---
title: 'These Art Books Won''t Teach You How To Draw...'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=NRuYMBLaTYs'
video_id: 'NRuYMBLaTYs'
date: 2026-08-17
duration_sec: 477
channel: 'kat ''n chat'
---

# These Art Books Won't Teach You How To Draw...

> Source: [These Art Books Won't Teach You How To Draw...](https://youtube.com/watch?v=NRuYMBLaTYs)

## Summary

This video investigates a rise in AI-generated drawing tutorial books on Amazon, highlighting specific examples of books that appear to contain generic or flimsy content. The host points out anatomical errors, missing step-by-step instructions, and even obviously fake author profiles, warning viewers about the prevalence of AI slop in the how-to-draw niche.

### Key Points

- **Intro: AI everywhere, even books** [00:01] — The host reflects on generative AI being everywhere, including in how-to-draw books, leading to an investigation of Amazon listings.
- **First AI-book sample** [00:18] — User on Threads posts a screenshot from 'The Big Anime Drawing Workbook,' noting the pencil hand and chibi hand look odd and AI-generated.
- **Cover anomalies** [00:46] — Zooming in, the person holds a pencil wrongly (pointing up instead of down), and the hand/fingernail anatomy looks wrong. A chibi is missing its right hand.
- **Weak tutorial pages** [01:28] — Back cover claims 'how to draw an anime face in 10 minutes,' but the steps between a face shape and eyeballs are missing, with no actual instruction.
- **Suspicious reviews** [02:53] — Many reviews just show the workbook cover, with no real pages. One review shows random shapes like 'egg of life' and 'fruit of life,' suggesting AI-generated filler.
- **Second AI book found** [03:22] — 'Super Simple Anime Drawing Workbook' by Haruto Misaka has an AI-generated author photo, showing before/after examples with uneven eyes and wrong proportions.
- **Critical reviews** [04:20] — A 1-star review says 'AI slop' — the book has AI content in a how-to-draw book. A 2-star review notes 'more words than drawing examples,' not good for kids.
- **Third obvious example** [05:11] — 'Mastering Anime Anatomy' (April 2026) has entirely AI-looking cover art, including an AI-generated guy drawing on a canvas facing away from him.
- **Why AI can't teach drawing** [05:53] — AI doesn't generate 'how-to' reasoning — it only generates pixels. It can't produce structured instruction like drawing a circle, adding guidelines, placing eyes on a line.

