Reviewed by annieb123 on
Chibi Art Class is a new tutorial/technique guide from artist and youtuber Anny Zhou (yoaihime). Due out 2nd April from Quarto on their Race Point imprint, it's 144 pages and available in paperback format.
I love to draw and doodle. Despite not being super advanced and skillful yet, I find drawing very relaxing most of the time. This is an accessible guide full of techniques and cheerful upbeat advice. The drawing style itself is completely adorable (chibi ちび translates to 'little'). They're big eyed and round faced with tiny hands.
About 10% of the page content covers an introduction to tools and supplies. This is a very basic and informal guide to some of the tools available. Roughly the next 20% covers specific ratios (with roughed in stylized ratio drawings) showing the relationship in size between realistic anatomy and chibi anatomy. There are some warm-up guided tutorials in this chapter as well, showing faces, props, backgrounds and more.
The next chapters progress to specific character types including anthropomorphs (3), and the book concludes with an inspiration gallery and practice pages. The inspirations and practice pages include a sort of mix and match details and DIY tutorials to make your own.
The author's writing style is welcoming and informal. This would make a superlative library or classroom choice.
I really enjoyed this. I will use these to decorate journals and notes for friends. I see some chibi style science stuff in my future (chibi microscope, chibi lab, chibi test tubes)!
Four stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes
Reading updates
- Started reading
- Finished reading
- 22 March, 2019: Reviewed