How To Draw Manga Style

Okay, I'm going to take you through how to draw manga style. One basic I'm going to show you is the differences, I suppose, between a more realistic approach to drawing that perhaps you might even see in more Western sort of comics and the generic sort of style of anime and manga and that sort of look. So, let's get going.

So, we've got the character here that's, you know, pretty much well rounded off. He pretty much looks plain, a little like there are a few problems there, but we can pretty much believe him as a more real human face. Now, what manga style tends to do is really quite simplify lines quite a lot.

So, I'm just going to start from the skull outwards here. So as you can see in this character, the jaw line is quite pronounced, the cheeks, everything's really been considered to, as I understand, and measured out. With manga, it tends to just come down really simple.

I'm just mapping out here. It's a good way to make sure you keep things in proportion. With manga, it tends to be just like big broad strokes.

This isn't always the case and I don't speak for all of Japanese comics or all of Japanese animation but this is the general sort of style you see at the moment. So, you just see that with a manga character, that jaw line and head shape is simplified quite a lot. It's just a simple sphere that you've taken down to a point.

I mean, if you want to, you can round that off. I personally like to. So just the same, you have to think about the eye line, you have to think about where things are proportionately on the face.

You can't just ignore things like that just because you're drawing “stylized”. You have to still consider these things. The ears, I'm just going to block in just for now.

There's a little rounded shape in each the side and then bounce back in the middle of the ear. The brow line comes in about there. Okay, with the eye, the eyes tend to be like big symbols.

You sometimes see, you know, some people draw the eyes absolutely massive. It's really up to you how you want to draw it as long as you are basing it on some sort of fundamentals yourself. You're actually observing how that works.

I say go for it, whatever you want to draw. I'm turning it too much into a lecture. Let's get on our drawing.

So with manga, the eyes tend to get simplified quite a lot. I'm just after a pair of lines, the iris and the pupil. Think about the direction the light's coming from when you do that especially if you're going to be shading the rest of the character and think about what direction the light's coming from that's making those little reflections and sparkles in the eye.

Okay, I'm just going to do a little bit of shading there. Don't get too much ahead of yourself. There's always about an eye's distance between the eyes.

Keep things in proportion, much like there, a more realistic drawing of human face. Not perfect there, I'm afraid, but now, the nose is often just simplified right down to just a little check shape like that. Some people would do a more rounded shape.

I mean, I personally find drawing - I like to just draw on the underside, so the nose is like that. So, you just get the idea of certainly falling that way. It's really up to you at the end of the day as long as you know how the nose is constructed on the face.

You can draw however you like. So, I'm just going to simplify it down to a simple check shape, just following this central line and just really, you're not drawing the whole nose with that. It's just the shadow down the side and I'm just going to shape that a little bit so you get the idea of that.

Okay, now I'm going to draw the mouth which really does get simplified and that kind of stems from, you know, a lot of animation in Japan having to be, not always but quite quick to keep up with the manga that's influencing the other and therefore, the mouth has ended quite simplified, often just a simple line. I'll just draw down to the side here