Art Class: Manga Art

How to Create Your Own Artwork

Ben Krefta

• Publisher: Arcturus
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781788283007
• eBook ISBN: 9781789504514
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art Techniques

Exciting, mesmerizing, simple yet complex, manga is artwork drawn in a typical Japanese cartoon style. This sensational guide covers everything the budding manga artist needs, from choosing essential materials to creating dynamic, innovative characters and scenarios. Topics include:
• anatomy, poses, and expressions
• monsterization and effects
• genre stylings-from adventure, action, and fantasy to chibi and romance. ABOUT THE SERIES: Arcturus' Art Class books are a curated series of instructional art and craft titles designed to inspire artists of all levels, from beginner to professional. Stunningly presented in full color, and in a highly usable landscape format, these comprehensive books are packed with all the ideas, inspirations, step-by-step projects, and techniques you'll need to master the subject covered.

Drawing Faces

In real life, faces have a range of shapes, sizes, and characteristics. In manga, these varieties are usually exaggerated. By redrawing the proportions of facial features you can illustrate a character’s qualities—whether they are old, young, male, female, good or evil, for example—as well as subtler personality traits.

If needs be, the style and shape of the face allows for a wide range of exaggerated expressions to convey a character’s mood. Large, round eyes and simple noses and mouths represented by just a few dashes and curves may sound easy to draw, but there are still right and wrong ways to draw the features outlined in this section.

Eyes

Manga faces revolve around the eyes. They’re the key component to give your characters emotion, personality, and a unique style. Eyes are lots of fun to practice and experiment with, but can be tricky to get right as they need to be balanced, symmetrical and placed correctly. They’re usually positioned halfway down the head and spaced one eye’s width apart. If the eyes are quite large, you’ll need to draw the head a little wider to accommodate them.

How detailed you choose to make your characters’ eyes is a matter of personal taste. Since there’s not a lot of focus on manga characters’ noses and mouths, some artists like putting a lot of details, colors, lighting effects, and flares in or around the eye to create a focal point on the face.

While large, saucer eyes are often found in manga, eyes can come in a variety of shapes and sizes that still adhere to the manga aesthetic. I’ve drawn some examples here.

❰ Adjusting the iris, pupil and color schemes can create villains and demons.

❰ The shiny look is achieved by using a ball of light reflection.

• The eyelid covers the top of the iris unless the eyes are wide open with surprise.

❰ Villains tend to have small dot-like pupils. This can also be used to denote shock and surprise.

• Tilt the eyebrow down toward the nose to create angry, confident characters or tilt the opposite way to create a worried or sub...

Table of contents

• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Tools and Materials
• Drawing Heads
• Drawing Faces
• Drawing Hands and Feet
• Drawing Figures
• Clothing and accessories
• Action
• Color and Tone
• Designing the Page
• Creating Characters
• Digital Color Drawing
• Scanning, adding Color, and Cel Shading
• The Soft Figure CG
• Color Choice
• From a Fantasy World
• Under Arrest!
• Futuristic Fighter Pilot
• War Games
• Gothic Lolita
• Beasts
• Digital Dos and Don’ts
• Finished Works
• Art Questions and Answers
• Glossary
• Copyright