How to make your own Japanese manga comic
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If you grew up with works like Naruto, Dragon Ball or One Piece and you have the soul of a cartoonist, then it must have occurred to you to create your own comic in manga style or in the graphic style of Japanese animation.
Obviously, this is not easy: you have to go over all the basic concepts of drawing because a mangaka has nothing to do with Western cartoonists. From the face of the manga to the human body through inking, learning to draw manga is a chore.
Lets walk through the manga sketch learning methods to provide some basics to get you started smoothly. The art of mangakas like Kishimoto, Toriyama or Matsumoto will no longer keep any secrets from you.
The characteristics of Japanese manga
Manga has its codes and even if each mangaka has its own style, certain elements are common to this art.
First of all, you need to understand what a manga is and what it represents in Japanese culture. If you could not help but read manga during your teens, then you know that these Japanese comics are a huge hit around the world.
Readers eagerly await each issue and new releases are very frequent in Japan. These stories can be of different styles, which generally depends on the intended audience. The three main types of manga are Shonen (for boys), Shojo (for girls), and Seinen (for adults).
However, the style of drawing also varies among mangakas. Indeed, Eiichiro Odas drawing techniques have nothing to do with those of Jiro Taniguchi, although some characteristics are common, such as large eyes, graphic facial expressions and emotions, or even references to Asian culture.
The anatomy of the bodies can be very different from one sleeve to another even depending on the parts of the body. Example: In a Shojo manga, boys and girls will be very thin, while the female character of Shonen is usually in the category of large breasts.
If you plan to start drawing your first manga, you will have to think carefully about what you are looking for above all. You should also know that your drawings will be mainly black and white and that you will have to practice cutting a page into bubbles through a sketch.
With all this in mind, we will have to embark on one of the most popular creative hobbies today: becoming a manga illustrator.
Draw the faces and bodies of the characters.
What are the methods for drawing Japanese manga characters?
Between strongly supported expressions and explosive hairstyles, a manga face.
Drawing a Final Fantasy heroine or one of the great villains of City Hunter is not an easy drawing, but you have to start somewhere, so lets start with a face.
The head should be very large in size and the eyes should take up about 50% of the face space, especially if you are getting into kawaii female characters.
Here are the steps to draw a manga face:
Draw the model of the face (the outline) with the ears,
Draw the top hairline and then overlap the forehead (unless you are drawing Saitama),
Then go to the eyes, larger or smaller depending on the gender and moral alignment of the character, Remember the pupil or your character will look dead inside.
Choose a facial expression, your emotion,
Draw the nose and mouth thinking about this expression,
Finish with characteristic features (scars, accessories, timestamps, emotions).
Whether it is a manga girl character or a boy character, it is always necessary to start drawing the face or the body by the skeleton that will then come to welcome the contours of the character. To do this, we draw a circle for the head, sticks for the arms and legs, and triangles for the hands and feet. This gives an overview.
It is better to draw the details of the face after drawing the body shape so that the proportions are respected and you do not have to redo everything. After having made the outline of the arms and legs, draw the clothes without forgetting to erase the superfluous lines.
You can then proceed to color according to your preferences: colored pencils, fine brushes, pastel, marker; the coloring is up to you and you do not even have to follow this step as the manga is in black and white.
Finally, you will have to represent your character in different poses to bring it to life, which is the basis of manga comics. Before you can create a Son Goku, a Luffy or a Light, it will take several attempts, so do not lose hope and persevere.
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