Forum - View topicREVIEW: Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga
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Kyo Hisagi
Posts: 260 |
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Hey guys, I think I should ask it here.
Any suggestions on "how to draw manga" books? I am interested in creating my own story but I used to learn how to draw superhero comics, not manga. Topics I want to learn about: anatomy, clothes, backgrounds, usage of manga studio/photoshop etc. I've read a few books like Christopher Hart's but I want something more professional. I will be grateful for any advices! |
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Zeino
Posts: 1098 |
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As someone who has always been a fan of Toriyama, this is the highest form of vindication possible. |
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rinmackie
 Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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Hi, there! As someone whose bought her fair share of "how-to" manga books, I feel I can offer some advice. Personally, I've always liked the "How to draw Manga" books that have been translated from Japanese. They are published by Graphic-sha and were very prevalent in the late 90's, early 2000's. I'm not sure they're actually publishing any new ones in English here lately. But you can still find them but some may be out of print/ difficult to find and/ or expensive. But I've managed to collect a whole bunch and are about $20 new. It might be hard to find them in bookstores, but I got most of mine from Amazon and used bookstores. The only drawback is some of the advice is Japanese-specific. But most of them are quite good. As for Chris Hart, I agree his manga books aren't that great but his basic drawing guides are alright. I also follow some manga style artists online. Some of them, like Mark Crilley, publish their own "how to" books. Finally, I'd definitely recommend Araki's book that was reviewed here and I've purchased myself. It doesn't give you any drawing instructions but it does offers great creative advice! |
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Shay Guy
 Posts: 2349 |
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This sounds like it'd be a worthwhile addition to my collection.
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reanimator
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Kyo Hisagi, There is not much difference between drawing superheroes and manga characters at fundamental level. They're just two unique ways to draw good ol' human figures. It's good that you want to learn how to draw anatomy, background, and et cetra. In my opinion you really don't need those how-to-manga books to draw anatomy, BG, and etc when there are already tons of great fine art drawing books out there. How-to-manga books are more beneficial if you want to develop particular illustration techinques and software unique to manga, but I don't think you need how-to-manga book to learn basic art fundamentals of anatomy and others. Most important things is: How do you want to develop your visual narrative? That's what comic/manga is about, isn't it? Most people are just content with drawing character(s) in their preferred style and that's the end of it. Those how-to-draw-manga books are just demonstrating techniques how to draw stuffs like people and objects, but they don't discuss in depth on how to set up a series of drawings to create a coherent visual narrative. At least we're finally getting a book from a pro artists like Araki that explores nooks and cranny of making interesting visual narrative. On serious note, DO YOU DRAW everyday? No one is expecting you to draw like a master artist, but being able to draw basic art enables you to express your vision on paper more freely than not knowing anything. You've said that you used to draw superhero comics so at least you have leverage to put your vision on paper. It may not be "manga style", but at least you can put your idea on paper more clearly. We have modern convenience of internet and smartphone camera for reference that would make old generation manga/comic artists envious. You can get like 20 volumes of how-to-draw-manga books, but they're not going to help you if you're not willing to put effort. |
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Juno016
 Posts: 2436 |
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I've submitted to SJ's international contest and self-published my own doujinshi in Japan, which sold a decent amount for a first time. There is a lot that goes into marketing a story through its narrative and visuals without straying from any sense of substance. It's fun, though, to let your imagination weave the story before you modify it.
Kyo Hisagi, My first recommendation for anyone trying to get human anatomy down is Posemaniacs.com, a free website with a bunch of 3D models of humans in different poses to use for reference when practicing. The best option on the site for practice is the 30-second drawing tool. It cycles through poses and your objective is to draw those poses as complete as possible before the time limit. The time limit can be adjusted, but I recommend keeping it to 30 seconds or, at the most, 45 seconds. And do NOT look at your drawing as you do it. It's a muscle-memory workout and your eyes should focus on mapping the image. Your drawings will not look like actual things for a while, but you can toss the paper out when you're done, anyway. You're not creating art. You're practicing how to make bigger strokes and get shapes down on the human body. I do about 15-20 cycles a day (8-10 minutes). |
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Yuza
Posts: 36 |
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TL:DR; The Silent Manga Audition. The documentary series Manben. Details vs. Flow In Manga Panels - Digibro, Youtube Channel. It's mentioned in the review but most people will just say you have to learn how to draw in classical/realistic style. You don't need to be ultra-realistic but you have to be able to accurately portray reality before you distort it. There's no real "manga style" in the first place, since the word is just Japanese for comics and not an art style. Each mangakas has their own style, but most can draw fairly realistically - style is just omitting or exaggerating details (eg. a lot of mangaka don't draw the noise and just do a little shading, and artists like Boichi exaggerate muscles). Drawing manga/comics just requires regular art skills, as well as the ability to tell a story through sequential art. A good idea is to learn a bit about manga tools and then read manga, but break down the art as you read it. Try to figure out what type of pens they used, what type and how much screentone they used, the reasons why they did it and stuff like that. There are a few tutorials online that will demonstrate some of the equipment, but I'd recommend to watch the documentary series "Manben" from Naoki Urasawa, the author of "Manben", which has footage of mangaka working. You'll see that they all work with different equipment and techniques which you may want to copy, or come up with ideas for your own style. To learn more about sequential art The Silent Manga Audition channel on youtube has a lot of tutorials on how to write and storyboard manga. One of the most important things is that manga pages are supposed to be read two at a time - and not just for double spreads. Most webtoons, scanlations and webcomics miss the point of that, but on Shounen Jump's website they make sure readers read it two pages at a time. They also have a contest on their website you can submit to which gives information on the size of paper they prefer and other small details. Some things I've noticed that differentiates Japanese manga from American comics is that manga uses a lot of screentone or just does gray scale. They aren't coloured because manga are drawn faster and printed cheaper. Screentones are used for shading, texture, to show characters moods (usually in Shoujo manga) and direct the reader's eyes (take a look at Haikyuu! for examples). Manga also generally use nib pens, though this is highly individual. But Shounen manga are usually drawn with a G pen while Shoujo use softer pens. If you're drawing digitally it doesn't matter so much, but the thickness of the lines says a lot about the world of your manga/comic. There's also a lot of super-deformity and cartooning effects. You can find a list of them on Japanese visual tropes on TV tropes, these are shorthand effects like Superhero comics' "Kirby Crackle". In American comics the art is usually always striving for consistency, but manga often have a lot more freedom in their expression and are more willing to do cartoony stuff. Even in a grimdark, realistically drawn story like Berserk there are panels with a lot less details which are meant to be funny, usually for the comic relief characters. There's a Youtube video called "Details vs. Flow" shows how humour in manga depends on how much detail you put into it. The reverse is also true - really big, dramatic panels are often very realistic. For example, Hunter x Hunter usually looks pretty cartoony but in dramatic moments the shading is very detailed and realistic. |
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Kyo Hisagi
Posts: 260 |
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Thanks for all your answers! My English is not the best, but I will try to make my point as clear as possible.
