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book review: how 2 draw ojisan
I recently ordered 2 books on how to draw ojisan (middle-aged men in japanese); this'll be a review post on them both.
it's kind of funny how this all got started - have been using startpage as a non-shitty search engine, and was looking up a completely different JP drawing book on perspective when it suggested me one of these. (not great when it comes to startpage's "total privacy" claims since it had to know my drawing tastes, but i bit the bait - hook, line, and sinker. )
edit: this current journal theme shrinks/desaturates pictures - right click for higher quality images.
YANAMi's "Old Man Drawing Techniques: Face/Body Edition" came in first.
it's surprisingly thick! High quality layout, binding, detailed everything in JP-only. If you've brought softcover JP video-game artbooks before, you'll know what you're getting into. I've been using google images to translate every page (take a picture of the page > send to myself via email > run it through google translate > save it as an EN version). Time consuming and not a perfect translation, but the notes are gold and still legible; this is definitely a book that you want to read the comments and not just look at the prettyold men pictures.
To which, please keep in mind all spreads shown are machine translated, there will be errors.
The book's organized by breaking the face and body down into parts; mouth, hand, eyes, hair, etc. There's often helpful comparisons of how it would be drawn on a young person vs old, as shown in the below spread.
It's quite detailed when it comes to anatomy; it's not a scientific textbook by any means but definitely more than your deviantart tutorial. (do people even use that site anymore for tutorials?)
I was also quite impressed that the book acknowledges there's different (JP) styles you could draw ojisans, from an "otome game" romantic/classically handsome sharp-edge style to more of a comedic style. there's not a whole lot of variation, but there is some, and it at least gives you as the artist tools to push the style even further (knowing what shapes to exaggerate, versus what landmarks "read" as old).
One of my favorite parts is the book's very clear on what tiny little variations in strokes of the line actually would make a big impact - curved nose versus straight nose.... where the hairline is ... how prominent should knuckles be...
I'm not a novice artist with anatomy, but it was lovely to actually learn quite a few anatomy tricks with this book. the different cultural framing and perspective alone was useful. I also found it useful in the sense that if western art books talks about old people at all, it's usually not with an eye of making them handsome/desirable - so if you're drawing for a dating sim, there's extra mileage to glean from this.
after a good weeks worth of digesting and studying this book, it shouldn't be too hard to pick up on the specific line-patterns and wrinkles that tend to be a staple of JP ojisans.
Personally, if you're only just drawing one random old dude it's not worth to go out of your way for this, but if you're drawing a webcomic with a bunch of them or really want to drill down in the distinctive JP "shorthand" style for ojisans, it's worthwhile to pick up.
"How to draw an old man (Kosaido Manga Studio)" came in later.
I found the intro to this book quite charming and endearing. Similar to a line mentioned in the review of the other book, there's not a lot (any?) western guides on how to draw old men that you find handsome, and so acknowledging that was a nice nod across the globe.
As what it mentions in the front spread, the first thing that struck me was while this book is still sizeable (certinally heftier than your average 40p doujin), it's a little smaller, and a quick flip through shows it focuses way less on anatomy, and more about the different types of old men and their occupations. Feels almost like a cute fashion show with old men as pirates, businessmen, mad scientists, samurai, etc. Or if you're familiar with the concept of case studies, then the whole book organized around 12 or so ojisan with minor one-page details about depicting their lives.
Mad scientist ojisan was my personal favorite, to no one's surprise ~ the other ones looked far too kindly for their own good. :D
The first 1/4 was the introduction and just a smidge on anatomy. In some ways, i like the slow introduction of this one more, and there was weirdly more variation in the front selection of pages in the ojisan faces, and also a much more casual/friendly tone with comments from the illustrator.
this book definitely focuses less on the physicality of how the muscularstructure affects wrinkles/sags, and put more thought into how to tweak styles to cater to different audiences (and mediums, and audience tastes). also a very important lesson. webtoon!ojisans are a far cry from more "realistic" ones.
However, while I like the drawing style in this book ... as far as actually learning the shorthand to drawing an ojisan.... ehn. It devotes a few pretty great pages in the front to the different facial types, which is appreciated, but doesn't really answer the structural-meat-and-bones building how like the other one did.
there's tips to be sure, but it's very much reminiscent of the 'draw a circle' 'now draw the rest of the f*king owl' meme. :P
i don't want to harp on that detail too badly, as in some ways i like the naturalistic style of this illustrator slightly more - to me, the full body below is a lot more convincing than the other book, even if the other book "teaches" you how to get there thoroughly.
