Character Mentor: Learn by Example to Use Expressions, Poses, and Staging to Bring Your Characters to Life
£32.40
You’ve researched your character extensively, tailored her to your audience, sketched hundreds of versions, and now you lean back content as you gaze at your final character model sheet. But now what? Whether you want to use her in an animated film, television show, video game, web comic, or children’s book, you’re going to have to make her perform. How a character looks and is costumed starts to tell her story, but her body language reveals even more. Character Mentor shows you how to pose your character, create emotion through facial expressions, and stage your character to create drama. Author Tom Bancroft addresses each topic with clear, concise prose, and then shows you what he really means through commenting on and redrawing artwork from a variety of student “apprentices.” His assignments allow you to join in and bring your drawing to the next level with concrete techniques, as well as more theoretical analysis. Character Mentor is an apprenticeship in a book.
Professional artists from a variety of media offer their experience through additional commentary. These include Marcus Hamilton (Dennis the Menace), Terry Dodson (X-Men), Bobby Rubio (Pixar), Sean “Cheeks” Galloway (Spiderman animated), and more. With a foreword by comicbook artist Adam Hughes, who has produced work for DC, Marvel Comics, Lucasfilm, Warner Bros. Pictures, and other companies.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Routledge, 1st edition (12 Nov. 2012) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 194759 KB |
| Simultaneous device usage | Up to 4 simultaneous devices, per publisher limits |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Not Enabled |
| Word Wise | Not Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 130 pages |
| Page numbers source ISBN | 0240820711 |
by Pearl
This book comes PACKED with advice and details, especially if you’ve been drawing for a while, but feel yourself being in a rut when it comes to improving, even if you try to look for references and all that.
He actually gives you pointers that help into making your art feel more alive, that actually makes you realize what you need to look at and what you need to pay attention to.
I’m super happy, you NEED this book.
by Parka
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Character Mentor is sort of an extension of Tom Bancroft’s earlier book
Creating Characters with Personality
.
The first book focuses on the actual designing of characters. This book focuses on bringing the characters to life with body language, specifically by using expressions, poses and staging. In other words, this book is about acting using your characters.
It’s filled with tips and insights, just like the first book. As the book title suggest, the teaching style here is one of mentoring. There are many assignments included, and Tom Bancroft has included his students’ work, together with his mentor notes on the different ways to improve the result. You’ll feel the years of experience seeping through the pages as he explains. It’s all very simple and practical tips you can use to improve your characters instantly.
There are many wonderful illustrated examples in the book to show how important acting is to creating believability. One look at them and you’ll be able to guess accurately how the character is feeling, who the character is or what the scene is about. These are all done without dialogue. The goal of the book is to impart the knowledge of getting to that level of clarity with your characters, the same sort of clarity you would expect from a masterful silent movie.
The book also includes a section on composition. It teaches you how to frame your scene with your characters to better tell a story. While this section is not technically character design, it’s still useful knowledge. Several guest artists are also invited to have a go at an assignment. Artists such as Stephen Silver, Sean Galloway, Terry Dodson, etc. You get to see how their interpret the story scene in their own way.
This is an insightful book to character design. It’s a great addition and supplements the first book well. Recommended to artists with some basic knowledge on character design, which is to say you should check out
Creating Characters with Personality
if you haven’t done so.
by miki
A very good reference guide. Lots of hints and tips, as well as challenges so you can follow along and put his lessons into practice. The text is very clear and breaks it down and there are also tips and working methods from artists working within the industry.
by demetris-architect
i didnt find something more than the sketches i can found in deviantart.com . inside you can find good sketches but that’s all . i have a better books in my hands for this work
by Nat
The book was very informative and had all the tips I need to become a better artists. Fully recommend the book!