By Lee J. Ames

**BEST FOR BEGINNERS**

A step-by-step, easy-to-use drawing book that will help kids and adults alike develop their technical drawing skills and build a repertoire of animal subjects.

Fifty furry, scaly, and feathered friends are here for aspiring young artists to learn how to draw, including a lion, a giraffe, a dinosaur, a penguin, a bunny, a shark, and much more. It's easy to bring these animals to life the Draw 50 way.

Over the past thirty years, celebrated author Lee J. Ames’s distinctive drawing method has proven successful for those wishing to draw anything from animals to airplanes. The books in the Draw 50 series have inspired creativity in millions and shown artists from beginning to advanced levels how to draw.

NOTE FROM MARCUS:

This series covers a variety of topics from dogs to planes, automobiles, magical creatures, animals, buildings, and more. It is recommended to start with the ”Draw 50 Famous Cartoons” book, and move on from there. They are structured in a Step-by-Step methodology with simple drawings that are easy to follow.

**BEGINNER**

Walter Foster Publishing is one of the most recognized names in art instruction. The timeless drawing and painting techniques found in Walter Foster titles have helped people around the world discover their artistic talents. From traditional pencil sketching and acrylic, oil, and watercolor painting, to mixed media, hand lettering, and DIY crafting--Walter Foster Publishing has developed a full library of titles for the modern artist.

By Stan Lee and John Buscema

**GREAT FOR BEGINNERS**

Stan Lee, the Mighty Man from Marvel, and John Buscema, active and adventuresome artist behind the Silver Surfer, Conan the Barbarian, the Mighty Thor and Spider-Man, have collaborated on this comics compendium: an encyclopedia of information for creating your own superhero comic strips. Using artwork from Marvel comics as primary examples, Buscema graphically illustrates the hitherto mysterious methods of comic art. Stan Lee’s pithy prose gives able assistance and advice to the apprentice artist. Bursting with Buscema’s magnificent illustrations and Lee’s laudable word-magic, How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way belongs in the library of everyone who has ever wanted to illustrate his or her own comic strip.

NOTE FROM MARCUS:

This book teaches drawing fundamentals under the lens of the Marvel Universe. You don’t need to be a fan of the franchise to learn the essential skills taught inside.

By Preston Blair

**BEGINNER TO INTERMEDIATE**

In Cartoon Animation, acclaimed cartoon animator Preston Blair shares his vast practical knowledge to explain and demonstrate the many techniques of cartoon animation. By following his lessons, you can make any character—person, animal, or object—come to life through animated movement!

Animation is the process of drawing and photographing a character in successive positions to create lifelike movement. Animators bring life to their drawings, making the viewer believe that the drawings actually think and have feelings. Cartoon Animation was written by an animator to help you learn how to animate. The pioneers of the art of animation learned many lessons, most through trial and error, and it is this body of knowledge that has established the fundamentals of animation. This book will teach you these fundamentals.

Animators must first know how to draw; good drawing is the cornerstone of their success. The animation process, however, involves much more than just good drawing. This book teaches all the other knowledge and skills animators must have. In chapter one, Preston Blair shows how to construct original cartoon characters, developing a character’s shape, personality, features, and mannerisms. The second chapter explains how to create movements such as running, walking, dancing, posing, skipping, strutting, and more. Chapter three discusses the finer points of animating a character, including creating key character poses and in-betweens. Chapter four is all about dialogue, how to create realistic mouth and body movements, and facial expressions while the character is speaking. There are helpful diagrams in this chapter that show mouth positions, along with a thorough explanation of how sounds are made using the throat, tongue, teeth, and lips. Finally, the fifth chapterhas clear explanations of a variety of technical topics, including tinting and spacing patterns, background layout drawings, the cartoon storyboard, and the synchronization of camera, background, characters, sound, and music.

Full of expert advice from Preston Blair, as well as helpful drawings and diagrams, Cartoon Animationis a book no animation enthusiast should be without.

By Jack Hamm

**INTERMEDIATE**

NOTE FROM MARCUS:

It takes the early student to the next level, teaching more details and procedures for sophisticated drawing. This is a very nice intermediate book that is simple to understand. Jack was a mid-20th Century commercial illustrator.

By  Richard Williams

**INTERMEDIATE**

The definitive book on animation, from the Academy Award-winning animator behind Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Animation is one of the hottest areas of filmmaking today--and the master animator who bridges the old generation and the new is Richard Williams. During his fifty years in the business, Williams has been one of the true innovators, winning three Academy Awards and serving as the link between Disney's golden age of animation by hand and the new computer animation exemplified by Toy Story.

Perhaps even more important, though, has been his dedication in passing along his knowledge to a new generation of animators so that they in turn could push the medium in new directions. In this book, based on his sold-out master classes in the United States and across Europe, Williams provides the underlying principles of animation that every animator--from beginner to expert, classic animator to computer animation whiz --needs. Urging his readers to "invent but be believable," he illustrates his points with hundreds of drawings, distilling the secrets of the masters into a working system in order to create a book that will become the standard work on all forms of animation for professionals, students, and fans.

