How To Draw Manga #25-26
ISBN: None 
Publisher: Antarctic Press
Author: Sherard Jackson (for the Mecha parts)
Publication Date: August and October 2003
Series: How To Draw Manga (now renamed You Can Draw Manga and restarted
     at #1)
Price: $4.95 an issue.
Pagecount: 12 pages of Robot content in #25, 32 in #26
Color: No
Breasts: Sort of, if you're really prudish, in #26.
Short Impression: Short on pages, but I've found these issues very useful.
     Focused on transforming robots, plus a chapter on mech femmes.

     #25-26 are the final issues of How To Draw Manga before the reboot as
You Can Draw Manga.  Typical issues of this series would be split in thirds,
covering three different topics, and #25 follows that pattern.  #26, however,
is dedicated to robots.  The material in these issues is partially mirrored
in the two You Can Draw books (Transforming Robots and Mecha) below, but not
simply reprinted, making it worth finding these on their own.
     #25: The robot content takes the block model as seen in Let's Draw Manga
and does a lot more with it in less pages.  Jackson introduces the idea of
three levels of complexity for getting a robot out of the same vehicle mode.
the Simple level is pretty much PLEX style (and a lot of G1).  Moderate level
is probably the effective limit of a child-safe toy transformation, while the
Complicated level transcends the limitations of plastic.  This is followed
by a couple pages on how to make sure the vehicle mode pieces were
recognizable on the robot mode, as well as making the actual transformation
believable (even if you fiddle with lengths and proportions as part of
transformation).  While the examples are few, it covers more than the PLEX
book in terms of what's possible.
     #26: This one is still three sections, they're just all about robots.
:)
     26.1: More on transformation, including combination schemes.  Jackson
emphasizes the value in making transformationan interesting puzzle ("More
than a box" he heads the page) and then adapts my "3 R's of Transformation"
essay into a visual guide.  The rest of the section goes over his four
categories, with most of the space devoted to combiners.
     26.2: "Added Features".  Starts with a really nice section on surface
details, the sort of things you add to keep the surfaces from being boringly
smooth.  Then it goes into joint styles of various types.  Good elements to
grab.
     26.3: Mecha femmes.  Similar to the section in the How To Draw Mecha
book, in terms of showing how to adapt aspects of real women to robots, but
has a more "young and happening" feel, especially when showing how to adapt
fashion accessories to body parts.
     For only 44 pages, these two issues have a lot of useful stuff.