Learn to draw manga

This page is about the basics of learning to draw manga.

How to draw manga images?

Here’s a little tutorial on learning to draw or paint manga. To draw manga or anime you should already have some basic knowledge and basic skills in drawing. To get these I recommend you my contributions to learn to draw in general and to draw people.

Manga – a very special style

Admittedly, I don’t have much to do with manga drawing. I first came across this idiosyncratic Asian drawing style in my teens. The medium then, as now, was television: Anime cartoon series.

If you think about it, even children’s series like “Heidi” or “Anne with the Red Hair” are of Far Eastern origin. But the classic manga, you can recognize then but rather in series like “Sailor Moon” or “Pokemon” (“A super trio” I also know).

I liked both the stories and the drawing style. But still, for some reason, it never occurred to me to try this style. My role model were already the Disney cartoons, which impressed me very much in my childhood and shaped me lastingly -drawing-.

In 2004, I opened my website and received repeated inquiries whether I did not want to show something about mangas. So I tried it for the first time seriously. Personally, I’m not convinced of my manga skills and therefore I can’t show much more than the basics. After all, I simply lack the practice.

I much prefer to leave this style of drawing to the mangakas (as the manga artists are also called), who mainly do this and do it right and well.

Features of manga

What is it about manga or the Japanese drawing style? How do I draw manga eyes? How do I start with manga pictures?

Manga eyes

How do you actually draw manga eyes? What is typical for them? It is striking that the manga characters all have very large eyes. Since Asian people usually have smaller eyes, in contrast to Europeans, this is considered a beauty ideal or beauty feature in Japan or even China.

In mangas, older people (especially men) usually have smaller, narrower eyes than children or young people. On the basis of the eyes you can read well the age of a person. But big eyes are also a characteristic of the child schema, which makes a person look cute, protective and innocent.

It is said that eyes are the mirror to the soul – you can read the emotions wonderfully from them. May the mouth also smile… If the eyes don’t play along, the smile will look false, at worst forced. Therefore, eyes are the easiest way to reflect emotions. Whether it’s sadness, anger, joy, worry, distrust, etc. Eyes betray a state of mind, even if the person actually does not want it.

Construct eyes – basic shape of the eyes:

Examples of manga eyes:

Head

The shape of the head is also a very distinctive feature of the manga drawing style. Most of the time, the characters do not have a round chin, but a pointed one. Overall, the faces appear very rounded at the cheeks, which makes the faces rarely long and narrow, rather short and rounded. Especially the indentation at the eyes and the bulge at the eyebrows is kept very subtle.

Noses are drawn in a variety of ways. Either as an elongated line from the eyebrows, past the eye, which forms a nose just above the mouth, or as a simple or three-dimensional triangle without the line from the eyebrows. Here, too, you can see an age difference in some draftsmen. If children/adolescents have rather snub noses (without the line from the eyebrows), adults have rather the complete line, but a somewhat more pointed, not quite so rounded nose.

From the head shape to the finished face:

Manga theme

The shape of the head is also a very distinctive feature of the manga drawing style. Most of the time, the characters do not have a round chin, but a pointed one. Overall, the faces appear very rounded at the cheeks, which makes the faces rarely long and narrow, rather short and rounded. Especially the indentation at the eyes and the bulge at the eyebrows is kept very subtle.

Noses are drawn in a variety of ways. Either as an elongated line from the eyebrows, past the eye, which forms a nose just above the mouth, or as a simple or three-dimensional triangle without the line from the eyebrows. Here, too, you can see an age difference in some draftsmen. If children/adolescents have rather snub noses (without the line from the eyebrows), adults have rather the complete line, but a somewhat more pointed, not quite so rounded nose.

Additional Pages

• Shading / Drawing Shadows
• To the Basics
• Drawing People

From the German Blog

• Background Blurring – Spatial Feature
• Choosing the Right Image Composition
• Creating Tilt-Shift / Miniature Effect in Photoshop

From the German-speaking Forum

• Perspective – Arrangement in Space
• Digital Perspective Comic Motif
• Chibi Frontal and Profile
• Skin Coloring with Watercolor Pencils
• Drawing a Manga Face Frontally

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