HOW TO DRAW MANGA

Just to give you an idea to begin with, manga is Japanese comics or comic books in Japan.  There are different types of manga that suits whatever group of age you belong.  It is highly popular and acknowledged by countless fans because of its involvedness with the lives of the readers.  Many readers enjoy manga because they can relate to the characters and the plot of the story itself.  They experience unique and exceptional pieces or tales that can only be seen in manga.

           It doesn’t matter if you’re already an adult or a kid.  If you feel like you want to learn how to draw manga, you may want to search for good foundations.  Check out books or guides to help you learn easier.  Having guides will give you vast ideas in learning how to draw manga.  You can even create your own unique style in drawing. And in the manga world, being unique, rare, different or peculiar, is very much NORMAL!

Here are some tips to help you start with learning how to draw manga:

     Be familiar with manga.  Start familiarizing by reading manga that were already published in the market, or already out in the internet.  If you surf the internet, there are websites that have free viewings of manga that has been scanned and translated. 

There are also doujinshi manga, or the fan made graphic novels, that you can also check out.  Many fan made artworks can give you great ideas and techniques in creating your own.  You can also watch anime.  All of the most popular manga series were adapted and became an animated series.  They were animated for those audiences who prefer watching anime than reading manga.

     Gather the drawing tools and try drawing.  Before getting a book or a how-to-guidelines for drawing manga, try to gather the drawing tools first and start drawing.  Just get the basic drawing tools so that it would not be hard for you to find them. 

The basic drawing tools are a pencil, a ballpoint pen, an eraser and a small sketch pad or any drawing paper will do.  Try to draw some characters from the manga that you read or the anime that you saw.  Since you will be drawing for the first time, don’t fall apart if you can’t copy the character yet.  Drawing manga needs effort and patience to get to the top so do not ever lose the will of wanting to learn how to draw manga.

    Get a How-To Guidelines for drawing manga.  Buy a good book that would help you in learning drawing manga skills.  How-to-guidelines for drawing manga are, naturally, easy to understand.  They are meant, by the authors, to be made easy for the readers to understand and learn quickly.  There are step-by-step tutoring and they even have pictures while the drawing is being made. 

Do not cheat while reading.  Others only read the first part, and goes, directly, to the last instruction.  You have to read each step so that you won’t miss any secrets techniques or tips that the author might give.

     Practice drawing EVERYDAY!  For starters, you can try drawing your favorite manga or anime characters.  That way, it would give you inspiration to finish the drawing happily because you will see your favorite character drawn by your own hand.  Again, you can use your favorite character as a starting point.  ONLY as starting point. 

I suggest you draw a different pose and just use the character as a concept. But it doesn’t really matter if you copy the exact pose of the character or not.  What’s important is that you were able to learn the technique that other artists used while making their manga character. 

Make sure that you practice everyday!  Everyday doesn’t mean that you have to work overtime.  Give at least an hour a day until you get used to drawing each day.  Eventually, it will harmonize itself to your schedule and will become one of your daily routine.  Also, slowly, try creating your own unique style of manga.  Give it a try every once in a while.  Be imaginative and creative in making your own original character and manga.  It will come a time that you wouldn’t need to use your favorite character as a model because you have already created your own.  And nothing beats practice if you really want to become a better manga artist.

     Enjoy and have fun!  All the tips that I have given you earlier would never be essential if you do not get the last one.  The most important part of learning how to draw manga is to enjoy drawing.  If you do not have the pleasure and the willingness to learn it at the beginning, you wouldn’t be learning anything at all.  Not unless you are a super robotic humanoid or a cyborg that can just store the skill into your memory of your cyber brain.  But we’re all humans here.  We have feelings, so just enjoy it.  “That’s the secret weapon!” Aside from practice, that is!

Sad but true, most people think that drawing is unwise and useless.  All you have to do is to NOT LISTEN!  Although, there are many criticisms, do not let that get into your mind.  Take it as a motivation instead.  Keep on running towards your dreams.  You know you can do it!