Perspective! for Comic Book Artists: How to Achieve a Professional Look in your Artwork by David Chelsea

Perspective! for Comic Book Artists: How to Achieve a Professional Look in your Artwork Reviews

• 
  Kaśyap

  Very useful. Has many clear explanations.
• 
  Emin Anılmaz

  Though Chelsea explains it all in a simplified manner, I'm still left with a bunch of things I didn't get and some I didn't even attempt to understand... (I mean my geometry can only be so good!) but the book was amazing indeed. Except for Mugg. There isn't an uglier character design.
  
  I'll be revisiting this book many times in my years-long-perspective-drawing-journey in the future. Such good, much recommended.
• 
  Persephone Zahariou

  I enjoyed it. There were a few pages where the author got technical that I got lost. Might have been better if I sketched along but I wasn’t cause I’m trying to get an overview at this point.
  
  Presenting the whole book as a comic was interesting and made it fun to read as well as providing visual info at every turn.
  
  Took about a day to finish it.
• 
  Jean-Paul

  Borrowed this book from my friend at 6 months ago and have just gotten around to finishing it. He'll be happy to have it back although it is a little worn because my cat decided to be a book critic as well...
  
  Presented in the same graphic narrative style as Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics Etc. by Scott McCloud this art book uses the comic book medium to give instruction and considering that the audience for a work like this is obviously comic book fans, it's a good narrative choice. I'm not much of an artist myself, so i was just reading it to see how it stocks up against other similar books I've perused in the past, such as the aforementioned Mr. McCloud's works and the several thousand volumes of graphic novels and manga I have read over the years. Therefore, I'm not really qualified to comment on the instructional nature of the book, I'm assuming if I'd been sketching along I would probably retain more of it. But I wasn't. So I didn't. The narrator of the book is the author himself, so yay for self-insertion... and he teaches his coffee cup/friend Muggs how to properly draw objects and people in perspective. Personally I found Muggs to be creepy and unlikable. He's a talented enough artist on his own, but he's lazy and a bit dumb. He's also an opportunist and I hate the shape of his skull. Probably Muggs was the most annoying part of this book for me. I would have preferred like a cartoon dog or something... or a talking pencil or pretty much anything. Maybe it's because I'm not a coffee drinker? Anyway, just my opinion.
  
  All in all it was a pretty good book. The friend I borrowed it from is an art teacher for Middle School students and he keeps a copy in his class, where I'm sure it's appreciated. Not a bad addition for the book shelf of any budding artist really. Take a look and see how you feel.
• 
  Rosareading

  What should be a dry topic was made endlessly hilarious by David Chelsea's story throughout. Not story like plot, but this guy could definitely have a comic strip going.
  
  As for learning perspective, I can't believe it, but it's finally clicked!
  I want to do some more practice of it all, but my gosh, someone managed to teach me perspective.
  
  Definitely worth drawing everything he says throughout the book, even if that drawing will slow down the reading by weeks. Makes the move to each new step and piece of information more natural.
  
  I don't give 5 stars easily, but this deserves every one.
  (I bought several books on perspective hoping one would help, and this one was above and beyond the right one for me.)
• 
  Anelis

  I've been trying to finish this one for more than a decade but wasn't motivated enough 'till now.
  
  Great lessons in perspective, with great examples, easy to understand, exhaustingly so. Perfect for younger readers also.
  
  The characters are a bit boring, and as a comic it's stiff. The perspectives are breathtaking and the teaching is superb but it lack the wonderful flow the McCloud books have.
  
  Still it's an awesome addition to have to your library and incredibly useful.
• 
  Patrick Loveland

  Upped my rating from 4 to 5 stars because I only left the last star off due to things like warped perspective not being addressed—and whaddayaknow, he also did a sequel to this all about that. This first book is a great resource and starting point for a lot of things. It got pretty intricate with the floor plan techniques, but that makes it a reference book now too, for when I can't remember things quite right on my own. ha
• 
  Mike

  It really puts things into perspective :)
• 
  Holly

  I didn’t find this book a good resource for teaching perspective drawing. The comic format doesn’t seem ideal for the instructional content. Some of the wording is confusing and hard to follow. Three stars because I guess it was engaging enough that I read it anyway and used it more as a refresher on perspective drawing.
• 
  Gigi Retzo

  It has a lot of interesting information on drawing perspective, but it felt like a “tedious construction” that may have been better off as “one short book” instead after all...
  
