How To Draw Manga: Mastering Manga
My last book in this list is How to Draw Manga: Mastering Manga by Andrew Harnes. Its a pretty short book just shy of 100 pages teaching all the core basics of manga drawing.
Youll learn the fundamental artistic process, which materials to use, and how to draw manga characters from different angles.
Naturally this leads into many different chapters on eyes, ears, noses, hair, and facial expressions. Andrew also moves into poses and how to draw characters doing different actions.
The chapters are fully actionable so you can easily copy the exercises and study from them as you go along. The only downside is the short length of this book.
However the writing is superb and the illustrated examples are designed to help you really see how manga art is formed.
And thats my list! I know theres a lot to choose from but youll notice each book does have its unique benefits.
If youre a complete beginner who just wants to learn the manga art style then check out Manga Crash Course. Another great choice for a complete beginner is The Master Guide to Drawing Anime which gets into stylized exercises.
Or if you want to create your own graphic novels then Pop Manga offers great composition and storytelling exercises.
Take a look over the list and see if any other titles catch your eye. And remember that the one consistent point across all these books is practice! Put in the time and you will see the results.
How To Draw Manga Volume 3: Animals
Here is another manga drawing book specialized in drawinganimal. If you are looking to draw cute animals from a book written by a popular Japanese manga artist, this is the one I recommend you to buy.
This book features many wild and domestic animals including birds of different kinds. Its full of helpful tips and techniques on drawing cute manga animal bodies, emotional body positions facial expressions and etc.
Why are you waiting for? Get this book here and start drawing cute animals right away!
Drawing Manga Animals Chibis And Other Adorable Creatures
One thing I like about this book is how different it feels compared to all the others. Drawing Manga Animals, Chibis, and Other Adorable Creatures is the de-facto title for anyone hoping to master chibi art.
Its a really cute book for kids but also great for artists who adore the cutesy anime/manga faces and creatures. The book spans 160 pages full of step-by-step lessons covering faces, eyes, and more specific animals in detail.
It does help if you already have some drawing experience but you can pick this up as a beginner. The steps are pretty simple to follow and this is a great book to build your confidence early on.
However it does not touch the traditional manga style so it is meant for a niche audience.
Don’t Miss: Anime Voice Actor Salary
Mastering Manga With Mark Crilley: 30 Drawing Lessons From The Creator Of Akiko
Theres more to manga than big, shiny eyes and funky hair. In these action-packed pages, graphic novelist Mark Crilley shows you step-by-step how to achieve an authentic manga style-from drawing faces and figures to laying out awesome, high-drama spreads.
Youll learn how a few basic lines will help you place facial features in their proper locations and simple tricks for getting body proportions right. Plus, youll find inspiration for infusing your work with expression, attitude and action.
This book is packed with expert tips on everything from hairstyles and clothing to word bubbles and sound effects, delivered in the same friendly, easy-to-follow style.
Packed with everything you need to make your first manga stories!
- 30 step-by-step demonstrations showing how to draw faces and figures for a variety of ages and body types
- Inspirational galleries featuring 101 eyes, 50 ways to draw hands, 40 hairstyles, 12 common expressions, 30 classic poses and more!
- Advanced lessons on backgrounds, inking, sequencing and layout options
- Tutorials to create a variety of realistic settings
More How To Draw Manga
Another set of manga-know-how with only four volumes, based in character creation.
- More How to Draw Manga Vol. 1: The Basics of Character Drawing
- More How to Draw Manga Vol. 2: Penning Characters
- More How to Draw Manga Vol. 3: Enhancing a Character’s Sense of Presence
- More How to Draw Manga Vol. 4: Mastering Bishoujo Characters
Don’t Miss: Manga Side Profile
The Manga Fashion Bible
Heres another one by Chris Hart. This is one of the best drawing manga books for you if youre already good at drawing manga characters and want to learn how to create your own manga characters.
A major part of creating your own manga characters is styling them. And this book is basically a comprehensive guide on how to style your manga characters depending on what kind of personality you want to give them.
The book features several exercises that cover different styles and takes inspiration from Tokyos current fashion trend and existing manga characters. Youll learn how to match outfits and create awesome manga character outfits like you see in the books!
As a manga artist if you follow Chris Hart then youll definitely love this manga drawing book!
The Manga Fashion Bible will teach you how to draw outfits for your manga characters and also improve your manga character drawings as well!
Pop Manga: How To Draw The Coolest Cutest Characters Animals Mascots And More By Camilla Derrico And Stephen W Martin
More than just a how-to guide, this book provides lessons in how create amazing, emotional, striking characters.
It details the character design process, the basics of body construction, and even explains how to capture action in drawing form.
The lessons on drawing hands, one of the hardest parts of the body to draw in any art style, stand out. This is a fun and helpful book for artists of any level.
