• It’s obvious really, The reason you shouldn’t read free e-book’s, is because they are mostly rubbish. If you think about it , how can anybody afford to write a book and give it away for free? There has to be a reason. Either they are complete junk or they are trying to sell you something.

    Many free e-book’s that you see are really only a few pages encouraging you to download the rest of the book, possibly leaving you open to viruses. Otherwise they are sponsored by corporations or countries you may not wish to be influenced by.

    Many of the free e-book’s I’ve looked at are Chinese Communist Party propaganda, aimed at bringing up children in a “certain way”. These are usually translated into English by German companies and have Canadian/Chinese voice-overs that are hysterically bland and are not aware of western intonations, so you can get some very strange double entendres.

    The big problem with the books at the moment is that anyone who can get hold of the rights to “content” is piling into the market, trying to get a foothold while the gold rush is on. Anyone can make an e-book and, it seems, just about everybody is! Some of the free e-books I’ve looked at can only be described as execrable!

    In life you get what you pay for, and that goes for e-book’s as well as everything else. And if you don’t want to pay, don’t be surprised if all you get is rubbish, because the people you rely on to produce quality “content” still need to eat at the end of the day.

    So you’re probably wondering what would be a good e-book to download? Well, I’m biased but I would recommend the Ginger Ninja on the iBooks store. (I’d put a link, but they don’t really work!)

    Oh dear! Does it looks like I’m trying to sell you something 🙂

  • Hooray! The Ginger Ninja iBook is Live on the iBooks Store! I thought I was waiting for approval from Apple, but I finally found out that there were issues with the book I’d uploaded. After a bit of faffing about, I worked out what the problem was and the book is now live and can be bought for only £1.49 or $1.99.

    If you are thinking of buying a copy, get one soon as that helps give the book a good start. You can get the Ginger Ninja at the iBook store for your iPad at the following addresses.

                       

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru7ZB3pL66U

  • I actually want to encourage you not to draw Manga – well, not if you want to be a professional illustrator someday. There are just too many Manga Artists, basically all doing the same thing. It’s very unusual to find one that stands out from the rest. Mark Crilley on YouTube , certainly stands out. you can learn a huge amount about drawing and character and scenes and book pacing from Mark, but he’s got there before you. Learn, move on and adapt – find your own style.

    In this video I show you a bit of how I would draw Manga, but then try to show how you can use Manga to influence your style, but don’t let it take over altogether. Manga is slick and “looks cool” but it does all tend to look the same. The artist that works for the least amount gets the job and you probably need to move to Japan too. Find your own style and stick with it.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uZnjtasLz4