Elemental Magic is a brilliant book for anyone who wants to understand and draw ‘effects’ better – meaning, in animation terms, things which move but aren’t characters. Joe Gilland was the head of effects on Lilo and Stitch and after the closing of the Florida studio went to teach at the Vancouver Film School: this book benefits from both his incredible depth of knowledge and his sound abilities as a teacher, explaining the physics behind common effects and talking about how to approach them artistically.
As good a book as it is, though, an artist only needs one copy of it to learn all there is to know, and I have ended up with five, so I’m selling the others. Please check it out!