rinmackie, I will try these books, some of them look interesting! I can buy a few of 'em on Ebay. Oh I love Mark Crilley's videos, his advices sometimes are pretty useful. But I don't think he is very good artist, his "Brody's Ghost" is kinda poorly drawn. reanimator, I agree, it is how you tell the story that matters. But there are still points you have to learn to tell story correctly- how to place characters in the room, which frame to choose, how to ink properly, what is "flow" exactly (how to place frames on the page). Some things I can learn through Internet but sometimes I just don't know what to do, for example, I want to put screentones and special effects digitally, but it looks pretty bad. I need books for that kind of things. Well, it's very hard to draw every day, especially now. I am not gonna whine here, but I went through some serious stuff and now I am trying to get myself together. I am very serious in drawing, making comics is not my hobby, but my raison d'etre. Juno016, I am pretty bad with 3D poses, I just can't re-draw from models, I am using only drawings from other artists. Also I used to draw like you said, and it doesn't work for me. I have to remember and understand how to draw something, not just copy it. But anyway, thanks for the advice! Yuza, thank you! It sounds very promising. I am a big fan of Naoki Urasawa work, but I didn't know about Manben. And I absolutely love Silent Manga Audition, I have drawn stories for that contest twice but my drawing is kinda poor right now. I would have been the happiest person in the world if they have published my work in their magazine! Also, I do love and watch their "Japanese Manga 101" (a.k.a. Mocchi and Tayo Show), it's hillarious and pery positive! Talking about manga, I just think I miss some kinda serious points. Maybe it's cause I wanted to create superheroes stories in the first place? You draw western and eastern stories differently, it's action what you look for in superhero comics, and it's emotions what you look for in manga. There are different moods and different pacing, storyboards look very different too. You can tell your story as long as you want to if readers enjoy it in manga, but in comics it's almost impossible for independent artists to draw very long series (of course, there is Saga and Walkind Dead, but there is also series like Five Weapons, very smart and cool comic book that was axed after 10 issues). |
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AyanamiRei
 Posts: 87 |
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To the people who bought this volume, is this interesting as a book about the author himself (or his work) or is this worthy exclusively as an artistic support?
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Princess_Irene
ANN Associate Editor
 Posts: 2659 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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While it's definitely more about the art and craft of manga, there is a fair amount about how the author himself works, as well as some manga excerpts that aren't otherwise available in English.
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Thaumana
 Posts: 121 |
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For me who just started a webmanga project months ago it's a very informative insight of the author's personal workflow. Although there are only rare visual elements and not so many explanations about drawing workflows as such, it is quite illuminating to read about various aspects of presenting dialogues, characters and the plot by itself.
Most of the part could be especially useful for someone who still has not started an own manga yet and needs some ideas. He also points out that he just present his personal view to the readers and that his advices are obviously not absolute. Still it was enjoyable to learn something new about analyzing other storytelling media to get inspired by everything. The only thing which interrupted my reading flow is that I had to check the references in the internet every time when he mentioned an unknown title. I guess the most important thing is, that you can get a better understanding of his subjects when you already know his works especially the JoJo series, because he often refers to various single scenes and arcs of his manga. I don't regret the purchase, because it was exactly what I expected after reading this review here on ANN (thanks for that good impression by the way). As I said, you should just be aware that he does not focus on drawing workflows per se but the methods of narrating and presenting a royal road manga. |
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Meongantuk
 Posts: 361 |
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Kyou Hisagi I don't think reanimator meat you have to spend hours to draw everyday (of course it'd be nice if you can). You can just do random doodles for 5 minutes or so. If you able to do the gesture drawing excercise that Juno016 recommend you can draw about 5 to 10 poses in 5 minutes. By the way you don't really need to 100% copy the 3D model, all you need to do is draw the pose, even as glorified stick figure will do, as the excercise's goal is to make you able to draw various (fluid) poses in fastest way possible (you can always refine it later when you have more time). It's useful since comic require you too draw a lot of poses especially since you want to make action story.
There aren't much difference in term of pacing honestly, unless you're talking about paneling (though plenty of comic drawn by younger artist that use more manga like paneling due to it being more dynamic). There are plenty manga that are short, actually most manga are less than 10 volumes. Super long running series are reseved for the popular or . Even in Weekly Shonen Jump there are more manga that got axed in less than a year runtime than the survivors. |
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