  Reading this book felt at times rather heavy, annoying, convoluted, unnecessarily lengthy... In the end, the journey felt unpleasant, even if there is undeniably a lot to learn in the process of absorbing David’s words and images (assuming your brain can wrap around ‘em without turning into a sludge of confused jello).
• 
  Eric

  Makes learning perspective very fun and you’ll laugh out loud a few times, but honestly to really gain a mastery on establishing depth in your drawings you’re better off learning from a dry boring old master.
• 
  بيان

  Very useful book!
• 
  Donny George

  Pretty good explanation of perspective. Some of the demos were confusing and could have been explained better. And beyond 1 point perspective, the book is less practical.
• 
  Jeanne Sorel

  Great lessons on perspective to take me closer to my future profession in comics. Thank you.
• 
  Aislinn Evans

  it’s fun, it’s clear, it goes into considerable technical depth and explains everything - with PICTURES. what more could u possibly want?
• 
  Manuel Cordova

  Best perspective book I've read.
• 
  Kk

  This book is better than a lot of books on perspective. It's a comic so it teaches things visually which was helpful. That being said there was still a whole bunch that just went over my head, especially in the later chapters. Maybe perspective is just hard.
• 
  Chip'sBookBinge

  I only heard about this book from reading Making Comics by Scott McCloud. If it weren't for him, I'd never have given this book a look. It's a very valuable and entertaining way of looking at the complexities of Perspective. The book itself is presented exactly like like that of Scott's books: Understanding Comics, Making Comics, etc.... It's all done in comic book form.
  
  The things you learn inside this book are 1-Point, 2-Point and 3-Point Perspective as well as Circles and Human figures. David Chelsea gives you the nuts and bolts of all things relating to the topic at hand. But this book does have a flaw and it's a big one in my eyes. He doesn't give the reader any clear, hands-on, step by step instructions to apply the knowledge gained from its pages. Sure, some will argue that it's up to the reader to apply what you have learned and take it from there. But I personally think some step by step walk through of practical applications within the comic field would have elevated this book to a perfect score.
  
  Rating: 4 Stars out of 5
• 
  Johnny Atomic

  In this entertaining and incredibly informative book, David takes his empty headed friend Mugg on a trip through the (comically questionable) history and application of perspective. Even though his book carries the power of a high level college course, Mr. Chelsea tames the beast of perspective by actually making the entire book a paneled story, just like a graphic novel.
  
  As the story progresses he moves us from the remedial to the practical and finally leaves us standing on the pinnacle of technical mastery, staring back, wide-eyed at all we learned while we thought we were just having fun.
  
  Along with the all the formulaic applications are a few awesome "tricks" of perspective illustration like using old photographs to create perfect 3 point perspective without vanishing points.
  
  Notes: Don’t let the name fool you. Perspective For Comic Book Artists, is not limited in scope to comic books. In fact, I believe (as do luminaries like the late Will Eisner) that it is one of the best perspective books of our generation, for any illustrative application.
• 
  Max

  One of the better books out there on how to render perspective. David Chelsea shows Mug how to draw perspective and explains it through comic book form, much in the tradition of Scott McCloud's treatises on comics.
  
  It breaks down everything in to simple language and exercises that are illustrated in its comic panels. Chelsea even goes on to point out facts about perspective that other books get wrong.
  
  Seriously, if you draw comics, this is THE book for learning perspective. In fact, even if you don't draw comics and take up other forms of art (fine art, illustration, animation, etc), this is a handy book to have because of its easy breakdown of perspective.
• 
  Jer

  Drawing in perspective seemed simple enough to me. Drawing lines to the vanishing points and then constructing vertical lines from point to point... and... uuh... wait, you mean I can take a floor plan and accurately draw it out in 3D perspective?
  
  This book answered a few questions I had and then gave me more answers to questions I hadn't even thought of asking. The best part is, it's all in comic book format, inspired by Scott McCloud's books. What better way to learn a visual craft?
  
  I'll be re-reading this book very soon.
• 
  Annetta Brisby

  This book, after becoming dismayed with other art learning resources that I was not yet ready for, is pretty much what got me into practicing drawing 8 months ago. It was simple for me to draw examples from the book or make up my own given its instructions. Now I draw every day, always with a respect for principles of perspective, which drive the portrayal of every shape.
  
  (Note: Some of the principles taught in the book were too advanced for me, and it was totally still fine and informative even though I moved on from it without completely understanding these more advanced principles.)