The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics

This book is a must! Unless you want to keep doing every stage of a comic book in the old-fashioned/traditional way, you must have this book. Many books promising to reveal all the knowledge about this or that - but many times I find that "Yeah, I can take some knowledge out of it... like 15% or something... all the rest is just useless..." - but not this one: Freddie E. Williams II just opens a golden door to deep knowledge. From creating folder trees to comics templates, different workflows and how to incorporate them, tips on scanning, tips on rendering, tips on Photoshop ( the layer template for each comic page is great - I use it and works like charm for me ) . I even got the will to try a full digital workflow BECAUSE of this book. I love pencils, so I'm following the "Pencil hybrid workflow" but I'm trying to find a project that allows me to try the full digital. All its there, I think this is the best book on the subject. The title says what you will find inside - unlike The DC Comics Guide to Pencilling Comics (Freddie recommends this one at some point..) but I found that one really disappointing... "The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics" is by far the best book I've read (and continuously keep reading) on the subject! 10 start! Oh damit... only 5 allowed!

The book focuses on the method of producing a digital comic book rather than drawing techniques. There are lots of other 'How to draw' books to help depending on what style you want to use. The tips, tricks and digital/pencil hybrid processes are brilliant and explained superbly. The underlying techniques can be used with other image software but the book relates to Photoshop. It's not the magic key for producing digital comics (if there is one I'd like a link to it please) but it will put you in a much better position to create good-looking comics quicker. The book is aimed quite high so beginner's might struggle although it might teach good habits sooner.

Good in parts, not as good in most parts. Google Sketchup is in common use in most comic books these days and while the author clearly uses it a lot, he only has one page on it (the last page of the book). Otherwise it is useful for telling you how to layout a bristol board page with guides and rulers so there are definitely good parts to this book

A great, succinct introduction to digital drawing. It's very much American professional comic industry oriented, with should come as no surprise, but keep in mind it doesn't go into detail on how to draw digitally. It does a great job of covering techniques for streamlining the process of comic drawing with a guide to some useful tools and techniques. Again, this is a very different process to digital painting, doing covers etc. This is for those interested in doing comics in the old pencils-inks kind of way. It doesn't cover colouring, but DC has released a very decent intro to that separately.

has some great tips and techniques in the book - ideal for anyone starting out in cartooning. but you will need to have a graphics tablet to make the most out of the book.

Good delivery service. A good and informative book, well written, I've gone through this book a few times and I keep it near by

A brilliant and helpful book

Useful. No drawing lessons at all, just Photoshop methodology. If you wish to use Manga studio, then you will need to get a different guide, but this may still be useful in helping you to "think digitally". For 12 quid you can't really go wrong!

Freddie E Williams II Breaks down his process in an easy to follow step by step Process of how to create a comic book, It doesn't get much better than this. actually ive even added some of his process to how i develop my pencil work as well. This book is so helpful the only thing better would be to have Freddie personal at your side guiding you through the whole process. But the book is so clear and easy to fallow it almost seems like he is there sitting beside you. If you want to work like a pro and improve and stream line your work flow and meet your dead lines this book is for you. Love this Book!!!!!

Recently a friend had asked me my opinion on this book and to get back to him after I'd read it. I thought it would be much more productive to review/share my thoughts on this book here... also being as the holiday season is right around the corner, it would make a great gift. Now, I can pretty much sum it up in one word, DANGEROUS! Here's why, this book will pretty much walk you though creating comic pages digitally, from concept to final. It also provides some very helpful tips into creating elements you might find yourself using again and again... Which is why I find this book to be so Dangerous. You see, it opens allot of doors to information that could easily be abused by some less then honest/dedicated arts. However, I can safely say this book has complied information on creating comics that I myself have spend almost 20 years learning from the real world and by reading countless other books on digital art. Which is the other reason it's so Dangerous. Sometimes when people don't have to put forth any real effort to acquire knowledge, they act irresponsible with it... they don't respect it. Which is my biggest fear about this book. It really gives you every step, and compares the pros and cons to working traditionally as well as digital... However, with that being said, every comic artist working digitally or in a hybrid of traditional and digital should read this book... I found myself saying many times while reading it, "Yup, figured that out the hard way" or "i've come to that very same conclusion myself" and even "oh yeah, that would be faster wouldn't it". To be 100% honest, it's probably as important (if not more so) then Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics" and it's a very productive read no matter how much you think you know about creating comics digitally, much less traditionally. THIS IS NOT A "HOW TO DRAW BOOK"! It's a production book, it mainly focuses on how to create a digital work flow and create comic pages from start to finish. It works on the assumption you know how to draw already and picks up from there. It does make some points about the pros and cons to drawing on paper then scanning, vs drawing completely on the computer. It doesn't cover anatomy or things like that. Some of what's shown could be misconstrued or taken the wrong way when it comes to creating art digitally, which is another reason I feel it's dangerous. Some of what's presented might cause people to take short cuts (like tracing reference) rather then dedicating the time to actually learning to draw, which is a HUGE issue in art today. I'm sorry, tracing isn't drawing no matter which famous artist do it, it's wrong. No debate, no discussion. That being said, if comics or manga is your passion, read this book, you won't be sorry and you will really learn something... if not many things ;)

