LEGO NINJAGO has become one of the LEGO Group’s most enduring themes since it was introduced in 2010. So enduring in fact that even when the theme was due to be retired and replaced by the Legends of CHIMA range, it’s popularity and fanbase urged LEGO to continue with the range. Now it’s spurned a long-running TV show, a big screen movie and of course plenty of other products including books. Which brings us nicely to our latest review, Klutz books have created a number of interesting activity book over the years but one of their most anticipated titles is LEGO NINJAGO: How To Draw Ninja, Villains & More. The book is a step-by-step guide, which teaches you how to become a master of the pencil, guided by LEGO artist Dan Veesenmeyer.
Product Description
Learn how to draw your favourite characters from the world of Ninjago. Get started with beginner-friendly draw-in-the-blank pages, tracing activities, and easy inking and colouring practice sections, then advance to step-by-step instructions to draw each hero and villain from all of the Ninjago seasons. The book includes all the art materials you need to start right away!
- Book Title: LEGO NINJAGO: How To Draw Ninja, Villains & More
- Includes: Mechanical Pencil, Black Marker, 3 double-ended colouring pencils & eraser.
- Artist: Dan Veesenmeyer
- Pages: 68
- RRP: £9.99
- ISBN: 9781338137217
The Book
You might think drawing LEGO Minifigures is a simple task, but you’ll be surprised how intricate those little plastic folk are. That’s without factoring in capturing them mid-ninja poses. Now there in no excuse in creating odd looking LEGO fan art with Klutz Books new title. LEGO NINJAGO: How to Draw Ninja, Villains & More literally has all you need to become a master LEGO artist. Klutz titles have a unique presentation with many of them bound on a spiral spine. These makes them a little more robust and in this case helps when using the books draw on pages.
I’ve seen plenty of other ‘How to Draw’ books which are merely filled with blank pages, but there’s none of those shananigans here. Every simple page is filled with content, there’s also the odd page you can colour in or add you own doodles to. But the focus is more aimed towards teaching you, as the title clearly suggests, to draw your favourite NINJAGO characters.
Have you ever seen ninja tracing paper? Well it a real thing and can be found at various points across the book, as you can see above you can use it to trace one of two images of the main NINJAGO characters such as Zane. Should you wish to remove these tracing pages the spiral binding makes it fairly easy.
Every aspect of how to craft your own NINJAGO illustrations is simply laid out across the books 60 plus pages. From sketching a simple stickman body to added detail and colouring, the book does a great job and not only talking you through what you need to do but also shows you clearly as well. Dan has a great pedigree when it comes to drawing LEGO characters having previously worked on the old LEGO Club magazine and the LEGO Marvel games from TT Games.
Along with the book, you get a selection of Klutz-branded stationery items, including a trio of dual-coloured pencils, a mechanical pencil, a drawing pen and an eraser. These are surprisingly high quality and will certainly help you on your quest to become a skilled artist. But there is nothing stopping you raiding you own pencil case and getting creative.
Overall
Of course, it you are going to review a book which teaches you how to draw LEGO, then you’ve really got to try and draw some LEGO. So below is my effort, which captures Lloyd, the famed Green Ninja, in the midst of his Spinjitzu training. I use to love drawing when I was younger but haven’t done it in years so I think I did pretty well and so does my Mum who has popped in on the fridge.
LEGO NINJAGO: How to Draw Ninja, Villains & More is a fun and informative book, with artist Dan Veesenmeyer providing easy to follow visual steps which LEGO fans of all ages can follow and replicate. The additional pens and pencils etc are a great addition to the book, which is a perfect companion for Klutz books other recently release LEGO title LEGO: Make Your Own Movie. In fact I’ve love to see more ‘How to Draw’ LEGO titles which focus on other LEGO themes or just LEGO in general. LEGO NINJAGO: How To Draw Ninja, Villains & More is published by Klutz Books, a subsidiary of Scholastic Inc. It will be available in the US from September 1st and will be published in the UK on October 1st.
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