Art! Books and Supplies and Etc. I Recommend

Whoa! Long time no... post? (instead of 'see', get it?)

Anyways, my mom suggested I make a post about which drawing books and etc. I use and recommend. So, here you go...!

Remember, I'm a manga artist, so I'll put stuff relating to manga up.

Books:

How to Draw Manga, by Katy Coope

 Ok, so, this book is really for beginners. I mean, really. If you already are skilled at manga drawing, skip this book. But if you are starting out, I suggest this. This is the book I first used, and I really liked it. It goes step-by-step and makes things very simple. I suggest this book for those who want to start drawing in the manga style. After you master this style, well, I suggest just looking at anime and manga pictures of other manga artists and choose what you like about their drawing style and add it, gradually making your own style. The reason for this is because I reeallly haven't found any good manga drawing book. They're all kinda lame and don't help much. But of course, you are free to look around and prove me wrong! If you do find a good manga drawing book, do tell me!

Drawing People: How to portray the clothed figure, by Barbara Bradley

This is more for the advanced artist, I guess. It deals a lot with, well, real people and drawing them while they're standing in front of you. The reason I like it is because it has a nice section on folds of clothes. Also, it teaches a lot on shading and proportions and poses and... Well, anyways, I think this book could help with manga, which is why I like it.

Well, that's all the books I like. So, now onto supplies...!

Supplies: 

Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils, 24 Assorted Color Pencils 

These. Things. ROCK! These pencils are kinda expensive (normally around $40!!), but sooo worth it. Very soft, you don't need to press down much. The color goes onto the paper very smoothly. Compared to, say, Crayola colored pencils, the colors are vibrant. The thing with their softness, though, is that they dull down quickly, and I'm a chicken when it comes to sharpening pencils (pencil sharpeners just love to destroy pencils, didn't you know?). I suggest sharpening them, very slowly, with a hand-held pencil sharpener. I don't have much else to say about these... You have to get them to appreciate them!

My mom also has these (I think hers is a larger set?), but I don't use them much. They are harder pencils, but the colors are just as awesome.

Sakura Pigma Sensei Manga 6 Piece Drawing Kit

This set comes with a 0.7 mechanical pencil (my preferred size), four different sizes of pigma pens (one each of 0.3mm 0.4mm 0.6mm and 1.0mm), and a vinyl eraser. Pigma pens are pens much like markers. They are normally black, but you can get colored ones. They are very good for outlining your drawings. I like to use the 0.3mm first, erase my pencil marks, color my picture, then go over the drawing with pen again, varying the size depending on the area I'm outlining (for instance, I use the 0.3mm for the eyes, but the 0.6mm for the hair). This is a nice set, because this is basically all you need for drawing manga (other than colored pencils). Everything in it is very high quality. 

Well, I think that's all. That's basically all I need and use. You don't need a whole lot of fancy stuff to be an artist!

Hopefully I will post again soon...! But if I don't, well... Ooops!

Keeping Things- Some Books Lying Around??

It's that time of year... going through and weeding out the books that are no longer needed (or wanted) and those that will be used again, for the first time, or hopefully soon. What to do with the books that you won't keep? 

Here's a few ideas...just a few because I've not really come up with more...

If you want to turn your books into 'cash':

Book buyback @ Amazon 

I've used this service 3 or 4 times in the past year and have liked it :) Recently I've been purging items from my house (slooooowly trying to declutter) and books make up a large portion of that. Many of the books previously were not qualified for the book buyback from Amazon. Not sure why...too old, not in demand, no buyer on the other end? But much to my surprise this last time I checked, I was able to sell back 7 books that I was otherwise going to give to who ever would take them (free of course, or they pay shipping cause I didn't have the means to send them...anyway..that's a reason I checked Amazon in the first place). I'm happy with the $25+ that Amazon will give me in exchange for the books that I'm no longer using.  *One down side to Amazon is that you only get an Amazon Gift Card balance with this- no real cash.

Swagbucks Trade In

This is just as easy as Amazon. The selection of books that are being taken are less than Amazon (at least when it comes to my collection) but with this you get swagbucks that you can turn into cash. I generally use my swagbucks for Amazon gift cards ;)

With both of those you simply put in the ISBN of the book you are wanting to sell back and if it is a book they want, you will see the dollar amount (@Amazon) or the swagbucks amount (@swagbucks) that they will give you for them. In both cases, they give you the shipping label- free shipping! It's a win-win...in my opinion.

If you just want/need to get rid of them:

Curriculum Clean-Out

There are so many homeschoolers now that we all have at least one thing some one else wants ...maybe. The annual curriculum clean outs are a nice way to give books and such away- as well as get more traffic to your blog, if you're interested in that. Generally, when you post an item that you are giving away you pay postage to send it to the winner. Sometimes I have read that people ask the winner to pay for postage...but not often. (And not on the one that I've linked!)

