If you want to learn how to draw manga the right way, then check this out. Basically the word Manga means comics or comic books in Japanese, while anime means animation or cartoons. Japanese style comics or manga are quite popular nowadays and is known for its unique style in drawing characters.
Here are some of the most important features that you’ll need to learn in drawing manga:
Eyes – Manga-style eyes is possibly the most unique feature of the most manga characters. Most manga characters have big and shiny eyes, especially female and animal characters. Big and shiny eyes make the characters cuter or more beautiful.
• Most manga artists start drawing the eyes with an oval with two curved horizontals on it. The oval will be iris, while the two curved horizontal lines will be the eye’s upper and lower brim.
• Manga eyes consist of pupil, highlights, and shadows, and thick outlines for the eye’s upper and lower brims.
Face – Manga-style faces are also quite unique and a bit hard to draw, especially for the beginners, because you will need to emphasize on the character’s gender and expression at the same time.
• Drawing a manga-style face always starts with an oval. This will be your pattern for the character’s face’s shape.
• After drawing the oval, draw a vertical line down the middle. This vertical line will help you position the nose and the chin. You will then have to add two horizontal lines, forming a sort of a cross. These lines will help you position the character’s eyes.
Heads – Drawing manga-style heads can be difficult at first, because positioning the facial features can give you a hard time (such as the eyes, the lips, the nose, and the ears), especially if the head is in an awkward angle.
• Manga-style head patterns are similar to the patterns used in drawing manga-style faces. The only difference between the two is that you will need to focus on emphasizing the character’s angle or direction.
• You’ll need to apply shadings to your drawings, as this will help you emphasize your character’s angle.
Hair – Another unique feature of manga-style characters. Hairstyles typically represent the character’s attitude, which is why most of the manga characters have outrageous, hard-to-draw hairstyles.
• Instead of drawing manga-style hair strand by strand, which can be complicated, you can just draw the hair as a whole or just the outline to give it the right shape.
• Proceed by adding lines and details to make it look a bit more realistic (such as lines, shadings, and highlights).
Body – Bodies can be one of the more complicated parts in drawing manga, because it will require you to maintain the character’s proportion.
• Use the same pattern for drawing the head, but this time we will add a vertical line underneath the oval or the chin. This vertical line will be the character’s spine.
• After drawing a vertical line, we will draw three horizontal lines on the vertical line. These horizontal lines will help you locate the character’s shoulder, waist, and hips.
• Draw circles as markers for the joints. Then connect lines to the circle until you complete the body structure. Lastly, proceed on applying the character’s shape, curves, face, accessories, clothing, and other details.
• These methods are applicable in drawing manga-style female figures, male figures and couples. Just make sure that you emphasize the gender, emotion, angle, and action.
Hands – This is the possibly the most complicated part in drawing manga, because hands have lots of joints and segments which can point in different directions.
• Hand patterns consist of an oval divided into four where the joints are located. First, a circle on the bottom of the oval for the wrist. Second, a slanted oblong beside the wrist or circle for the thumb. Lastly, you will have the wire frame with small circles on the joints.
• It will be easier for you to draw manga –style hands by visualizing segmented hollow tubes on the fingers. These will help you know how thick and wide the fingers will be.
Clothes – In drawing manga-style clothes, you are required to emphasize your character’s figure and gender to make it look more realistic. This can be done by adding folds in your character’s clothing.
• Folds and shadings are key elements on how to draw manga clothes. These give your character’s clothes the impression of movement and texture.
• If you want to know more about folds, I suggest you to draw your favorite manga characters first, or you can simply observe your favorite manga character’s clothing. This should be enough to give you ideas where to put the folds.
Drawing Realistic-Type Manga Characters – such as Beck and Prince of Tennis can be really hard for beginners, because you will need to focus on making your character’s body details and proportion look more realistic.
• The patterns used for drawing realistic manga characters are similar to the patterns used for drawing manga-style bodies, the only difference is you will need to make it look more realistic, you will focus more on the drawing or adding realistic features such as the lips, the hair, and the eyes.
Cute Manga Characters – Also known as chibi, this literally means a small child or a small person in Japanese. Chibi characters are quite famous because of their cuteness. Drawing chibi characters can be easier than drawing full body manga characters, because you won’t have to focus on proportions and other complicated body details.
• You can use the patterns used for drawing manga – style bodies, but keep in mind that most chibi characters have disproportionately bigger heads than their bodies. They also have really big shiny eyes.
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