## Transcript

generative AI is that it's everywhere. And in this case, it is even in how to draw books. Yeah, let's delve into the situation of art tutorial books on Amazon. So, this is posted by user on Threads reading, is this an AI-made how
checking how my book was doing and this popped up. Like that pencil hand and chibi hand seems really odd to me. So, this is their screenshot from an Amazon listing titled The Big Anime Drawing Workbook. And here is a close-up of how
the cover looks like. So, let's delve into it on Amazon. It's like a how to lessons 400 plus illustrations and 100 plus practice pages to train like a dot dot dot for teens and adults. So, this
is the cover photo. And if we zoom in, I do agree there are some oddities. she's holding a pencil the wrong way, so the pencil's pointing upwards instead of downwards to write. And then on top of that, the fingernail and the thumbnail
look really odd on her hand. She has like a really faint fingernail and the interesting and I don't think that's quite how hands look like. Note this chibi over here, this sketch chibi that's floating on the cover, where is
the right hand? The right hand is this jumbled garbled flattened mess that doesn't look right at all. And then the guy, yeah, I don't know. There's some odd stuff happening with the guy over here, too. And if we look at the back,
there are some examples of how to draw your first anime face in 10 minutes. By the way, if you look at the tutorial, I think this example is probably the least helpful example ever in terms of how to draw because like basic face
construction, a circle, then you draw the guidelines, face shape, boom, eyeballs. But then I guess the eye tutorial page is on the next page, but how to draw the eye. Like this curvature, etc. It just starts from a
basic shape of the eye, and then there's three images at the same basic shape. But, it doesn't tell you how to get from this to that. Same thing for some other construction, you know, one row, it's now the circle for the head and we have
images are the same. And then, boom, hair with again no example or no tutorial on how to draw the hair, which is going to be really helpful to a brand new artist who doesn't know how to draw anime faces at all, but we'll take that.
Let's continue. From first line to full character. From eyeball, then we get a girl, and the girl becomes a dude, and then the dude gets a full body, and then character. Cool. Next up, drawing becomes a game. Okay, we've got a 30-day
challenge. Hmm. So, let's look at the reviews. It kind of seemed like people had to put reviews because a lot of the reviews just had the anime workbook main page as the actual review photo. Which like from looking at other books, a lot
in the reviews, and this one there's like none. The only page we see is this very great. I really enjoyed the depth of art and the writing content. It shows you seven circles that it says the egg of life, and then it expands into more
circles that it says the fruit of life, and then it says mul- multao what? Multions cube. Is this their drawing or was this printed in the book? But, this book isn't the only AI allegedly generated tutorial book that is on
Amazon because I found another one. This one, the super simple anime drawing workbook. Unleash the mangaka inside you in eight simple steps and draw anime this is the cover, the super simple anime drawing workbook, where again we
have, you know, before uneven eyes, wrong proportions, messy lines, no wrong proportions, messy lines, no shading to after. Uh really AI-generated anime character on the front. And the back is again the same thing, super
simple anime drawing workbook. If you look at the author, Haruto Mizaka, the author has the most AI generated looking profile photo ever. isn't making me feel real confident that the book is not AI generated in some
interesting. There's some really like five-star reviews. So, one page just says challenge, one object, multiple angles. So, front view, left view, right view, and up view for the head. And then there's a whole bunch of tips. Hmm.
And then it says understand the form, you can rotate it. Practice makes you like small little squares, I guess, for you to draw it in. There's a one-star review from somebody called Paul that reads AI slop. This book has AI
generated content in a how-to-draw book. Don't waste your money. Even the author has an AI generated profile photo. Another two-star review says, "This has more words than drawing examples. Wouldn't recommend this for a child."
And interestingly, if you look at these two books, right? The first one, the big anime drawing workbook, was published June 11th, 2026. The other one was June 11th, 2026. The other one was published May 11th, 2026. I'm not saying
you can't have completely legitimate art books published in the good old 2026. possible. But, you know, beating any allegations that these books were thing. We've got another one, and this
one is super obvious looking. This was published April 2026, Mastering Anime Anatomy, The Ultimate 300-Plus Step-by-Step Guide to Drawing Anime need to say more? If you take a look at this cover, it's giving completely AI
generated from an AI generated guy drawing on a canvas that's facing nowhere near him to a super AI generated girl standing on the cover with the most AI generated looking text ever with the like Mastering Anime Anatomy. And some
examples that we have of pages again. And this is the thing, right? Because day because if you use gen AI to go generate these like drawing tutorials, the thing is these tutorials are made by AI. These are not made by people. The
because AI doesn't know how to teach people how to draw. It just generates pixels. So, it's not going to generate like a form, a tutorial that would make sense to a human being that's trying to
learn how to draw. Being like, "Oh, you should draw the circle for like the base chin, and then you draw a line in the middle, and then you put the eyes on the line." It's not going to teach you that line of thinking. Oh my god, and while
right here there's a sponsored ad for the big anime drawing workbook. Where as you can see, the whole video looks really AI-generated. Look at this. Like changing the hair, all these tutorial examples apparently that they have. Just
be aware, guys, because generative AI is infiltrating everywhere. And we've talked about how it's been in crochet patterns, how it's been infiltrating in other aspects like children's books. But art tutorial books, honestly, I didn't
even think about that until that post came up on my Threads feed, and I saw that I was like, "I have to go look this up." And oh my gosh, what in the world am I looking at right now? Just be aware and stay diligent. And I personally, I
something where when it comes to like books and things like that that feature AI-generated material to at least have some sort of disclosure so people know, content like that because I do think it can be deceptive. But what are your
thoughts at the end of the day? Support real artists and support human artists. I'm sorry, I know it's a short one because I have so many long videos little break, okay? Like this video, like and subscribe, and check out real
have her Etsy shop link down below. If you're a fan of Noah Khan, she's an extremely talented crochet artist, and she crocheted this bug guide Noah Khan-inspired tapestry sweater. I think
yeah, if you guys are no Wacom fans and also fiber artists, I recommend you Uh I also have an Etsy with digital arts and I stream on Twitch three days a week, Mondays and Saturdays at 6:00 p.m. PST and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. PST where
catch you all there or in another video. Peace.