99% of orders dispatched within 24hrs, delivery times may vary.
01892 510 850
sales@searchpress.com
Advanced Search
Related Videos
Create your own jaw-dropping comic art characters who burst off the page with personality and power!
This is the essential, practical guide to creating believable, unique characters, authored by influential artist Sam Hart - comic book guru of over 30 years.
Aimed at young teens and upwards, this must-have guide is the perfect introduction to creating dynamic, memorable comic book superheroes, supervillains and monsters. With step-by-step instructions and skill-building exercises integrated throughout for fun, fast results, you will build your characters from the ground up:
Once you master the basics, you’ll move on to advanced skills like creating dramatic perspective, adding narrative and inking to create comic-style tone and shading. Sam also shares special secrets on creating drama and dynamics through layout a key element of comic book art!
Finally you’ll find advice on ensuring artwork is print-ready with resources including blueline pages for showing your professional-quality work.
With a foreword from John Higgins, prominent comic book artist and writer best known for his colouring work on two of the biggest and most groundbreaking graphic novels of all time Watchmen and The Killing Joke, this is the must-have guide to bringing your own comic art to life.
Foreword by John Higgins 6 Sam Hart 8 Tools and Materials 10
Chapter 1 Body Basics 12 Where to start 14 Exercise: Stickman 15 Muscle and bone 16 Exercise: Beyond Stickman 19 Arms 20 Legs 22 Torso 24 Exercise: Drawing the torso 25 Exercise: Twists and turns 25 Body shape 26 Poses 28 Heroes of all shapes and sizes 30 Villainous designs 32 Making a monster 34 Exercise: Silhouettes 38
Chapter 2 Faces 40 Skull and facial muscles 42 Superheroic and supervillanous faces 44 Different shapes 46 Different angles 48 Expressions 50 Neck and hair 52 ‘T’ of the face 54 Aging 56 Exercise: Emojis 58
Chapter 3 Uniforms 60 Spandex and capes 62 Tech 64 Streetwear 66 ... And the exotic 67 Fantasy 68 Masks and facial coverings 70 Colours 72 Exercise: Stacking characteristics 74 Exercise: Temperament 76
Chapter 4 Powers 78 What makes a superpower? 80 Magic 82 Elemental forces 84 Rays 86 Visual FX 88 Exercise: Exploring power origins 92
Chapter 5 Action 94 Movement and balance 96 Exaggeration for visual impact 98 Foreshortening 100 Interaction 104 Exercise: Solo to group 106 Exercise: Putting it all together 108
Chapter 6 Extras! Advanced Skills 110 Narrative: building a better comic book 112 Secrets of the page 114 Getting perspective 116 Drawing from life 118 Think ink 120
Chapter 7 Resources 122 Category kickstarters 122 Print size, format and resolution 123 Blueline page 124
Afterword 126 Index 128
Professional comic book and storyboard artist Sam Hart has more than 30 years’ experience drawing superheroes and action-packed stories about characters and properties including Judge Dredd, Robin Hood, King Arthur, Joan of Arc, Power Rangers, VR Troopers and Starship Troopers.
After pursuing evil-doers in the pages of UK fanzines, he worked with colourist extraordinaire John Higgins and freelanced for many years in the world of magazine illustration and TV storyboards.
Living in Brazil, he created superheroes for advertising agencies, published his own comics and collaborated with Antony Johnston to illustrate the spy story The Coldest City, adapted to film in 2017 as Atomic Blonde, starring Oscar winner Charlize Theron.
Since 2004 Sam has regularly taught drawing and comic book art, first at libraries in São Paulo, Quanta Academia de Artes and then Axis School of Visual Effects. He presently features on the Domestika platform, with courses on visual narrative and inking for comic books.
Now back in England, Sam is married, has two daughters and, as a side-quest, is researching the ancient and mysterious technique of watercolours.
Find him online at: samhartgraphics.com
Or on Instagram @samrahart
By Lee Garbett
£14.99
By Sonia Leong
By Yishan Li
£4.99
We use cookies to personalise your experience and to analyse our traffic. Do you want to allow all cookies or view and change settings?
This cookie tool will help you understand who is using cookies to collect information from your device, for what purposes they use the information, and how you can control the use of cookies for non-essential activities.
Search Press supports the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising of the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada (DAAC), and the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance (EDAA).
If you opt out of advertising cookies, you may still see Search Press ads on other sites, but those ads will not be customized by us or our service providers and we will continue to customize your experience on our website via our use of cookies you have not refused.
Alternatively, privacy settings in most browsers will allow you to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, have it notify you when you receive a new cookie, or disable cookies altogether. If your browser is set to not accept any cookies, you will not receive Interest-Based Advertising, but your use of the Search Press service may be impaired or unavailable. In addition, if you use our cookie tool to opt-out of certain cookies, your opt-out preferences will be remembered by placing a cookie on your device. It is therefore important that your browser is configured to accept cookies for your preferences to take effect. If you delete or clear your cookies, or if you change which web browser you are using, you will need to set your cookie preferences again.
Note that from time to time we are over-inclusive in which cookies are listed in the opt-out tool. For example, we do not use Facebook, Twitter or Google cookies in all regions.
For more information on our use of cookies, please read our Cookies Policy.
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide our website or online service. For example, we and our Service Providers may use these cookies to authenticate and identify visitors when they use our websites and applications so we can provide our service to them. They also help us to enforce our Terms of Use, prevent fraud and maintain the security of our services.
Lifespan: Most cookies are session cookies (which are only active until you close your browser) or are cookies which are only active for one day. Some cookies are active for a longer time, ranging from 3 to 12 months. The cookies used to prevent fraud and maintain the security or our services are active for a maximum period of 24 months.
These cookies help us to customize and enhance your online experience with Search Press. For example, they help us to remember your preferences and prevent you from needing to re-enter information you previously provided (for example, during member sign up). We also use these cookies to collect information (such as popular pages, conversion rates, viewing patterns, click-through and other information) about our visitors' use of the Search Press service so that we can enhance and customize our website and service and conduct market research. Deletion of these types of cookies may result in limited functionality of our service.
Lifespan: Most cookies are only active for one day. Some cookies are active for a longer time, ranging from 3 to 12 months.
These cookies use information about your use of this and other websites and apps, your response to ads and emails, and to deliver ads that are more relevant to you and for analytics and optimization purposes. These types of ads are called "interest-based advertising" and will be shown to you outside the Search Press domain. Search Press uses contractual and technical measures designed to prevent advertising partners from accessing information regarding specific title selections you make, URLs you land on, or shows you have watched on our service. We do not share information about title selections or your shows you have watched on our service. The advertising cookies associated with our service belonging to our advertising partners as listed under cookie details. Please choose your settings for advertising cookies below. If you want to opt out of the advertising cookies across all websites, go here.