most helpful book on producing comic art digitally. It has every topic covered- creating the master page template, arranging workspace, creating photoshop actions, time saving libraries, cardboard cut outs, emphasis lines, Backgrounds, special effects, cool time saving shortcuts, layout, & ofcourse the Digital workflow of creating black & white comic art, which helped a lot for an artist like me who ventured out in digital art world for first time. I had no idea of creating comics on computer. but After 3 days, when i finished reading this book, I was confident enough to create an entire book. HIghly recommended for artists of traditional media who also want to explore the world of digital comic making Important: this book deals only with photoshop. although author worked on version CS3 at the time this was published, but it doesn't make any difference. all those options are available in recent versions of photoshop (obviously).

Je viens quelque peu contrebalancer le commentaire précédent en précisant qu'il ne s'agit absolument pas d'un livre pour apprendre à dessiner. Au contraire il s'adresse davantage au professionnel (ou au débutant grandement avancé) qui souhaiterai apprendre à manier Photoshop pour la réalisation d'une bande dessinée, et là-dessus le livre remplit grandement sa fonction. Freddie E Williams décrit ici sa propre méthode de travail (ce qu'il nomme rough, wireframes, inking, etc) et nous livre certaines astuces pour optimiser sa production. Cependant on pourra trouver ces méthodes un peu trop singulière dans la mesure où chacun possède sa propre manière de dessiner ou d'encrer, qui ne correspondra pas forcément à celles décrites ici par l'auteur. Néanmoins je recommande la lecture de ce livre pour toute personne souhaitant dessiner numériquement. Je le répète : vous n'apprendrez pas à dessiner avec ce livre !!

The DC Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics is one of the best if not the best Guide out there to creating comics. What makes the book so good is Freddie's ability to convey information so clearly and in simple, straight-forward, easy to understand terms. This book is mainly aimed at people with some knowledge of various design software such as Adobe Photoshop which was the main tool the author uses. That in itself is my only warning to anyone thinking about buying this book. Don't expect to be taught Photoshop inside and out. If you know photoshop pretty well then this will be a Gem for you. I've been working on my own comic book project mainly in Corel Painter however most design software is at its core kind of the same. Freddie explains things so well that I could actually apply his Photoshop techniques to Corel, so even if you don't use Photoshop the ideas presented here cross software boundaries. Seeing how well presented and coherent Freddie explains his workflow I am strongly considering drawing everything in Photoshop then using Corel Painter for color only. Freddie will carry you from beginning to end, from the digital sketch to the digital inks. He will give you hints, tips and so much useful ideas for creating a speedy workflow. I got the book this evening and sat down just to flip through some pages. Before I knew it I had read through more than half of the book, it was that interesting! I feel like I've just been sitting down with a friend who for hours was patiently helping me to understand the proper way to go about creating the comic book of my dreams. Finally I was so happy to see a proper section on creating backgrounds using perspective grids digitally. This is what I've been looking for everywhere for a couple years. This guy has covered all the obstacles that you will encounter, the only thing left is to pick up the Wacom pen and draw. Thank you so much Freddie for an excellent Guide or rather a BIBLE in my opinion. This book is priceless.