NOTE FROM MARCUS:

Animators are some of the best draftsmen in the industry. Even if you don't wish to become an Animator, the drawing lessons and acquired skills will advance your understanding and abilities to a very high level.

By Ken Hultgren

**INTERMEDIATE**

---The Art of Animal Drawing will help artists at all levels improve their ability to draw animals both realistically and as caricatures.

Ken Hultgten, a former animator for Walt Disney Studios, offers expert advice on catching the essential movement and character of animals. The emphasis is on drawings (with over 700 illustrations) so the student is able to view the development process of the drawing by example.

Introductory chapters on the special techniques of drawing animals, the use of line, establishing mood and emotion, and conveying action, are followed by instruction on drawing the skeletal and muscular structure, along with the motion of individual animal forms. The author offers details on drawing dogs, horses, deer, cats, bears, foxes, kangaroos, rabbits, squirrels, elephants, cows and bulls, giraffes, camels, gorillas, pigs, and many more. His instruction on animal caricature is especially helpful to all those interested in the subject.

Any artist — student, amateur, or professional — who is interested in drawing animals will want to own this essential guide to the subject.

By Burne Hogarth

**ADVANCED**

Praised by critics and teachers alike for more than 40 years, Burne Hogarth’s Dynamic Anatomy is recognized worldwide as the classic, indispensable text on artistic anatomy. Now revised, expanded, and completely redesigned with 75 never-before-published drawings from the Hogarth archives and 24 pages of new material, this award-winning reference explores the expressive structure of the human form from the artist’s point of view.

The 400 remarkable illustrations explain the anatomical details of male and female figures in motion and at rest, always stressing the human form in space. Meticulous diagrams and fascinating action studies examine the rhythmic relationship of muscles and their effect upon surface forms. The captivating text is further enhanced by the magnificent figure drawings of such masters as Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Rodin, Picasso, and other great artists.

Dynamic Anatomy presents a comprehensive, detailed study of the human figure as artistic anatomy. This time-honored book goes far beyond the factual elements of anatomy, providing generations of new artists with the tools they need to make the human figure come alive on paper

NOTE FROM MARCUS:

This is a book that raises the level of artistic understanding of the human body. The proportions are stylized for purpose of understanding the complex planes, in a sculptural sense. Burne was one of the founders of School of Visual Arts in New York City, and also the leading artist of the old Tarzan comic strip.

By Gyorgy Fehér (Author), András Szunyoghy (Illustrator)

**INTERMEDIATE TO ADVANCED**

Designed for both professional and amateur artists, Cyclopedia Anatomicae is an essential guide to mastering the fundamentals of anatomical drawing. In addition to the human figure, it covers horses, dogs, cats, pigs, apes and more. Detailed, fully annotated illustrations of the skeletal, joint, and muscular systems clarify the proportions of each body type and lay the foundation for reproducing movements with true-to-life accuracy. With more than 1,500 illustrations, tips on drawing techniques, and informative explanations of the basics on human and animal anatomy, Cyclopedia Anatomicae provides the helpful guidance any artist can use.

By Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston

**HISTORICAL AND EDUCATIONAL**

The most complete book on the subject ever written, this is the fascinating inside story by two long-term Disney animators of the gradual perfecting of a relatively young and particularly American art from, which no other move studio has ever been able to equal. 

The authors, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, worked not only with the legendary Walt Disney himself but also with other leading figures in the half-century of Disney films. They personally animated leading characters in most of the famous films, and have decades of close association with the other men and women who helped perfect this extremely difficult and time-consuming art form (each feature requires some two and half million drawings!). Not to be mistaken for just a "how-to-do-it," this voluminously illustrated volume (like the classic Disney films themselves) is definitely intended for everyone to enjoy.

Besides relating the painstaking trial-and-error development of Disney's charcter animation technology, this book irresistibly charms us with almost an overabundance of the original historic drawings used in creating some of the best-loved characters in American culture: Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, Snow White and Bambi (among many, many others) as well as early sketches used in developing memorable sequences from classic features such as Fantasia and Pinocchio. With the full cooperation fo Walt Disney Productions and free access to the studio's priceless archives, the authors took unparalleled advantage of their intimate long-term experience with animated films to choose the precise drawings to illustrate their points from among hundreds of thousands of pieces of artwork carefully stored away.

The book answers everybody's question about how the amazingly lifelike effects of Disney character animation were achieved, including charming stories of the ways that many favorite animated figures got their unique personalities. From the perspective of two men who had an important role in shaping the art of animation, and within the context of the history of animation and the growth of the Disney studio, this is the definitive volume on the work and achievement of one of America's best-known and most widely loved cultural institutions. Nostalgia and film buffs, students of popular culture, and that very broad audience who warmly responds to the Disney "illusion of life" will find this book compelling reading (and looking!).