I promised a review of the Art of Otaku Sampler version. Bear in mind that this is only for the eight tutorials provided in the free download on the Art of Otaku web site, no other content, comments, or versions are being evaluated here.
Overall, I'm very impressed with the content. While it not extremely high end professional material, it provides enough guidance for a beginning to low-intermediate artist. I classify myself a low-intermediate artist.
The visible layout was very easy to follow, even with a few minor technical inconsistencies (more on those later), and presented in a neat, organized fashion, which I certainly hope is the standard for the full version when it comes out on CD. Most of the tutorials were very easy to follow from start to finish, and I have to compliment the artist who wrote thm for that. I did have some difficulty with the Snow Fox tutorial provided in the Sampler, but that problem was me rather than the tutorial itself.
There are a few minor technical issues with the Sampler, but they don't detract from the overall presentation too much. The introductory pages to a few of the tutorials had a nice breakdown with the images in a little table, but not all of them had that. the page count is off by one if you actually noticed, it skips in numbering from 19 to 21, and one of the tutorials was missing the step count box. Like I said, the technical stuff is minor, and does not affect the function of the guide itself.
A somewhat nuisance technical issue would have to be that some of the images are a bit light. What I mean is some of the key lines that are mentioned in the tutorial text are barely visible in several of the tutorials' images, I didn't have any issue figuring out where those lines were supposed to be however, and the finished works turned out all right in my opinion. Several of the tutorials also had materials lists that didn't match with the text of the tutorial, but that may have been the result of the editing for space that was done to make the Sampler. It wasn't a prominent issue, but when a pen for inking is listed, I kind of like to see in mentioned in the steps somewhere to use the pen to start inking. A knit-pick thing for me I guess.
I do want to thank the eight artists for their hard work and dedication to the project:
Snow Fox
Rodbere
Milky Cat
Karen Lyon
Sarah Maeder
Ranefea
Chibi Jazine
GTK
Thank you guys for making the anime drawing experience so much easier for those of us who still have trouble (referring to myself alone) getting it right.
After seeing the Sampler version, I'm more convinced that my decision to buy the guide is a sound one.
Now, for the Comments:
Outlaw Melfina,
That's all right, every time I try to draw one it comes out cartoony, and I'm not trying to draw a Peter, Paul, and Mary song cutsie dragon, I want to draw something a little more serious.
Mamma Vash,
I'm not really surprised, I guess there aren't too many people who can do them well, or know anyone who can do them well that get out to my little corner of the internet universe. I can keep on trying though, but not on OtakuBoards. I used to be on them as Cosmic but I'm no longer a member there on principle alone. After one board upgrade back in 2004, my new computer decided to be an idiot about logging me out whenever I tried to navigate the boards. I sent a few e-mails and didn't really get any help for my effort, so I made the promise that I wouldn't rejoin OtakuBoards after that mess was "resolved", and I haven't been on there since, nor will I go back there. You can ask around on there for me if you want, but I'll only be able to humor e-mails and PMs from people through here.
Anime Dreams.
|
