Whether you are a beginner starting out or someone who has some drawing skills under their belt. You Can Draw Manga Chibis is a fabulous tutorial book. There are so many cute imagery and step by step guide to help you build your drawing skills.

ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The final two how-to-draw books ended up being by far my least favorite of the bunch. You Can Draw Manga Chibi Characters, Critters & Scenes and You Can Draw Manga Chibis are guides to drawing manga-style cartoon characters and creatures, but they are not traditional how-to-draw books in the way the others are. There are no real guides to be found here, no grids, tracing paper, or even step by step guides. Instead, you are given a few very basic images of figures with some initial guiding lines left in and not much more.

The books are filled with reference images to copy that include clothes, hairstyles, and facial expressions. The You Can Draw Manga Chibi Characters, Critters & Scenes book focuses on humans while the Chibis book includes various animals both real and imaginary, plus a section on objects such as chibi-style food and furniture. It’s all adorable, but there are no instructions on how to actually draw these things yourself, so you’re expected to simply copy.

I used these books to draw a few chibi-fied characters of my own, attempting to base them on Mulder and Scully, and while the results were OK, I felt that they could have been much better with some improved guidance.

The one big plus to these two books is that they’re available as ebooks on the Amazon Kindle store, so you won’t need to wait for delivery before you get started. If you already have some confidence in drawing then these could help you start learning a new style, but I wouldn’t recommend them for beginners.

Excellent examples of the differences between “regular” manga and manga chibis so that one can really see how to draw the different characters.
Includes a great reference guide to tools and color theory so that it’s on hand.
The one thing I was surprised there wasn’t more of was facial expressions and eyes. The book focuses on poses mostly.

I've always been interested in anime/manga since I was younger but uhh I am not so great at drawing.
Forward 20ish years later and I have a daughter who shares my interests and loves to draw. I requested this book for me and he'd a guide for us to both learn and it is wonderful. We had fun looking over it together!

This book was fantastic. They really break down all the parts of chibis. from what they are to how to create them. the book is very informational and provides examples with every technique it instructs on. I really like the fact that the artists/authors provide templates for chibis one can trace over until they get enough practice to do so on their own. This book reminded me how much I liked to draw chibis.

I received an advanced reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

This is a great book for young artists or children wanting to start out in art, and is about how to draw Manga Chibis.
This book has a great layout and a brilliant introduction on materoals/resources needed, colours and a colour chart and then fantastic easy to follow layouts and sketches to draw and start out with.
This book has some stencils at the back which are a great resource for chikdren to use as they start out!

I got this book and You Can Draw Manga Chibi Characters, Critters & Scenes by the same authors at the same time. If you have an interest in all aspects of the Chibi drawing style, I’d go with the Characters, Critters & Scenes version. Much of the more useful info in this book is in that book but it also includes animals and overall scenes. If all you care about is drawing the figures? This book is pretty darn good. I wouldn’t call it perfect. I think it’s more useful if you already have some drawing skills. It breaks more figures down to 2-4 steps. Much of the info is more tips than how-to (that’s why I think you need some basic drawing skills before going straight to this book). Super cute characters and enough info to get you started, especially since it includes templates you can use to make your own characters and get a feel for the shapes involved with chibi characters.

I read this book three times. One time I read it like a regular book, the second time I read it during drawing and the third time I again read it like a regular book.
The book contains enough information to start drawing Chibis. I used to draw them years ago, so I was kind of familiar with them. It is a good book for those who start out and are not used to drawing in general. The book discusses general techniques, colors and so on. Which is very helpful, even when you want to draw something else.
It's for children, but I felt like it was a bit complicated sometimes. I would recommend ages 10 and up. Children like to draw straight away and step-by-step books are a better way of entertaining them. I feel like this book talks more about techniques and how-tos. Which makes it hard for a kid to concentrate and actually learn.
I also missed a few helpful steps. Such as outfits. It was the smaller things which were kind of important. You learn about the face and body, but not about clothes and all the extra. Which leaves you with a naked chibi.

Overall a great book to start drawing chibis. I would have included more details to make it even more helpful.