Order your copy on .
Recommended Reading: How To Draw Anime Eyelashes
Manga Crash Course: Drawing Manga Characters And Scenes From Start To Finish By Mina Petrovic
From a popular YouTube artist, this book gives you a guide to creating manga characters, environments, and even scenes.
It provides over 25 step-by-step drawing guides and more than 130 lessons on various parts of drawing manga.
It also contains some fun games to play with yourself in order to challenge your creativity and artistic skill. This a good book for beginners and experienced artists alike.
How To Draw Manga: Computones
Each volume in this set includes a CD-ROM for use with Windows only.
- How to Draw Manga: Computones Vol. 1: Basic Tone Techniques
- How to Draw Manga: Computones Vol. 2: Depicting Characters
- How to Draw Manga: Computones Vol. 3: Mecha
- How to Draw Manga: Computones Vol. 4: Portraying Couples
- How to Draw Manga: Computones Vol. 5: Aiming For Action
Don’t Miss: Anime Mouths Female
How To Draw Anime: Beginners Guide To Creating Anime Art
No products found.
Theres a lot to be said about learning how to draw from a stellar artist themselves, and thats the experience youll get in this step by step guide by Alex Kudi.
Youll learn how to start drawing anime characters right away and build on your drawings page by page in this in-depth guide.
How To Draw A Manga Female Head
If the other video from Sophie Chan was about drawing anime male head, this tutorial covers how to draw female manga head.
What I think is beautiful about this tutorial, is the use of guidelines. When you draw the circle and the horizontal and vertical lines, chin and all, its nice how Sophie shows you how to use those guidelines to your advantage.
Use the lines to draw nose, eyes, eyelashes, and so on. This video is a very good tutorial to learn the basics of drawing that manga looking head.
Don’t Miss: How To Draw Anime On Ibispaint X
Beginner Today Master Tomorrow
Any of these guides will provide a great starting point for beginners and give you the ability to start drawing anime right away!
The foolproof way to pick the guide that is right for you is to start by assessing your current skill level. How well are you able to draw today?
Try taking a blank canvas and draw a character, whether in the anime style or not. After ten minutes, take a second to assess your work. How satisfied are you with it?
Do you want to add more realism or perhaps a more refined appearance to your drawing? Maybe you can draw quite well, but you have some trouble nailing the famous anime expression.
Identifying what you want out of your work is the best way to pick the right guide for you. Its important to remember that learning to draw takes time, effort, and, most of all, exposure.
Your first few drawings wont be perfect, but putting the new techniques and skills you learn to use will concrete what youve learned and help you establish your skills as an anime artist!
Pop Manga Drawing By Camilla Derrico
All right, lets say you like manga art. Youre interested in this art style. You also have absolutely no desire to create a full manga. Thats fair. This volume coaches you in a manga-influenced art style. Again, I wouldnt recommend this book to beginners, but if you already like to draw and want to add a manga-inspired spin to your style, its worth checking out.
Recommended Reading: How To Use Anime Studio Debut 9
Draw The Body Of Your Manga Character
3.1 Rules of proportion for human bodies
When you draw a manga figure, the correct proportions are essential. Just like normal body proportions in realistic drawing, manga figures are about 7.5 heads high.
Superheroes in manga style have even longer proportions and are usually 8 heads tall, often even larger. The comparatively small head increases the dramatic effect of a low viewing angle in the hero posture.
Otherwise, the body proportions are pretty standard: The shoulder to elbow is about the same length as the elbow to the wrist. The same applies to the distance from hip to knee and knee to ankle.
- More detailed information about human proportions and the differences between female and male anatomy can be found in the this article.
3.2 Drawing clothes
The most important thing to consider when drawing clothes or any kind of fabric is the direction in which the material is being pulled. Creases are caused wherever the fabric is stretched or torn. Find out how exactly the structure of the fabric should move, and the rest is quite simple if you have mastered the necessary shading techniques.
Always think of the figure underneath the clothes. The fabric should reflect the shape of the character underneath.
Manga Art For Beginners By Danica Davidson And Melanie Westin
Despite the title, this guide is handy for any beginning artist, not only those interested in the manga style. The book begins with tips about drawing anatomy. It even walks you through body proportions! That might seem funny since some manga styles favor unrealistic body proportionslike the long legs that walk through the pages of many a shojo manga titlebut even stylized designs still use proportions to keep things balanced.
You May Like: How Not To Summon A Demon Lord Double Summon Version
Top 10 Best Anime Drawing Books
08/06/2018
Want to try your hand at creating your own Japanese comics or cartoons?
You need these top 10 best anime drawing books!
From beginners to advanced, youll find everything you need to create amazing works of manga art!
Living in Japan for two years gave me an appreciation for all things anime, and Im thrilled that its finally becoming so popular here!