I'll personally keep both books just 'cuz there's a dearth in the topic, but there's a clear difference between both books, depending on what you want to glean from them.
thanks for reading ~
it's kind of funny how this all got started - have been using startpage as a non-shitty search engine, and was looking up a completely different JP drawing book on perspective when it suggested me one of these. (not great when it comes to startpage's "total privacy" claims since it had to know my drawing tastes, but i bit the bait - hook, line, and sinker. )
edit: this current journal theme shrinks/desaturates pictures - right click for higher quality images.
YANAMi's "Old Man Drawing Techniques: Face/Body Edition" came in first.
it's surprisingly thick! High quality layout, binding, detailed everything in JP-only. If you've brought softcover JP video-game artbooks before, you'll know what you're getting into. I've been using google images to translate every page (take a picture of the page > send to myself via email > run it through google translate > save it as an EN version). Time consuming and not a perfect translation, but the notes are gold and still legible; this is definitely a book that you want to read the comments and not just look at the pretty
To which, please keep in mind all spreads shown are machine translated, there will be errors.
The book's organized by breaking the face and body down into parts; mouth, hand, eyes, hair, etc. There's often helpful comparisons of how it would be drawn on a young person vs old, as shown in the below spread.
It's quite detailed when it comes to anatomy; it's not a scientific textbook by any means but definitely more than your deviantart tutorial. (do people even use that site anymore for tutorials?)
I was also quite impressed that the book acknowledges there's different (JP) styles you could draw ojisans, from an "otome game" romantic/classically handsome sharp-edge style to more of a comedic style. there's not a whole lot of variation, but there is some, and it at least gives you as the artist tools to push the style even further (knowing what shapes to exaggerate, versus what landmarks "read" as old).
One of my favorite parts is the book's very clear on what tiny little variations in strokes of the line actually would make a big impact - curved nose versus straight nose.... where the hairline is ... how prominent should knuckles be...
I'm not a novice artist with anatomy, but it was lovely to actually learn quite a few anatomy tricks with this book. the different cultural framing and perspective alone was useful. I also found it useful in the sense that if western art books talks about old people at all, it's usually not with an eye of making them handsome/desirable - so if you're drawing for a dating sim, there's extra mileage to glean from this.
after a good weeks worth of digesting and studying this book, it shouldn't be too hard to pick up on the specific line-patterns and wrinkles that tend to be a staple of JP ojisans.
Personally, if you're only just drawing one random old dude it's not worth to go out of your way for this, but if you're drawing a webcomic with a bunch of them or really want to drill down in the distinctive JP "shorthand" style for ojisans, it's worthwhile to pick up.
"How to draw an old man (Kosaido Manga Studio)" came in later.
I found the intro to this book quite charming and endearing. Similar to a line mentioned in the review of the other book, there's not a lot (any?) western guides on how to draw old men that you find handsome, and so acknowledging that was a nice nod across the globe.
As what it mentions in the front spread, the first thing that struck me was while this book is still sizeable (certinally heftier than your average 40p doujin), it's a little smaller, and a quick flip through shows it focuses way less on anatomy, and more about the different types of old men and their occupations. Feels almost like a cute fashion show with old men as pirates, businessmen, mad scientists, samurai, etc. Or if you're familiar with the concept of case studies, then the whole book organized around 12 or so ojisan with minor one-page details about depicting their lives.
Mad scientist ojisan was my personal favorite, to no one's surprise ~ the other ones looked far too kindly for their own good. :D
The first 1/4 was the introduction and just a smidge on anatomy. In some ways, i like the slow introduction of this one more, and there was weirdly more variation in the front selection of pages in the ojisan faces, and also a much more casual/friendly tone with comments from the illustrator.
this book definitely focuses less on the physicality of how the muscularstructure affects wrinkles/sags, and put more thought into how to tweak styles to cater to different audiences (and mediums, and audience tastes). also a very important lesson. webtoon!ojisans are a far cry from more "realistic" ones.
However, while I like the drawing style in this book ... as far as actually learning the shorthand to drawing an ojisan.... ehn. It devotes a few pretty great pages in the front to the different facial types, which is appreciated, but doesn't really answer the structural-meat-and-bones building how like the other one did.
there's tips to be sure, but it's very much reminiscent of the 'draw a circle' 'now draw the rest of the f*king owl' meme. :P
i don't want to harp on that detail too badly, as in some ways i like the naturalistic style of this illustrator slightly more - to me, the full body below is a lot more convincing than the other book, even if the other book "teaches" you how to get there thoroughly.
I'll personally keep both books just 'cuz there's a dearth in the topic, but there's a clear difference between both books, depending on what you want to glean from them.
thanks for reading ~