Christmas Gift-a-palooza: How To Draw Batman
Filed under: Comics
As a joke (at least I think it was a joke), one of the gifts I received was How to Draw Batman. This book, published by Scholastic, purports to teach youngsters how to draw the Batman.
I think this book will be much more of a discouragement than an encouragement. Kids would be better off putting a piece of paper over the TV or monitor and tracing Batman. It would be faster, easier, and a hell of a lot less frustrating for them.
Just how bad is the book? Let’s say you want to draw the Batmobile:
Think that maybe a few steps were left out?
After due consideration, I suspect that this book is part of a conspiracy hatched by current DC pencilers. They wanted a book that would appeal to artistic children, yet be so bad that not only would it not teach anything useful, but it would in fact discourage kids from ever drawing again. Thus, their jobs are safe for yet another generation.
December 28th, 2005 at 9:19 am
You do have to use your eyes when you draw. The illustration does break down the car into its basic shape which is what a beginner at drawing should learn to do. You’re allowed to play while drawing something, you’re allowed to make mistakes and correct them. Drawing is a field in which a mistake doesn’t result in patient death. Look at what you’re drawing, measure the angles as if you were looking at the hands of a clock, and, please, relax. This was probably meant to be a FUN gift–you don’t have to conquer this field right off the bat(man).
December 28th, 2005 at 10:31 am
Official Comment
As an adult I understand that, but I suspect that most children (who the book was written for) would do better with more of a step by step approach.
December 28th, 2005 at 6:41 pm
“The illustration does break down the car into its basic shape which is what a beginner at drawing should learn to do. ”
Kids don’t exactly need help breaking a car down to the “square with circles” level.
It’s the details they need help with. But a step-by-step approach takes up space.
Perhaps the publisher dictated a cut in pages during the editing process, and the middle
stages were circular-filed.
January 10th, 2006 at 2:02 am
I think the batmobile is 3D computer graphic work, just like the way it is in “The Batman” show. The writer of the book doesn’t have a step-by-step of DRAWING (and no CG modeling, only rendered result), so he just throw in the basic shape. That’s plain lazy.
Worse thing is, the CGIs are way too hard to follow for kids (too much details). If they really want kids learn how to draw the batmobile from the show, why can’t they just use the animation-ralated comic style?
April 20th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
How do you draw batman with his cape? on step by step instructions
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