Reddit mentions: The best children cartooning books

Oh man, art hobbyist turned art student here! I study classical realism and the figure, so your mileage may vary with this advice depending on your goals, but here it goes.

First, reading list.

Animating the Loony Toons Way is a great primer to conveying motion and energy, and simplifying form.

Figure Drawing for All It's Worth [PDF] is a classic by the great Andrew Loomis that's in the public domain.

Vanishing Point is a good beginner book on perspective.

Don't worry about memorizing everything in those books. Drawing is a process of constantly correcting yourself, and the more you read the more you'll understand, which will make you better which will make it easier to see more advanced flaws and so on.

The most important thing is to practice as much as you can. That answer isn't particularly sexy, but practice without reading will get you farther than reading without practice. Remember to constantly push your comfort zone. The atelier that I study at has a poster on the wall with three concentric circles. The inner circle marks the comfort zone, and this is where what you're drawing is so easy that it's not really a challenge. The outermost circle marks the panic zone. Things in the panic zone are so complex that you have no idea how to even approach them. The middle circle is the learning zone. Things in the learning zone are difficult, and you don't know how to do them, but you know where to start and the basic process of how to go about it. Stay in the learning zone.

Draw things that you see, and do so as much as possible. If you can't draw what you can see with your physical eyes, how can you learn to draw what you see in your fuzzy and inconsistent imagination?

When I was first starting out, I drew small boxes and spheres in perspective, and tried to draw them from every angle. It's pretty hard and tedious, but everything you draw is made up of simple shapes. Draw simple shapes before moving to more complex forms.

Start simple, and then make things more complex. For a head, I usually start with a cube before moving on to the more subtle aspects of form. Here's an example of how I approach drawing a head (excuse the shitty quality and stylized-ness, this took me like 2 minutes):

First I block in the basic shape and mass. Don't sweat this, you can always change it later.

Second, I start to chisel out some of the bigger form variations, and try to begin defining the complex side plane of the head and face. I know where to begin and end the angle changes because of lots of experience and practice. You develop a gut feeling for it after a while.

Thirdly, I finish defining the various planes and begin to work on the details. The larger shapes help me locate the smaller ones. John Singer Sargent would start his paintings over if an eye was in the wrong place, because to him it was indicative of a larger structural problem that caused him to place it there. A lot can be fixed if you start with a strong beginning.

I'm not taking this image far by any means, but here it is with some value thrown in to get a sense of depth.

Gone back over with a darker pen to emphasize the final lines of the image.

One thing to watch out for is rhythm in your work. Rhythm is a repetition of a single line or curve throughout the piece (in other words, things line up), and it's what makes a piece hold together and feel cohesive. Look through some cartoons or comics and see how many rhythms you can find. I wish somebody had told me about rhythm when I was just starting out.

That's all I have in the way of general advice, but definitely let me know if you have any more specific questions of any kind. I love talking about art. I hope this was helpful!

If you liked that, you'll like this book I just picked up by DK/DC. Incredible book that goes through all the main storylines and has a bunch of graphics like that. For example:

http://i.imgur.com/nVuHzxD.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/qq9A8fn.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/jPvdZu7.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/T1yfFxn.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/18EzIPn.jpg

I got it at my local bookstore, but I'll see if I can find the Amazon link for it! It's honestly a great encyclopedia on the batman mythos.

Edit: Here's the link to it!

HEY /u/PittPensPats, I THINK I MIGHT HAVE A COUPLE OF BOOKS YOU MIGHT WANT TO CHECK OUT:

CDB! AND CDC? BY WILLIAM STEIG.

I'M JOKING OF COURSE, AND THOUGH I WOULDN'T WISH HARDSHIP ON ANYONE, BECAUSE OF YOUR WAGER WITH AISHAAA, I HOPE YOU HAVE TO GO VOWEL-LESS FOR AT LEAST 3 MORE GAMES. :)

EDT: CPTLS. :D

He is good! Get him a sketchbook, encourage him to draw from life whenever possible. Or something like this, a friend of mine does comics workshops for kids/new artists, a workbook like this could encourage him too: Let's Make Comics!: An Activity Book to Create, Write, and Draw Your Own Cartoons https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399580727/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_WIO4DbR66MK47

A few years ago I found a book called "Down a Sunny Dirt Road." It's basically the autobiography of Stan and Jan Berenstain--their upbringings, how they met, and how they got started writing and illustrating books together. It's a great read and I highly recommend it :)

Since he is into science, I highly recommend Howtoons by Fred Van Lente and Nic Dragotta (Image). Interspersed throughout the story are science projects, instructions for building stuff, etc.

