Mecha Mania: How to Draw the Battling Robots, Cool Spaceships, and Military Vehicles of Japanese Comics

by Christopher Hart

Book Overview

From basic robot constructions and transformations to hidden weapons, the robot cockpit, blueprints for classic spaceships, and intense space battle scenes, everything is covered. A section on special... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0823030563
• ISBN13: 9780823030569
• Release Date: November 2002
• Publisher: Watson-Guptill Publications
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.5" x 11.1"
• Age Range: 10 to 13 years
• Grade Range: Grades 5 to 8

Customer Reviews

Warrior Robots and space ships made easy

I bought a book in the Mecha Mania series on how to draw warrior Robots and spaceships for a grandchild for Christmas.This book is wonderful for either an adult or a child who wants to draw the new anamie cartoons. The step by step drawings showing how to use basic shapes to make incredible robots and spaceships allow anyone to explore their creativity.

SKETCH BOOK

I BOUGHT SEVERAL OF THESE TYPES OF SKETCH BOOKS FOR MY SON. HE IS TAKING ART IN SCHOOL AND HE LOVES THE HELP THE BOOKS GIVE HIM IN HIS DRAWINGS. HE HAS LEARNED ALOT FROM THE BOOKS ALONE. WE ARE VERY PLEASED!!

Mania Mania - I've got it

This is a great approach to Mecha. It covers all the themes of Mecha and the artwork is instructional and entertaining at the same time. Definitely a must buy for any fan of Mecha.

Priceless & Worthy of Praise!

Ever since I have seen mecha like in the Gundam Universes and Robotech. I have searched the for tutorials for them online. To my dismay though, there are practically non-existent. Using the best search engine, I've only found a couple decent ones, but even those only give you 1-2 examples worth.Luckily since then, I have come across this book and was finally able to purchase it. After going through this book, I can finally say that my search is finally over, this is a priceless book, showing you all aspects of the mecha genre you will ever need. From showing you the basics of shading, the three dimensional objects you will need to create mechs, and etc. He even added how to show motion and perspective and provides you with a little helpful advice along the way. There is even a page where he gives you a brief history of the evolution of mecha through the decades.Ultimately, the decision is yours, but if you are wise, you will go with this must have book for those who want to learn this style of drawing. It is well worth the money, for resources on this are rare. The next book on mecha im going to check out is, how to draw manga: giant robots, becuase if you want to learn how to draw them like me, get all the resources you can on mecha.

Thorough, Detailed, and Would Satisfy ANY Anime-mecha fan!

In my opinion, when Mr. Hart sat down to write this book, he took into account the beginner and expert simultaneously. The book introduces and thoroughly explains elements of design, armor, weaponry, accessorizing and detailing various types of mecha including transforming mecha (and what amazed me is how his talent at illustrating allows him to illustrate the styles we see in Macross, Gundam, etc. without stepping on any copyright landmines...) He also takes a step back and explains how to show motion, observation perspective / vanishing point techniques, stance etc. so that the younger (or beginning) illustrator will not get lost either.And yes, for those of you who aren't "purists" you will get healthy doses of how-to's on fighter ships and females with bio-armor, but the book is easily 80% mecha which is why I bought it. I wrote a "fan letter" to Mr. Hart asking him to explain the coloring techniques used in the book. To my surprise, I received a personal response from him within 3 weeks that explained the pencil and line drawings were by hand, and the color illustrations were computer rendered. I personally own many magazines, catalogs, and other "how-to" books published overseas. Needless to say, the color illustrations in this book are superb, and readily compare to those illustrations seen over the years in Hobby Japan and Movic Design Series which are, of course, in Japanese. Bottom line, it's well-written and professionally done. Get this book if you like mecha and want to develop your skills illustrating them. D.I.