Draw-a-saurus

This is a review for Draw-a-saurus by James Silvani
I give this book ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5 stars, I loved it.

About the Author: James Silvani is an artist and illustrator who has done work for Warner Brothers, Disney, Dreamworks, Lucasfilm and Marvel Comics.  He lives in Hawaii and is an excellent dinosaur artist.

This book will help you draw all of the prehistoric reptiles you could ever want.  It starts you at the beginning with gathering your supplies and leads you all the way through to the very end with composing your backgrounds and adding fine details to your drawing.  The dinosaurs are split into logical groups and basic instruction is provided for each type of dinosaur along with variations.  Where it is possible Silvani has included a current animal to use as a reference, even if that reference only applies to skin texture or joint shape. 

This book is liberally peppered with interesting facts about dinosaurs and lots of humor.  Silvani does absolutely nothing to curb the artistic tangents you might find yourself on while drawing dinosaurs.  Dinosaurs with the coloring of cows? Dinosaurs doing the hokey pokey? Dinosaurs skipping through fields picking blueberries? Dinosaurs in spaaaaaaaaace?  Do what you want to do with your dinosaurs, Silvani is just here to help you make them look good!

I may be slightly biased in my assessment of this book because his work was a big part of my childhood.  However, I think this book is excellent!  I wish this book had been available when I was in first grade and utterly obsessed with dinosaurs, my drawings could definitely have used the help!  I can't wait for my second grader to get home from school to see his reaction to this book, he is going to love it!  If you want to learn to draw dinosaurs or if you have a child that wants to learn to draw dinosaurs this book is one you should definitely get!

I received this book for free from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.