I have an addiction.
Frankly I am sure I have a ton of addictions, but I am only considering one in this post: I love to buy books. And, since I only have so much shelf space, I concentrate on buying books I can’t just go get in the library. Consequently, I don’t have that many novels (though I have my favorites). Instead I concentrate on How-to books and Field Guides.
Right now I have just noticed (thanks to Amazon suggesting it) “Yet Another Art Instruction book I Cannot Possibly Live Without”. The book is called Manga Matrix: Create Unique Characters Using the Japanese Matrix System by Hiroyoshi Tsukamoto. Now anyone familiar with the stuff I doodle will say “But Rachel, you don’t even draw Manga style anything” and this is true. But I find the style (frequently) very pretty – especially when I think of Ghibli or sometimes Clamp, etc. I have several books on the style just to reference anyway.
But my real question, which should probably be posed over at http://Conceptart.org is this: When do you say to yourself “Intervention! Buying one more art instruction guide is not going to help you improve; actually drawing is the only thing that will actually help you improve”?Â
That’s one of those questions I don’t like!
What you are meant to say to yourself is “If I buy this book, I’ll practice drawing more, and hence I will be better at drawing.” :p
Yes, if I thought I would… but… !
If you know yourself well enough to know that buying it won’t get you to practice drawing more, then the question becomes simply: “Will I get $19 worth of enjoyment out of it?” and if the answer is yes, get the book. 😀