Character Mentor: Learn by Example to Use Expressions, Poses, and Staging to Bring Your Characters to Life

I was first exposed to Tom Bancroft when I took his class on Skillshare.com, and I was just as impressed with this book as I was with his expertise, knowledge and teaching in his video. This was after a considerable amount of research on the art of character design and illustration (primarily for comic books), so I have a lot to compare against. Most cartooning and animation professionals simply do not share immediately applicable insights, and when they do it's through expensive DVDs that are suspect in quality. If you think some of the material is "light" you'll be surprised to learn that he is actually teaching what all good animators already know and practice, and have learned in school. I took another course on Lynda.com given by another popular animator, and many of the concepts he taught were the same as what you'll find in Character Mentor. This really is a great book, but if you're an absolute beginner, and have very little artistic background, then you may want to try something like "Cartooning: Character Design (HT291) (How to Draw & Paint)" at http://amzn.to/1Qw71Vs. It approaches character design at a higher level, but still offers advice on body types, pose, and facial expressions. If you're not yet ready to spend the money then I suggest starting with the very approachable videos of Mark Crilley on his YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/markcrilley. They aren't tutorials per se, but he offers a fair amount of insight into how he designs his characters as an artist. He also has a book called "Mastering Manga with Mark Crilley: 30 drawing lessons from the creator of Akiko" at http://amzn.to/1Mk1NnU that gets ridiculously good praise, although I've not read it myself. All things considered if you're serious about character design then I would consider this a must have for your library.

This is an absolute must for anyone into animation / illustration. This book is an incredible inspiration to not settle for "good enough" when designing, but to really push the design. And even though its focus is on characters, it actually goes further than that by looking at staging and composition of a scene. One of the nice touches is that the author presents some very high caliber student work, and then shows how to turn that work into something truly excellent by adding more life to it, and describing the reasons for the changes. Each change is fairly subtle but it adds up very quickly. I have about 12-15 books on animation and this has now become the most inspiring, and the one that has had the biggest and most immediately implemented change in my drawings. This book is best suited for an advanced beginner (if there is such a thing!) or intermediate animator/illustrator. Fantastic.

I really liked this book. I found the content most helpful. When I look at Tom's examples and his drawings you can see the years of experience come right off the page and his talent for art glows. I loved how Tom was able to take other people's drawings and demonstrate how little changes in character poses, mood or stance made a difference in the language of the character being drawn. I would recommend this book to any artist not just those who want to draw fictional characters because it really imparts Tom's experience giving you a unique perspective in this form of art, where as otherwise an opportunity would be missed. I thank you sir for sharing your experience in this book.

FormatThe great idea this books has is to sperate the images from the text (video). In this case, you can enjoy the text with a illustration, but then focus only on the illustration to get more meaning from it. I need revise Mark Cirlley's Mastering Manga because he does same thing with his book, but here the examples just seem to match more. I miss buying traditional books. Since I lost most of my library just due to strorage and weight issues, I have had to move to digital. However, this is first book I feel wasn't just thrown together and placed on kindle.Content:A super helpful fun read. It's not all new when looking at something like Draw Magazine, but unlike Draw Magazine it contains many practical character design and illustration advice in one coherent art style and direction.

The art of staging is rather complex. Most people don't give a lot of thought to staging a picture. In general, a lot of drawings are kinda haphazardly thrown together with the background just being tacked on as an after thought. I'm by no means a great artist but this has always bugged me in a lot of the pictures I've studied. This book is brilliant in explaining how to show personality through little details, how to show contextual clues and how to direct the viewers eyes. Previously Mr. Bancroft has praised his former mentors in his other book. I have to say, he really paid attention and I'm glad he decided to share what he learned from the masters with the rest of us. If you ever wonder what type of background or area to drop your characters in, this book will help you put together plenty of real deliberation and planning that can be used both now and for years to come. The tutorials and the examples from guest artist and animators are phenomenal.

...i am currently thoroughly enjoying the new Character Mentor book immensely...! ...as i am myself, a graduate student of traditional animation in San Francisco, CA - i cannot recommend this book highly enough - i just finished reading the movement analysis bit and although this is a book more about bringing still drawings to life, it is also super cool that Tom shares a little of his traditional animation experience in this new volume! ...such an awesome resource... [you should also purchase the first volume: Creating Characters with Personality: For Film, TV, Animation, Video Games, and Graphic Novels - as the thorough character construction lessons contained within are an incredible starting point in which to really expand upon with this new Character Mentor volume... much appreciation to Tom Bancroft for all his time & dedication to educating a new generation of future character designers and traditional animators...]

