Raiding My Bookshelves

Since elementary school, I have been collecting art instruction books. As mentioned in my eBook "3 Newbie Not-To-Do's: Getting Started with Toon Boom's Storyboard Pro," my father photocopied for me—in its ENTIRETY!—the book "Animating Films Without a Camera." I still have those photocopies today along with a host of other books.

I'm now completely focused on improving my drawing skills. In the past when I've tried to do this, I felt overwhelmed about what I should be doing and how.

I finally got smart and decided to combine the exercises in the Nicolaides book with a thorough examination of ALL of the art instruction books I have. Yep, ALL of them! Because what's the point of having an instruction book if you don't at least give it one solid look. And I spent quite a bit on some of them so I BETTER look at them!

Here's my prized Andrew Loomis collection (I spent many a late night on eBay outbidding folks for some of these):

The Burne Hogarth collection:

The Will Eisner collection:

Some others:

These books and collections I was lucky enough to download before copyright issues banned them from the web:

PLUS I have ten binders full of drawing and animation tips and tricks.

This ambitious plan is currently scheduled to take me into 2013 (!) I look at these books and binders of notes every day and it drives me crazy that they're full of potentially life-altering insights that I simply haven't accessed yet.

No more wondering, I'm ready to start raiding.