for actual drawing up of the concepts. Perhaps that is why the book is called "Cartooning for the Beginner" and NOT "Drawing For The Beginner."

Great basics in cartooning:
I am an aspiring comic artists. First, a word of note to beginners in cartooning or art -- drawing is HARD. Not everybody have the gift or the vision to make professional style art. If you are a beginner, I highly advise you to take a drawing course in a local college. The face-to-face interaction and feedback is invaluable. You *can* learn to draw from reading a book, but not at a very fast pace. I picked up this book because I was really bored and wanted to learn something new. I mainly draw in the Marc Silvestri and Top Cow studio style. This is a good book that starts you off with the basics, using simple geometrical shapes and then altering the shapes. Then it slowly adds the details. This is as SIMPLE as it can get! If you cannot even get a good feel from the get-go of reading the first couple of pages, you will have a hard time finishing this book or moving on into other drawing style. Mastery of this book can give you a good boost in moving on to other drawing fields such as anime, comics, and realism. If you have a fairly good grasp of art, this book is not necessary, unless you want to try dabbing in cartoons. The basics are pretty much there if you want to draw your own comic strips. The rest is just practice.