Local Used Book Stores 

Often they will buy your books from you, but generally you shouldn't expect much. I give mine away to the local library for their 3 times a year book sale.

Paperbackswap
If your books are in demand, then you will get rid of them fast this way...otherwise they still sit on your shelf. Good thing about this one is that you get credits for each book sent -enabling you to find another book to replace the one you just got rid of (perhaps counter productive?? well, it depends on the book ;)

Freecycle

Although I've not put any books on the group myself, I've heard of people in larger cities that do. Makes me wish I lived a bit closer to a larger city...just a little. This is a great way to give new life to your books! And a lot of the time, those who want the items will come to you. 

That's all I got! All of these suggestions, I think, are great for getting rid of books but in a way that benefits all. Some times you get cash or gift cards in exchange (or another book)- other times the simple fact of more space on a shelf (or in a room if you give away all the books and the shelf!). Tomorrow I think it'll be time to go through ds' bookshelves ;)

Downloading Books onto the Kindle for PC...From Places Other than Amazon...Using Mozilla Firefox

If you are looking for how to download with Internet Explorer, look here. For Google Chrome downloads, look here. If you need to find the original post about downloading from somewhere other than Amazon, look here. Still not the right one? Try the search on the left sidebar.

On this post, I will be working with Mozilla Firefox downloading a book from Manybooks to the Kindle for PC.

This is assuming you have chosen your book from Manybooks and are choosing the format for download. Choose .azw or .mobi for use with Kindle for PC. Click download. A dialogue box will pop up asking if you would like to Open or Save the file.


You can either have it open directly with Kindle for PC, which might be the easiest way, or Save the file manually. For the purposes of downloading the book to Kindle for PC I will choose to have it directly opened/downloaded right now.

This next screenshot is of Google Chrome opening Kindle for PC but it will look the same with Mozilla Firefox, mine was just too fast for me to capture a screenshot.


Kindle for PC opens and begins the book. Check here for an how-to on using the Kindle for PC.

Downloading Books onto the Kindle for PC...From Places Other than Amazon...Using Google Chrome

If you are looking for how to download with Internet Explorer, look here. If you need to find the original post about downloading from somewhere other than Amazon, look here. Still not the right one? Try the search on the left sidebar.

On this post, I will be working with Google Chrome downloading a book from Manybooks to the Kindle for PC.

This is assuming that you have chosen your book from Manybooks and are choosing the format for download. Choose .azw or .mobi for use with Kindle. Click download.

After it downloads completely, click on the file downloaded. Kindle for PC will automatically start to open.


From here you can enjoy your book!
Check out my posts on how to use the Kindle for PC here, but you probably already know :)

Downloading Books onto the Kindle for PC...From Places Other than Amazon...Using Internet Explorer

My last post on downloading books to Kindle for PC..from places other than Amazon...showed how to search for a book on Manybooks.net and which format to choose for Kindle. This time I will go through the steps of actually downloading and putting it onto the Kindle for PC from Internet Explorer. I intend to go through these steps with Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox as well.

This is assuming that you have chosen your book from Manybooks and are choosing the format for download.

After choosing to download (I chose .azw format), a dialogue box will pop up asking if you would like to Open, Save or Cancel. Click Save.



Make sure of where the file is going to be saved to. In order to easily find it later, put it in My Kindle Content (located in Documents unless you put it somewhere else...).


And now would be the best time to rename the file if you would like to something easier to remember.


Now to make sure the book downloaded correctly. Do this by either finding the file "An Island Story" in My Kindle Content and double-clicking or by opening the Kindle for PC and then browsing by author or title for the book on the Kindle. It doesn't always alphabetize the books like it's supposed to.


I think that is it, don't think I have forgotten anything... If I have, let me know :)

Downloading Books onto the Kindle for PC...From Places Other than Amazon

In another post I made a somewhat useful tutorial on how to use the Kindle for PC but it was for books coming directly from Amazon.com, where the Kindle for PC is downloaded from. What about using Project Gutenberg, or Manybooks.net?? How do we get them on the Kindle for PC?

It's much the same process but without the 'buying' from amazon. I say it that way because, well, you don't buy the books because they are free.

Anyway, shall we get started? First go to the site you wish to download books from. In this case I will use Manybooks.net

Enter the author, title, subject or genre you are looking for in the search box.



At first I tried Our Island Story but with no results so instead I chose An Island Story by H. E. Marshall. Press enter (or if you would like to try the Advanced Search click that).



Click the title listed if it is correct. If it isn't, try another search or the Google search. When you find the book you want, you see an excerpt, which is nice. On the right you see the download pull-down box.





From here the process of opening and reading the book is the same as if it were downloaded from Amazon.com

Depending on your browser, you may need to choose the file to put the book in. Usually I use Google Chrome and it downloads it automatically. I will post a tutorial on that another time.

I hope it has been somewhat helpful. Leave some feedback if you were helped...or if you weren't help me figure out where I went wrong ;)