Help with Books!

[Green-fire]

So.
I have Decided I will make a Trip to Barnes & Noble
I have 80 Dollars
Make A list of THE BEST books I could get and which ones will be most Helpful to a fifteen year-old
Thanks for the Help!

[Flake]

Betty Edwards- Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Edit: actually, this will be in most libraries so just borrow it..

That's about 10 bucks, then go and download the Loomis books for free from
http://acid.noobgrinder.com/Loomis/

Then buy this..
Stephen Rogers Peck - Atlas of Human Anatomy for Artists

Another 10 bucks or so.

Spend the remaining 60 on materials or awesome books with cool pictures that inspire you. You'll have to decide the cool pictures thing for yourself.

If you want to spend more on instruction books I thought Ron Tiners "Figure Drawing without a model" was sweet and useful for all ages and skill levels, again, about 10 bucks.

Really though, I don't know you or your interests but that's where I'd start if I had a time machine and the ability to advise my teenaged self. Well, that and "stay away from Jane, go for Caroline"..

[Green-fire]

haha,
thank you so much man
I've been in a slump lately
I get inspired by the art on here
and then whenn I try and Draw
I get UN-inspired because i suck so much
but you gotta start somewhere I guess.

[sweetoblivion314]

hey flake i think your underestimating the price of books. Especially at B&N. Pecks book will be 19.95 there and Edwards book will be 16.95.

Bridgemans books and Robert Beverly Hales books are also very usefull.

[Flake]

Good point, I usually get used copies of instructional type books from Amazon which is quite a bit cheaper..

I'm also terrible at calculating exchange rates at 2am.

[Green-fire]

haha,
ok so that Loomis Download thing doesnt work.
It says I need a special Program to unzip .rar files
any ideas how to fix that?

[Arshes Nei]

Please add Art & Fear to the list. It's a great book that they should keep with them while they're learning how to draw.

[Arshes Nei]

haha,
ok so that Loomis Download thing doesnt work.
It says I need a special Program to unzip .rar files
any ideas how to fix that?

http://www.7-zip.org/

That is free and will unzip .rar files. I actually find it better than the commercial zip utilities when it comes to how quickly it extracts and compacts files.

[Green-fire]

oh, thanks so much
I am now reading the Loomis' Studies thingies
I also needed to download Adobe Reader too because I couldn't read pdf Files
but I fixed that
thanks for the Help!

[artmakessense]

waaiit i went to barnes and noble and i couldnt find shitt. where are the like instructional art books?

[Green-fire]

Try the Library too.
I see a bunch of stuff there
but The Loomis crap works
Been jottin it down
kinda cartoonish
but whatever I can learn
I will.

[Arshes Nei]

oh, thanks so much
I am now reading the Loomis' Studies thingies
I also needed to download Adobe Reader too because I couldn't read pdf Files
but I fixed that
thanks for the Help!

If you want a better reader I advise Foxit PDF

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

I started noticing Acrobat becomes quite the resource hog and Foxit fixed a lot of problems with "Freezing" the system due to Adobe's PDF whorish tendencies

[Arshes Nei]

waaiit i went to barnes and noble and i couldnt find shitt. where are the like instructional art books?

I've found Barnes & Nobles sections rather narrow and full of Christopher Hart books D:

Borders on the other hand seems to have a decent selection for being a retail store, and not only that membership is free.

Sign up for a Borders membership card, you'll get emails on better discounts that will be about the same price as Amazon (sans the tax though). You can also do an e-survey and get up to 15 dollars in rewards money which is like gift certificate money you can spend in the store.

[FlameDragon]

I think it varies from store to store. One Barnes and Noble nearby has only a few art books, but the one on 21st street has alot. Borders also has a good selection.

[sweetoblivion314]

it really depends on the branch as to whether the store has a good art section or not. The Borders near me in Oxford Valley, PA has not quite 2 shelves of art books. The Barnes and noble has 3 shelves. But the Borders in downtown San Francisco has a whole section of arts books, About 14 shelves in all. And the Barnes and noble in princeton NJ has an entire wall of their store for art.
just depends on the branch.

[Arshes Nei]

I won't disagree with that, though every Barnes and Nobles I've been to charges for membership for "great discounts" and if you're charging for discounts and savings it defeats the purpose. Unless this also varies from store to store?

You can go through Borders and it will be free membership and what you can't find on the shelf just order it, and then get one of their weekly 20-30% coupons they send you through email and save

[SigonWulf]

I purchased around 6 or 7 Bridgeman books off of Amazon for around $50. And that include shipping and handling with all of them.

[sweetoblivion314]

I won't disagree with that, though every Barnes and Nobles I've been to charges for membership for "great discounts" and if you're charging for discounts and savings it defeats the purpose. Unless this also varies from store to store?

You can go through Borders and it will be free membership and what you can't find on the shelf just order it, and then get one of their weekly 20-30% coupons they send you through email and save

Barnes and Noble has a membership system that saves you 10% off of everything you buy while its active, even online (and at the University of Penn bookstore it even works when its not active ). You also get coupons and other special offers through email sometimes up to %40 off. Its $25 a year. Its really worth it if you shop there a lot. I had it for a year because it ended up saving me more money then it cost me to buy it when i bought it. Plus loads of saved money throughout the year.

Borders has a rewards card that gives you a coupon every weekend and a 10% off coupon each month and you build store credit and theres a special day each month where you get %30 off. This is also really worth it especially since its free to sign up. The store credit build up is kinda slow though. Its less then 5% of your purchases i think, though in about a year i built up $12 or so (i buy a lot of books).

[Serra]

Hi Green-fire!
When I buy books to help with my art, they are almost always either pose books or books of artists I love.

Here's why:
The pose books inspire me to come up with cool characters that would fit those poses (and then you can add costumes, backgrounds, etc. etc. to make the image your own!) and also, if you have an idea for an image you can use them for anatomical reference!
The artist books are for inspiration! They get me wanting to draw, and they also get me to think of techniques I would not have tried before... I work in a simple style so I also get heavy inspiration from children's books.

Happy buying!
--Serra