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MangaMatrix #2
Super Manga Matrix
Following the success of Manga Matrix , which demonstrated how to create manga characters, Super Manga Matrix by Hiroyoshi Tsukamoto will help aspiring artists and professionals create awesome manga characters and manga stories! Using a unique matrix system invented in Japan, artists of all skill levels—from beginner to advanced—can create new types of heroes, evil creatures, and multi-formed beasts, as well as plot their stories on a matrix diagram. Perfect for lovers of the enormously popular manga, Super Manga Matrix is a simple, yet innovative, way to for anyone to easily create manga!
176 pages, Paperback
First published December 4, 2012
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74 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 18, 2017
I'm going to be 100% honest, I don't understand why this has so many high rated reviews.
It just doesn't deliver on it's promise of helping you create interesting new characters.
The first book in the series presents a very clear process for creating new interesting characters and it helped me do just that. It has sections targetting individual features, as well as an overall method that it adds depth to pretty much every chapter (origionally exploring things like overall form, then diving into additions such as clothing and props, even going so far as personality). Now while that book has it's flaws, I found myself thinking about character design and drawing new characters from a fresh perspective that really helped me out. Honestly, if you're interested in either of these, buy the first one.
This book focuses on "Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division" and a couple other methods along the same lines. Sounds cool, right? Wrong - Addition means "adding stuff to make it interesting" and subtracting is "removing stuff to make it interesting". Multiplication and Division are even more convoluted - "add more characters to make it interesting" and division doesn't even make sense from a character creating viewpoint. Some actual examples of division include "one set of genes / 2 = twins" and "Friendship / 2 = sorrow". One chapter is one the "1,2,3,4,7" method and the first step of this is "have a main character."
...
Now, I'm sorry, but if you need a book to tell you to add stuff in if something is bland and take stuff away when it's busy, or heck, draw a character when you're designing a character (???), then there's some very basic steps you are missing. That isn't a method, it's just common sense.
As for the multiplication and division methods - well, I found some of them forced to say the least. I really like the imagery in this book, and under each image "example" is a little description about the art piece along with how it supposedly ties into the method. But sometimes how it ties into the chapter is totally unbelievable, and some of the descriptions themselves mention elements that aren't even involved in the image. e.g.:
"The hero flies off on his giant bird with his trusted friends to storm the evil castle and rescue the kidnapped princess" it's a (beautiful, but still) picture of a guy riding a bird. No friends, no castle, no princess. Now I really do respect that the creator's imagination is running wild and this is how he see's it - but if that is the type of character that is being portrayed, with that sort of story, the image has failed to protray that character. On a book about designing and portraying characters and teaching others to do this, this is a problem. Show not tell.
Now don't get me wrong, this book has some good points. The page on character transformation was very good (..but only one page...) and the book is crammed full of beautiful artwork. The artist's passion for his work does come through in his descriptions. But as far as I'm concerned this book does not teach you anything.
The blurb advertises this as: "..readers will learn to create an infinite number of manga characters with unique physical atributes, costumes, skills, and personality types, as well as secondary characters that they can engage with in a manga story." you won't. The first book in the series is better for this.
But if you don't mind this and are looking for a beautiful artbook, with some inspirational descriptions and maybe one or two pointers, then this could be useful to you.
It just doesn't deliver on it's promise of helping you create interesting new characters.
The first book in the series presents a very clear process for creating new interesting characters and it helped me do just that. It has sections targetting individual features, as well as an overall method that it adds depth to pretty much every chapter (origionally exploring things like overall form, then diving into additions such as clothing and props, even going so far as personality). Now while that book has it's flaws, I found myself thinking about character design and drawing new characters from a fresh perspective that really helped me out. Honestly, if you're interested in either of these, buy the first one.
This book focuses on "Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division" and a couple other methods along the same lines. Sounds cool, right? Wrong - Addition means "adding stuff to make it interesting" and subtracting is "removing stuff to make it interesting". Multiplication and Division are even more convoluted - "add more characters to make it interesting" and division doesn't even make sense from a character creating viewpoint. Some actual examples of division include "one set of genes / 2 = twins" and "Friendship / 2 = sorrow". One chapter is one the "1,2,3,4,7" method and the first step of this is "have a main character."
...
Now, I'm sorry, but if you need a book to tell you to add stuff in if something is bland and take stuff away when it's busy, or heck, draw a character when you're designing a character (???), then there's some very basic steps you are missing. That isn't a method, it's just common sense.
As for the multiplication and division methods - well, I found some of them forced to say the least. I really like the imagery in this book, and under each image "example" is a little description about the art piece along with how it supposedly ties into the method. But sometimes how it ties into the chapter is totally unbelievable, and some of the descriptions themselves mention elements that aren't even involved in the image. e.g.:
"The hero flies off on his giant bird with his trusted friends to storm the evil castle and rescue the kidnapped princess" it's a (beautiful, but still) picture of a guy riding a bird. No friends, no castle, no princess. Now I really do respect that the creator's imagination is running wild and this is how he see's it - but if that is the type of character that is being portrayed, with that sort of story, the image has failed to protray that character. On a book about designing and portraying characters and teaching others to do this, this is a problem. Show not tell.
Now don't get me wrong, this book has some good points. The page on character transformation was very good (..but only one page...) and the book is crammed full of beautiful artwork. The artist's passion for his work does come through in his descriptions. But as far as I'm concerned this book does not teach you anything.
The blurb advertises this as: "..readers will learn to create an infinite number of manga characters with unique physical atributes, costumes, skills, and personality types, as well as secondary characters that they can engage with in a manga story." you won't. The first book in the series is better for this.
But if you don't mind this and are looking for a beautiful artbook, with some inspirational descriptions and maybe one or two pointers, then this could be useful to you.
February 28, 2016
This book gives tons of ideas for character-making. It touches the plot aspect too. Furthermore, the illustrations that accompany this book are top-notch.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews