Title: Sketch with Asia – Manga Inspired art and Tutorials
Author: Asia Ladowska
Publisher: 3DTotal Publishing
Year: 2019
Pages: 168
Available at: Amazon
About the Artist
Asia Ladowska is from Poland and living in the UK currently. She is an artist and designer and is originally from Poland. Well know for her art style which is unique and Manga like, she has built up a large number of followers on various social media in the last few years. She also has a good reputation for her solid standard of artwork. She is apart of the judging panel in 2018 for the prestigious animation industry awards. On Instagram. her #sketchwithasia art challenges have been very popular among other artists.
Book Description
Asia combines her talent and skills for hyper-realism with her strong love for manga, creating her unique, well known and easily recognisable art style that are very liked. In addition to her popular and inspiring #sketchwithasis challenge on Instagram, she has now created this art book packed with her beautiful artworks, her artistic journey, tips and her own processes when creating her artworks. In this book, there are never seen before finished artworks made exclusively for this publication, topics that range from drawing hands, hair, faces, expressions, digitally, traditionally and more. Whether you are a fan of Asia, a fan of manga, or an artist yourself, you will definitely enjoy reading this nicely presented and unique book.
Content
Introduction
Asia talks briefly about her art journey that led her to where she is now and how her passion for manga-style art grew throughout the years.
Behind the scenes
Some more stories about Asia’s art journey and a look at her workspace where she produces both her digital and traditional art.
Creative Journey
Asia shares her journey in more detail, talks about some early influences and shows some of her early artworks. Also how she got into hyperrealism. Apart from those, she talks about what inspires her, motivates her, her progress, social media etc. Various tips and advice are also added into relevant parts.
Gallery
Pages of beautiful illustrations and sketches by Asia.
Getting started
Asia shares with us her tools for creating digital and traditional artworks. Lots of tips and advice on sketching, how to do warm-up sketches, thumbnail sketches, concept sketches, observational sketching and dos and don’ts when sketching.
Techniques and advice
Tips and advice on how to draw and improve on the head, facial features, expressions, hair and hands, along with many sketches of hers to illustrate her points and show what she meant so you can learn from them.
Processes
Step by step processes with lots of commentary by Aisa. She shows different ways of colouring hair using Copic markers, how she works with digital or traditional or both for her artworks. Lastly, she goes through her steps in creating the front cover illustration.
My Review
As a fan of the artist, I was very excited to get my hands on this book. It comes with a hardcover with a lovely illustration on the front and back by the artist. The contents are visually well designed and colourful. This is one of the prettiest art books I have and I enjoyed reading through it thoroughly. Other than the many tips and tutorials, there are also many beautiful illustrations and sketches throughout the book. I’ve always been into drawing more manga and anime style, when I first started drawing, all I drew was anime girls. Now that I’m doing more realistic artworks, I still go back to drawing anime styled stuff during my free time. The tutorials on Copic markers were very useful for me. I have quite a few Copic markers but I haven’t used them for a while as I’m still not very confident in using them. After reading the Copic tutorials in this book, I think I’ll try them out again. If you are also into manga styled drawings and paintings, you’ll definitely enjoy reading this book and learn something new from it too.
Interested in the book? Click here to get it now!
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this art book review, if you are interested in purchasing this book please click here. When you purchase a book through the affiliate links I’ve provided, I get a small commission( at no extra cost to you!) which helps me keep writing other art-related book reviews or material reviews like this one.
You may also be interested in:
- The Anatomy of Style – Patrick J. Jones
- Color and light: A Guide for the Realist Painter – James Gurney
- Figure Drawing: A Complete Guide – Giovanni Civardi
- Steal Like an Artist — Austin Kleon
Below are some photos of the book:
12 Responses
Hello Mary, I must say that this article is very helpful and informative. I actually have a friend who is an artist and I am sure she will enjoy this book. it is pretty affordable but very quality, I really like the images inside, it is so realistic. Thank you for sharing this review, I am on my way of buying it.
Thankyou!
hey ! I like the book Review and the pictures of the book from inside so I can see what I will get when buying this Book. The Book description was a little dry and short, it doesnt really motivate me to buy it but if you’re a fan already then no problem
Thanks for the feedback! I’ll try to change up the descriptions in my future reviews.
Hi Mary,
Thanks a lot for the thorough and comprehensive review post.
I always have love for painting unfortunately didn’t followed my passion but recently started to follow it and focusing on it.
I always prefer to read and check reviews before making my purchase and your review saved my time. Sketch With Asia is on my list and I am really happy about the positive reviews & ratings on Amazon. The price is also under budget.
A look inside the content of this book is a greater help and it helped in my purchase decision making.
Thankyou! Glad my post helped!
Hello Mary Li,
In my opinion, Asia Ladowska had definately a good idea to share her artwork passion with others in a book. This way, people who have similar interests and passions can get to know about her, and then tell their relatives and other people about her beautiful talent, while also learning from the tutorials in her book about how to make artwork with their own hands. So if we are good at doing useful, beautiful things, then we may do them even better by letting other people know, e.g. via books and reviews like yours. Keeping our abilities to ourselves is not good enough. Our values increase with the help of others & by helping others!
Best regards,
Peter
Thankyou! Yes I agree with you, I love reading books made by other artists for inspiration and learning from them.
Hello Mary Li. It is nice seeing you do this review of SKETCH WITH ASIA by ASIA LADOWSKA. Although I am not really into drawing I love drawing. Back in those days (some years back) I use to draw really nice pictures and portraits but I shifted my attention from drawing all these while.
I like this book. The illustrations on it are very attractive and they look real. Asia must be a genius.
Thankyou!
Dear Mary Li,
Art is powerful. It has the ability to transform thoughts, it can change the way we see things, art can unite and ignite, it is one of the powerful tool in the world. Art is a very lucrative profession too if done with diligence. Asia seems to have a great sense of humour with arts, she is very skilled.
Just a quick question,
Is it possible for an absolute beginner to learn how to draw those beautiful illustrations that you placed under the post with the help of the book? I mean can I learn to draw very well with this book as my guide?
Thanks.
Thanks for the comment. This is not a beginners step by step guide book, although Asia gives lots of tips on drawing, habits and techniques, this book doesn’t go into the very basics. For a complete beginner, I’d suggest learning the fundamentals and then try out the more stylised artworks.