Learn To Draw Manga

Manga is the world famous style of drawing Japanese cartoons. It is also more popularly known as “Anime”. This style of drawing has captivated a lot of Anime fans all over the world and people of all ages. Here are some of the basics of drawing Manga.

Learn The Culture

If you really want to draw good Manga, it is best that you learn more about Japanese culture. Most Anime’s are based on Japanese tales and historic characters. It is also better if you learn to observe the different surroundings and places in Japan. This is so that your drawing would really have a Japanese feel to it.

The Hair

Characters’ hair is generally based on a variety of hair strand shapes. More often, these shapes have a grass like appearance to it that is more curved at the lower end. Just like real hair, they do have many strands. However, you do not draw each individual strands as is, instead, you have to draw it into clumps.

It is important to take note that there is a skull underneath your character’s hair. A lot of artists overlook this factor and usually end up drawing oddly shaped heads. It is better that you draw a hairless head first so that it would look natural when you add on the hair.

Clothing And Folds

For clothing, the folds are very important details that you should take note of. You should always remember to take into consideration the direction that the fabric would be pulled. That is where you should create folds. Also, remember to shade the parts that are not subjected to light, like grooves, places in which there is an overlap of cloth and areas within folds.

For female characters, the clothing usually cling tighter to the body. For male, they usually hang loosely. There are also body portions that folds always occur, whether you are drawing a boy or girl character. These portions usually include the shoulders, lower waist, ankles and knees. There is less creases on the cloth on the lower and upper leg, since they are usually hanging loosely or are simply pulled down by gravity. They only have folds when the leg is being lifted up.

The most common pieces to be seen are pants, shirts, skirts, kimonos and capes. Manga art is very fond of using capes and kimonos, especially if the setting of the story is somewhere long ago in the past. School uniforms are a favourite too, which usually consist of pants and coats for boys and white blouses and mini skirts for girls.

Eyes

The eyes are the most important aspect of your character. This is what makes them different from other characters. Thus, you have to learn how to draw them correctly. For most cases, female eyes are drawn big. They are also more complicated than male eyes, since they tend to have a lot of shiny areas.

It is important that you select a light source, so that you would know where to put the white shiny areas on the eyes. For male eyes, they do have shiny areas but they are less obvious, than that of female characters. Male eyes are also narrower than female’s.

Most of the time, they are shady too in order to give life to the character, especially if they have a very mysterious personality.