The basic idea here is just to list what random books I have on my shelf. Instead of just the usual list of instructional books that can be hit or miss, I wanted to have lots of inspiration. Honestly I prefer videos for learning techniques and things anyways, so this is more about having something offline as backup. And I know some of these may be obscure, because I go through book sales and grab whatever looks good at the moment, lol.
Also this is by date of publication because ???
It is overly verbose and absurdly intimidating, but still has good material. It's free so no reason not to browse through. The most important part is about how we perceive things. The mental process of vision is important to understand, and our ancient art ancestor here had an inkling.
CHILDREN WHY DO YOU NOT CONSULT VISION. But in context he's talking about senses and how he thinks babies learn by feeling as much as seeing. "So that if he is asked to draw a head, he thinks of it first as an object having a continuous boundary in space. This his mind instinctively conceives as a line."
Good details on anatomy, sketch progress, mainly realistic but has notes on how to do cartoony. Heavy on horses and felines, and then a scattering of other mostly common species, but it is from 1950 so outside National Geographic and zoos it would be hard to find references!
This I just found a reprint on Amazon at random that looked good, but apparently he was an animator for Walt Disney Studios. Which explains a lot, back in classic Disney era Walt had all the animators taking art classes studying live animals and such.
Lots of anatomy and motion. This guy likes horses and cats too but has a different mix of animals, including several pages of monkeys and apes.
I found this at a used book sale for two bucks and I had no idea who this guy was, haha. Let's see, Wikipedia says he was an art teacher who worked on some comics and even had on of the first TV shows for art. Huh. Well that explains why I like it.
So yes as a child of the 80s I remember getting Sunday newspapers and after cutting out any dinosaur articles, looking over the comics pages, mainly for Far Side. This volume isn't simply nostalgia, there's sketches and behind the scenes stuff that's of interest, though some is of a long dead age of print media.
OK Cracked had good moments as well but MAD was the standard, and again this is another deep dive into the guts and bones of history and creation. But also society, since they started making lots of comics until the comic code censored everything, so they just called it a magazine to bypass that.
Some things never change. So yeah it has lots of little bits of art as well, so inspiration among all the crazy things.
If I say comic most people will think of comic books like the standard Marvel or DC, guys in tights dying to sell more units that month. A few might have dusty memories of getting a Sunday paper and pulling out the giant colorful pages to skip past all the dull boring ones to find the few GOOD things like Calvin and Hobbes. It feels very 1995 when the book starts out talking about the newspaper business, but that’s just a few pages before it gets into character blurbs and most of the book is actual comics with various notes on inspiration and such. Even if you don’t plan on making comics it’s useful to look at the thoughts of a successful artist.
For his writing there's the gigantic History of Middle Earth, for his art there's this. Tons of sketches over decades. This isn’t simply illustrations for Lord of the Rings, but a biography in art. Tolkien dabbled in all sorts of styles as well. Seeing experimentation inspires me.
Well of course I have this. Though in hindsight it isn't essential to buy unless you plan on drawing LOTS of dragons lol. It's still worth looking at as a good example of worldbuilding, even if you aren't a dragon nerd.
We start with yet another short recap of art history, then the standard “here’s traditional media 101” chapter that every damn art book seems to need to add in (and I mostly do digital so it’s even less useful to me, lol). Then chapter 3 is good because warm up stuff is always good, and then we get six chapters based on different subjects like history and dinosaurs. The only problem here is wanting more, lol. So the core of the book is worth reading.
Then chapters 10, 11, and 12 go back into basics like composition which is good but I'm not sure if the art 101 stuff should go into another book. That might just be me, it might be hard to tell where to draw the line, I haven't made an art book. And chapter 13 is about careers which is probably already outdated. But not a bad idea to throw in.
An essential. I know the subtitle is “for the realist painter” but even if you’re not you should read this. You don’t need it simply to make a shiny fancy dinosaur like is in the cover. Twenty years in web design I’ve picked up on graphic design as well and there’s plenty in here that will help with that. Sure the first chapter is an overview of the history of painting but after that every one is a class in some aspect that’s useful.
Lots of manga have an art theme but they tend to be slice of life comedy like Comic Girls, which is fine and fun, but sometimes you want rough tough reality. The author talks about her mistakes, being lazy, lacking focus, having delusions of fame and fortune, the sort of thing you see lots of people who are like "Oh I want to draw manga and comics and be cool and rich!" do. So it starts when she's in school being foolish and a friend takes her to a tutor, who tells her all her art SUCKS. lol. Shouting "Draw the same thing over and over until it's perfect!" "JUST DRAW!" everyone got the same ruthless treatment, elderly, children, "DO IT SERIOUSLY!". OK I'm making this sound like a comedy but things get serious later. Just read it.
If you're a broke artist you can read a fan translation here
Not art themed but the manga itself is a class in design. I bought a couple just to browse through anytime, but it depends on if you have shelf space and money.
An average high school guy decides to be an artist, which becomes an adventure. Honestly it does kinda go sideways on one side quest later, but is still worth borrowing at least.
And down here just as many links as I can find.
Has lots of posts and links to his other stuff.
Public domain paintings, sculptures, books, etc.
Met museum public domain images.
All sorts of photos and junk to dig through.
All sorts of historical things.
plenty of stock photos.
And more stock photos.
Plenty of poses to reference from.
not as many but different.
timed figure drawing.
Which is very MS Paint Windows XP style
Which is newer slicker with more color options.
Use whichever one suits your purpose.
Various art tutorial videos on YouTube.
Good art tutorial videos on color etc.
This is an old post from a couple of years ago, 2012, about using Audacity to "databend" images which is fun random digital chaos.