In the fields of animation and illustration, the craft of character design is often completely overlooked by the casual observer. Instead, the human eye perceives the most well-crafted characters as living things, whether we're looking at a sequence of frames or simply one static image, because the finest character designers have learned what exactly tricks the brain into seeing life in lines.There have been a handful of books over the last thirty years or so that have touched on this topic to one degree or another. However, these are very often oversimplified, starting with volumetric shapes and hurrying through the details to arrive at the quickest complete character possible. Such methods are certainly valid and universally applicable -- for first-year animation students, perhaps, or fledgling comic book artists. Up until now, the question of what makes a character truly unique and lively has been left as something the novice must explore him/herself.Tom Bancroft's book is probably the first one of its kind that goes past this basic level. Right off the bat, Tom assumes the reader is not only intelligent but avidly interested in the details. He explores perceptual cues, the various methods of conveying emotion and personality (which are far more numerous than simply drawing a smile or a frown), and the tiny little decisions that can completely alter the way an audience will see a character, for better or for worse.Tom's experience as a veteran of Disney's traditional animation era really shines through here. And in an age where technology provides an ever-increasing range of shortcuts, it's ultimately all the more important that these techniques be detailed and passed on to the next generation of artists. Check this out -- you won't regret it.

Pros:-The tips are simple, clear, and effective. The author is good at identifying what makes a drawing static and offering simple solutions to that - the 'head tilt' page in the preview is a great example of this.-the student reviews before/after are fantastic! Most books are happy to tell you what's correct without helping you understand what's wrong. This book has multiple examples of good vs. bad and how to correct.-very clear writing and explanations of techniques and processes.Cons:-overall the content felt thin - more like a well developed outline rather than a complete text. Each area would have benefited from more examples and exploration etc.-definitely a particular Disney-esque style, which is understandable given the author's background. However, it could have been fleshed out with some more varies styles - there is no shortage of comic artists in the world!Also, there were some editorial choices that were a little off. The guest artist assignment of drawing a young girl in her bedroom, unaware that a shadowy figure is watching from the window? It may make sense in the context of a larger story, but as a stand alone exercise it was just a little creepy and weird.And many of the characters and exercises in the books are children - again, understandable from the artists background - but a good bit of the content is more adult - such as the scene-setting exercise in which a character is discovered laying poisoned on the floor.Overall it has some valuable tips and I'd buy it again. I wouldn't recommend for kids, more for young adults and regular adults.

Les étapes de conception de personnage de type cartoon sont très bien illustrées. des trucs et astuces sympa pour progresser dans ce style

Me encanta este libro. Muy buenas imágenes, explicaciones y consejos para quienes estan empezando a dibujar. Facil de entender y de seguir las instrucciones

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.

Ich bin 35 Jahre alt und beschäftige mich seit ca. 18 Jahren mehr oder weniger intensiv mit Grafik, Gestaltung und Charakterdesign. Außerdem habe ich vor Jahren im professionellen gestalterischen Umfeld gearbeitet und hätte fast eine medienbezogene Ausbildung begonnen. Jedoch musste ich mir eingestehen, dass ich nicht wirklich begabt bin und meine Stärke eher im technischen Bereich liegt.Ungeachtet dessen, habe ich mich immer wieder dem Drang des kreativen Schaffens hingegeben. Vor allem jetzt nach der Geburt meiner Tochter habe ich wieder angefangen. Ihr möchte ich spätestens zum 2. Geburtstag ein Buch mit einer Geschichte schenken, die ich selbst geschrieben und bebildert habe. Ein Kollege gab mir den Tipp zu diesem Buch und ich habe es bestellt.Es hat mich auf jeden Fall sehr voran gebracht und ich habe kurz nach dem Kauf seine Ersterscheinung "Creating Characters with personality" bestellt, welche ich übrigens ebenfalls sehr empfehle.Was mir an den Büchern Bankrotts gefällt ist:- Er hält sich nicht mit ewiger Prosa auf, sondern steigt gleich ein. Dies zieht sich durch seine ganze Arbeit. Ich will zeichnen und nicht lesen!- Die Beispiele sind mit kurzen Kommentaren versehen und animieren einen zum Nachahmen.- Beim Lesen habe ich das Gefühl, dass ein guter Freund oder mein großer Bruder mir zeigt, was ich wie zutun habe und worauf ich achten soll. Das ist sehr angenehm- Er gibt imaginäre Projektideen vor, und lässt andere Designer (wahrscheinlich aus seinem Freundes o. Bekanntenkreis) diese Umsetzen und gibt lässt deren Gedanken wiedergeben.- Er schreibt ganz witzig.- Einfacher Schreibstil, den man auch ohne sehr gute Englischkenntnisse folgen kann. (Es gibt leide keine Übersetzung)Die Bücher, die ich bisher las, sind sehr inspirierend und haben mich auf jeden Fall sehr voran gebracht. Es macht Spaß sie zu lesen oder einfach nur zu durchblättern. Ich freue mich schon auf das nächste Buch von ihm.

Book is fine, packing was terrible - no bubblewrap, only plain plastic. Very disappointed to get an expensive book packed this way.