Japanese comic books, or manga, have swept American shores in the last few years, singlehandedly revitalizing the struggling comic book market. Hit titles like Dragonball, Death Note, and Bleach bring fast action and dynamic characters to life in page after page of stylized black and white artwork. And now American creators are getting in on the manga boom as well, creating their own epics that are seeing print in both America and Japan. If you have ever wanted to do your own, this guide will teach you how to draw manga from the ground up panel borders, characters, vehicles, backgrounds, and more. As a professional cartoonist, I feel that I am uniquely suited to guide the learner in exploring this exciting new art form.
The most important thing in learning how to draw manga is fairly simple even though manga has a number of rules that most artists work within, there is still plenty of room for you to demonstrate your own style as an artist. The difference between manga legends like Katsuhiro Otomo and Osamu Tezuka is fairly broad, but they are both instantly recognizable as manga. How to draw manga is not a set of specific instructions, but rather help in getting into the mindset of a manga creator, or manga-ka, and understanding what makes it unique.
One major difference between manga and Western comics is that manga reads from right to left the opposite direction as you are used to. One of the biggest hurdles in learning how to draw manga is getting over the flipped direction. However, this can help you grow as an artist examining a drawing from an unusual perspective can assist in finding compositional flaws. If you are still having problems, draw your pages as normal and reverse them in an image editing program such as Adobe Photoshop.
What most people who want to learn how to draw manga are interested in is the unique stylization found in most manga faces, where eyes are enlarged to a sizable portion of the face, mouths and noses are shrunk (except in cases of extreme emotion), and hair becomes a jagged collection of geometric shapes. There is no one way to master this style, but one important maxim to keep in mind when you are developing characters is to make sure that their expressions match their emotional states. There is nothing worse that using a technique in a place where it is not appropriate, so ensure that you understand the reasons behind every line you place on the paper.
I hope this article has helped you in your path to becoming a manga artist. May your stories and creations find fame the world over.
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