Ill be honest with you, its not easy to master the art form, unless you happen to have major natural talent!
However, if you put in a bit of practice, you can create amazing works of anime art, even if you dont have that natural artistic talent!
Read on for some of the best books to help you master it!
First, though, lets talk about the difference between anime and manga.
Start A New Hobby With These Manga Drawing Books
Time to get real. Were several months into the Pandemic Times. We saw the rise of trendy TikTok recipes like Dalgona coffee. We watched Tiger King, The Untamed, and Unsolved Mysteries. We named our sourdough starters. Maybe its time for a new hobby. Lets say you picked up some new manga earlier this year. Are you feeling inspired to create your own? Even if you dont want to make a full-length mangaand I feel you because thats intimidating as hellsome manga-styled sketches could be fun. If this sounds like something youd like to try, these manga drawing books can help!
Also Check: How Much Do Funimation Voice Actors Make
Add Color To Your Manga Drawing
The easiest way to color an anime character is undoubtedly in an editing program on the computer. There you can work out all surfaces correctly and dont have to worry about mistakes. But you can also draw manga first with the ink pens and then scan the image and edit it digitally.
It is helpful to divide areas of your drawing into several layers. For example, create a layer for the background, a layer for the hair, a layer for the skin, a layer for the eyes, and so on. This will make things easier when you have made a mistake and need to undo something.
If you want to stay in analog media, you should choose high-quality colored pencils so that you can precisely fill in the subtle transitions and color areas.
Watercolors are used less often because the fluid transitions only match a few anime styles.
Best Books For Learning To Draw Manga
No artistic telnet? No prior experience in drawing manga? No idea where to start? This post here today is going to reveal the top manga drawing books for you.
Manga is an incredibly popular drawing style. Its the style used not just for manga comic books, but also anime and a number of mascots.
Its a simple, distinctive, and pleasing style that leaves a lot of room for creativity and experimentation.
However, before you can start experimenting with your manga style, you need to learn the basics.
While practice and using references by other artists is a great way to start, there are a lot of great books out there that can help you learn how to draw great manga art.
Don’t Miss: How To Draw Anime Feet With Shoes
Mapping The Face For Anime & Manga
A very good art tutorial on how to draw the manga head and face from different angles. Also, what is good about this video is that you will more about the planes of the face, like the placement of eyebrows.
The video is roughly 20 minutes long or short, but in that time frame, you are able to see three different angles being drawn in detail by Mike. And what I like about the video is that you can follow the drawing process while drawing yourself making the learning process that much easier.
Mapping A Cute Easy Anime Face In Real Time
A very in-depth video on how features a placed in the head. This art tutorial is a bit lengthy, but it does explain rather nicely how to draw manga face and head.
In the video, you will learn how to draw a nose, for example, from different angles and how the nose curve smooths out when the face is looking more forward than to the side.
When you are starting out, do use guidelines to help you place the facial features in the right places.
Read Also: If Adventure Time Was A 3d Anime Game All Secrets
How To Draw Manga Characters: A Beginners Guide
Best-selling author J.C. Amberlyn focuses on favorite manga archetype characters, with a fun and lively how-to-draw book aimed at beginners. She takes you through everything you need to know to create your favorite manga characters from Japanese comics or design your own.
Every genre of manga has its typical charactersplucky hero and heroine school boys and girls funny friend/sidekick serious warrior young innocent bishounen genki girls chibis chibi animals cat girls/cat boys magical girls adorable animals strong/scary animals gothic characters fantasy charactersand they are all here along with the step-by-step drawing instructions needed to give even beginners the direction they need to create the favorite characters they cant get enough of.
A chapter on backgrounds, scenery, and the environment will further give readers the information they need to pull everything together and create their own manga characters and the worlds they live in. Includes 23 step-by-step demonstrations and exercises.
What is inside this book:
How To Draw Anime: Beginners Guide To Creating Anime Art Learn To Draw And Design Characters Everything You Need To Start Drawing Right Away
No products found.
This is another great guide by Alex Kudi, and like their previous one, it aims to give you the techniques and tools needed to start drawing authentic anime characters right away.
It also includes tips on how to draw chibi characters, so its a great guide for those just starting out!
Read Also: How To Draw Eyelashes Digital
Beginners Guide To Creating Manga Art: Learn To Draw Color And Design Characters By Steven Cummings And Gonzalo Ordoez
This book is a comprehensive guide by Steven Cummings, an American comic book artist who works for the Udon Entertainment in Japan, and Gonzalo Ordoñez, the manga artist behind the popular Legendary Visions: The Art of Genzoman.
This book doesnt just explain how to draw characters in a manga style, but gives you a guide to designing them from the very first stages.
It focuses more on traditional media than digital media. It wont spoon-feed you steps, but is a great overview for how to design and draw manga characters.