Recourse Roundup

April 30, 2024 Morgan Cooke Comments 1 comment

Recourse Roundup is a type of article I’m thinking of makes a series of; where I’ll share some art resources that I’ve found helpfully or interesting such as books, social media accounts, software ect. So lets get this party started with…

^{Ascendance of a Bookworm ©Crunchyroll}

Books

Books can be a great resource of knowledge; there seems to be a book on just about anything and everything. Here are some standouts that I’ve read recently:

“Hairstyles for Manga: Learn to Draw Hair for Expressive Manga and Anime Characters” by Studio Hard Deluxe

^{©Studio Hard, Mynavi Publishing Corporation (published by Rockport Publishers, The Quarto Group)}

Although I read this book cover to cover I don’t think it was indented to be read in such a way. There is definitely helpful information through out this book, but for the most part I think it’s meant to be used as a reference book. There are examples of almost every type of and style of hair imaginable. It also gives examples of things like how wind or rain will affect different types of hair; how you can imply different personality’s with different styles of hair. It even gives examples of fictional hair scenarios such as when I charter is overwhelmed by a sudden amount of powerful energy; what their hair might do; or if a characters hair was made of water how would it react to the environment.

When it goes over a type of hair it will often give examples at different angles to help you understand the three demential space of the style.

(Available Physically and Digitally)

“How to Create Manga: Drawing Facial Expressions: The Ultimate Bible for Beginning Artists” by NextCreator Henshubu

*^{©NextCreator Dept., Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.}*

Similar to the privies book on this list; this book is an extensive reference book. This time on facial expressions and showing different kinds of emotion. Each section has an emotion and how you can show different levels of that emotion (i.e. Anger, Irritation Rage, Fury) by exaggerating aspects of your character such as the mouth or eyebrows. For each level of an emotion the book has a few pages on things to keep in mind, the emotion from different angles and, how to achieve a similar look in varying styles.

(Available Physically and Digitally)

“Japanese Girl/Female Names: The ranking of most popular names by era 1940’s-2010’s” by Yukiya Sakaguchi

Almost every page of the book has a different name, how to write it in Japanese, the romanised spelling, and the meaning behind the name.

There are a fair about of names for each decade, but I was expecting there to be more name in the book (less than a hundred).

Nether the less this book could be a decent resource for anyone looking for Feminine Japanese names. Yukiya Sakaguchi also has another book dedicated to Male names titled: “Japanese Boys/Men Names: The ranking of most popular names by era 1950-2010”.

(Only Available Digitally)

Clip Studio Pint Assets

Clip Studio Pant Assists are user created tools, colour pallets, pre-posed 3D models, workspace layouts ect. That can be added to the Clip Studio Software.

隙間無く囲って塗るツール (close and fill tool without gaps) [Content ID:1759448] created by K96

K96 has made a lot of different fill tool assets. This specific asset allows you to use a new lasso tool that fills enclosed arias with colour.

はみ出さないペン&はみ出しだけ消す消しゴム (Eraser to remove only protrude pen and overflow) [Content ID:1801748] by ディープブリザード’

This asset is still amazing to me; It’s a new set of pen and eraser tools that don’t allow ink or eraser to pass over the lines of your reference layer.

Social Media Accounts

“@xfoxyfox” (96こげ【作画のコツ】)

xfoxyfox aka 96こげ【作画のコツ】posts daily drawing tips on X and longer articles on Fanbox.

@KawaiiSensei_jp (KawaiiSensei@書籍でました)

KawaiiSensei_jp aka KawaiiSensei@書籍でました is a group of HowTo creators who post drawing tips on X. They also post longer articles, art tips, and reference posses on their Japanese FanBox account and their English Patreon account.

KawaiiSensei has also released an English translation of their book “The best of everything! Master the MANGA Drawing Techniques” recently, and has started (on a trial basis) an online vocational school for residence of Japan. If the trial is a success they are planning to open it up to more country’s.

I really like the way KawaiiSensei teaches because instead of just showing you what to do they also demonstrate what not to do and why it’s wrong.

“@simodasketch” (下田スケッチ【絵の描き方】)

Simodasketch aka 下田スケッチ【絵の描き方】post tips on drawing folds and wrinkles on X and Instagram. Simodasketch has also published several books including: “下田スケッチシワ本” which is on the subject of folds.

YouTube Chanels

“Learn to Draw Manga”

Learn to Draw Manga is one of the YouTube channels I’ve found the most useful for manga creation information. In-fact it’s this YouTube channel that made me decide on a one-shot manga as my first art project. Learn to Draw Manga goes over a lot of different parts of the manga creation process such-as: storyboarding, backgrounds, character design ect. They also mentions (quite often) that they recommend starting out with a one-shot manga. This is because a one-shot is a more manageable project for a beginner to successfully complete. If you’ve never made a manga at all; it’s better to start small and work up.

This is one of the first videos I saw from Learn to Draw Manga which goes over the biggest mistake beginners tend to make when trying to create manga:

“Pirate Software”

Thor, the man behind the Pirate Software YouTube channel, live streams on Twitch and YouTube where he gives advice, works on his upcoming video game Heartbound or plays other video games. Some of this content is put on YouTube in the form of shorts.

All though the advice Thor gives is often in the context of making video games the way he words his advice makes it possible to take the advice no mater what creative project your actually working on or thinking or working on.

He’ll often shares his belief that anyone can create something; they just need to stop putting it off and start. Here a playlist of some of my favourites:

Thank you so much for reading. I hope I was able to share at least one helpful resource with you today, If you know of any resources that you have found helpful or interesting be sure to let me know. I’m always on the look out for that kind of stuff.

–until next time ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ

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