Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Draw 62 Magical Creatures and Make Them Cute by Heegyum Kim


Rating: WARTY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This book was rather disappointing for me. While it does offer step-by-step examples in drawing creatures, that's literally all it offers. There is little to no text, and no pointers, hints or tips. There is no advice about materials such as those which art books typically offer in my experience, or information on style or technique in terms of approaching your drawing.

All you get on each page is a set of half-a-dozen or so simple steps to start, add to, and finish your creature or folk-lore person, and then there are some suggestions, in the form of additional drawings, on how to make it look cute, which to me didn't always succeed, but that's a matter of personal taste.

So overall, if you don't mind emulating existing drawings, but being largely in the dark about methods, this book might work for you. For me, I do not like the minimalist approach which some might argue is lazy or cynical. To me it felt more like it was offering nothing more than basic patterns to copy, and I was not impressed. Having seen other, much more generous books on art, I cannot commend this as a worthy read.