Marvel's Disney Kingdoms line has some great all-ages stuff: Seekers of the Weird, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Figment. Terrible Lizard by Cullen Bunn (Oni Press) is also really good.

Source: I have a 7 year-old who loves to read.

Wanna try drawing more romance ;D

Elephant Barber

I really don't get this third thing thing....I never know what to put D:

I could probably get an award for the longest time ever willingly spent in bed....on reddit.

Batman Encyclopedia (NOT a list of stories):
http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Batman-Encyclopedia-Robert-Greenberger/dp/0345501063/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422692616&sr=8-1&keywords=batman+encyclopedia&pebp=1422692629398&peasin=345501063

Another Batman Encyclopedia:
http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Comic-Book-Heroes-Original/dp/1401213553/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1422692616&sr=8-5&keywords=batman+encyclopedia

The DC Encyclopedia:
http://www.amazon.com/DC-Comics-Encyclopedia-Updated-Expanded/dp/0756641195/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1422692616&sr=8-7&keywords=batman+encyclopedia


Batman: The World of the Dark Knight (has overview entire run, plus story synopsis for some stories)
http://www.amazon.com/Batman-World-Knight-Daniel-Wallace/dp/0756692490/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1422692616&sr=8-3&keywords=batman+encyclopedia

I don't particularly recommend any of these books, but you kept saying that word encyclopedia so, well, those three may interest you.

That sounds like Making Faces by Norman Messenger

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Faces-Norman-Messenger/dp/156458111X

https://d2ydh70d4b5xgv.cloudfront.net/images/7/8/vintage-book-making-faces-by-norman-messenger-1992-hardcover-by-turn-wah-press-12a921f6c23d9153e55c467325e09c13.jpg

One description on Amazon described flaps featuring such things as "...a dagger in the neck, nails in the head, screw through the nose, and safety pins in the ears..."

*Edited to add links

https://www.amazon.com/Spider-Man-Ultimate-Guide-Amazing-Publishing/dp/0756626757 or an earlier edition of this seems like the best bet.

It’s the Pokémon Adventures 20th Anniversary Illustration Book: The Art of Pokémon Adventures https://www.amazon.ca/dp/142159451X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_49qVCbQVKMHD9

Bought it while it was on sale

Alexis Frederick-Frost's newest book came out yesterday (OGRES AWAKE!) and is grateful for any attention: (https://www.amazon.com/Ogres-Awake-Adventures-Cartooning-James/dp/1596436530)

Do you mean how to draw swords? Swords: An Artist's Devotion.. How to Draw Weapons????

Do you mean a book about how to fight using a sword? For example, The Art of Drawing the Sword by Darrell Max Craig is focused on Japanese sword history and samurai culture. Is there a certain style of sword or fighting you're interested in?

Or do you mean about the art of swordmaking and blacksmith work, about that kind of sword art? Or something else?

I have the same book. It was from some school book sale magazine thing. Every semester or year or something we'd get a little magazine with a bunch of books in it. You (your parents) could order books from it. Naturally seeing a zelda book I had to get it.

Apparently amazon has it.. It says "troll" though, but it looks like there's a lot of sellers.

You're probably referring to Spider-Man: The Ultimate Guide. A popular Scholastic offering at schools.

This looks like the art style in the back of this book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0439585600/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/275-8970096-5346450

OP confirm?

I think you might be thinking of How to Draw Blitz Cartoons. At least, I had this when I was a kid, and it had transparencies like what you describe...

http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-Blitz-Cartoons-Bruce/dp/1561380113/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Artsy - Trying to learn how to draw disney princesses.

Origin of the Hobgoblin

This is the book. I had it as a kid.

http://www.amazon.com/Draw-Marvel-Comic-Super-Heroes/dp/1570540004

I think this is a fairly common sort of book. Here's the one I had in the early 90s

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Adventures-Tintin-Soviets-Black-White/dp/1405214775

Did you use this book for this? I vaguely remember things from it.

https://smile.amazon.com/C-D-William-Steig/dp/0312380127