You Can Draw Manga Chibis is a fun and very accessible tutorial art guide for drawing basic manga figures. Due out 3rd March 2020 from Quarto on their Walter Foster Jr imprint, it's 96 pages and will be available in paperback format.
I love to draw and doodle. Despite not being super advanced and skillful yet, I find drawing very relaxing most of the time. This is an accessible guide full of techniques and cheerful upbeat advice. The drawing style itself is completely adorable (chibi ちび translates to 'little'). They're big eyed and round faced with tiny hands.

This guide has an accessible and appealing format. A short introduction is followed by tools and supplies, basic techniques, some color theory, and then the individual drawing tutorials. The authors do a good job of explaining (and showing) proportions for different ages, positions, action and movement, etc.

Great selection for a gift for a young artist, perhaps with some added sketch pads and pencils. This would also make a superlative classroom or library book.I would also recommend this book to babysitters, grandparents, parents, and basically anyone who spends a fair bit of time with small kids in order to up their 'draw with me' game. I really enjoyed this. I will use these to decorate journals and notes for friends. I see some chibi style science stuff in my future (chibi microscope, chibi lab, chibi test tubes)!

Four stars. Fun collection.

A lot of kawaii artists grew up drawing characters from their favourite anime but I never did, and my years of art school are no real help there. I picked up a copy of You Can Draw Manga Chibis to see if it would give me some tips. The book is aimed at children but that means it’s very clear and easy to use for total beginners of any age. It includes an overview of how to chibi-fy the human body to make it cuter, and step-by-step instructions for drawing different types of hands and feet. There’s also loads of templates you can trace or copy including different poses and I was able to draw a chibi face that very different from my usual drawing style. I would have liked a bit more about facial expressions and how to colour and shade your drawings, but this is a good starting point if you want to draw people, kawaii style. Full review at supercutekawaii.com

Great handy guide for new artists or those with some experience wanting to brush up on techniques or tackle new subjects.. I used it with some kids I work with who are keen artists and love watching manga and anime cartoons and after a few hours they had recreated their favourite characters in chibi form and started drawing manga chibi portraits of each other too.
We used it with pencil and paper drawing but I think you could adapt the techniques for tablet and digital art too.
This would make an ideal gift for anyone into Japanese cartoons, especially teenagers, lovers of all things KAWAII and anyone keen to get creative!

Chibi art is a personal favorite of mine. Growing up during the seemingly new influx of Japanese anime and manga during the early 2000s, coupled with an embarrassing amount of hours put into avatar sites like GaiaOnline, chibi are a familiar nostalgia for me.

Whitten and Lee do an amazing job of putting together a how-to book featuring the art style entirely. What makes this even greater is that tutorials display full-sized examples of characters for reference & study. Helpful art tips are included throughout, and a variety of poses are introduced for the reader to try. Templates are clean and easy for the aspiring artist to follow all steps and additions of detail. Encouraging the reader to make the drawing their own is also such a huge deal for me. Artists shouldn’t be limited by specific proportions and standards in drawing—drawing chibi characters is fun and taking chances with colors, styles, and more is what makes this medium so appealing to many who enthuse over the adorable art style.

You Can Draw Manga Chibis is recommended for beginners who need a solid foundation to learn how to get started while getting some valuable practice in. Middle grades up to young adults may find this most appealing—along with manga enthusiasts of any age who want to try their hand at mastering cheebs.

Gotta go—I have a sudden urge to sketch out my old Gaia avatar of yesteryear!

This book is fantastic. The Manga Chili’s are adorable and I loved learning about how to create them. I highly recommend this book as a learning resource the artwork is excellent and I learned quite a bit about how to draw Manga Chibis. I received this book from NetGalley for an honest review.

My daughter is very into learning how to draw. She asked me to request the Chibi You Can Draw Books. I thought the book really broke things down for children who are learning how to draw. The technique is more complicated, and I would not recommend this You Can Draw Book for younger children.

The best-fit age group for this You Can Draw Series would be upper elementary and middle school. The characters are complex, and the instructions require a lot of investigation/inferencing. There are many steps between each picture that the drawers are going to have to notice and apply independently.

Although part of a series aimed at younger readers, You Can Draw Manga Chibis will be of use to artists of any age looking to draw chibis for the first time. The book outlines the correct proportions for chibi figures and provides templates for a number of cute poses to get you started. The illustrations are adorable, and I will definitely now go off and try to draw a few chibi figures of my own. Recommended for those looking to get started in chibi drawing. 4.5 stars.