Manga

If you're here to learn how to draw or improve your drawing skills - you've come to the right place! Almost everything you need to know will be posted here from basic shading to publishing your work. Of course, how far you get will all depend on you!

A few things you should know about this place first...

1. The tutorials here are meant to help you draw your own original work. There are no how-to's on specific characters. No how-to-draw Sailor Moon, no Kenshin, no Dragon Ball Z, none! Don't bother emailing me about it either - I'll tell you the same thing, and you'll just be wasting my time and yours.

2. All skill levels are welcome to check out the tutorials. Bashing other people for being a beginner or "can't draw well" will not be tolerated. Funny thing is, most of the beginner's have the guts to actually submit their work to the Gallery here than more advanced drawers. That says something there, don't you think?

3. I do not critique art work. Sorry folks but due to all my other projects on this site, it's pretty much keeping me busy. There is a site which does critiques only: The Art Corner. Go check them out!

4. These instructions are not the only way to draw things. If you are comfortable with another way of drawing, than you should stick with it, develop your own style, and learn what you can with what I have up.

5. I do not get paid to suggest any products or other sites that sell products. They get mentioned because they a) have good products, b) shows an example of something I'm talking about, or c) have useful info.
The only sort of payment I get is orders to Amazon.com in the Shop section and my affiliates which helps pay for running this site plus holding the contest (which I hope to hold at least once a year).

All that done and over with - here is a brief guide to some of the more popular terms and styles of Manga:

SHONEN — Boy's manga, usually action/adventure, are aimed at boys 8-18 years old. It is by far the most popular style, and is usually characterized by big battle scenes. Manga such as "Dragon Ball Z", "Yu-Gi-Oh!", and "Yu Yu Hakusho" fall into this category.

SHOJO — Girls' manga are usually story-driven, less action-oriented, and romantic. The second most popular format of manga, it is rapidly becoming a very major part of American manga sales. Titles such as "Sailor Moon", "Love Hina", and "Chobits" are among the most popular titles. Shoujo style manga is usually geared toward female readers ages 12-18.

SEINEN — Seinen manga are series aimed at male readers ages 18-30. While a variation on the Shonen style comics, Seinen series contain more graphic violence and adult situations. AKIRA is a very good example of Seinen manga.

JOSEI — Womens comics aimed at young working women and housewives from ages 21-30. The Manga equivalent of Soap Opera's.

HENTAI — Literally "pervert" manga. Hentai refers to pornographic comics and cartoons. Think any X-rated movie.

JIDAIGEKI — Historical manga, usually action-packed, and battle-oriented. "Lone Wolf and Cub", and "Rurouni Kenshin" are some Jidaigeki.

MECHA — Mecha manga refers to the "Giant Robot" stories such as "Gundam W", "Voltron", and "Big O." They are usually action-oriented with big fights, lots of explosions, and tend to have some kind of "save the world" angle.

BISHOUJO — A very popular manga style, full of cute girls and/or funny animals. Series that fall under this category are "Hamtaro", and "Hello Kitty".

BISHONEN — "Beautiful boy" stories — aimed at teenage girls, and featuring very pretty, almost effeminate looking heroes. Series that fall into this category include "Peach Girl", and "X/1999" by CLAMP.

A few subcategories of the above types are:

SHOUJO-AI — Literally means "girl's love" and covers female-female relationships, usually on a romantical level (aka Yuri).

SHONEN-AI — Literally means "boy's love", with story covering male-male relationships, usually on a romantical level (aka Yaoi).

KODOMO — children's manga, aimed at 6-10 year olds, an offshoot of Bishoujo, shonen, or shoujo styles. Kodomo manga include "Pokemon" and "Digimon".



500 Manga Characters
by Sweatdrop Studios
Pages: 528 (color)
Publisher: Collins Design (July 2007)
ISBN: 0061256528

Chapters:
Introduction
How to us the CD
Teenage Female Contemporary
Teenage Female Traditional Asian
Teenage Male Contemporary
Teenage Male Traditional Asian
Fantasy
Action
Sci-Fi
Historical
Gothic Lolita
Child Male
Child Female
Adult Male
Adult Female
Chibi Male
Chibi Female
Villians
Mecha
Monsters
Animals
Hardware
Software
Basic Tools
Brush Tools
Blocking in Colors
Light and Shade
Airbrush and Beyond
Artists
License Agreement



Read this book? Tell us what you thought of it! Send your review to rio[AT]mangatutorials[DOT]com. Make sure you include a reason why you like and/or dislike the book.

Book Review by Ken

This is the second volume to the Manga Clip Art series and I must say that I find it much better than the previous volume. First off, it is in the same format as the original - hardcover, a circular cut-out within the center of the book where the CD containing all the artwork is held, and it contains 128 color pages of tutorials and artwork. It is also available at the same low price of $20 USD or under depending on where you buy it.

Though only one artist is involved in this volume, Yishan Li has taken the pains to do a nice mix of manga drawing styles which will sate those of you who prefer to have a variety to work on. Aside from the differing styles Li presents, overall, the quality of her drawings are kept at a high bar so you will not find any gradeschooler-like drawn characters much to my relief.

The first third of the book instructs readers on the what's, how's, and where's of digital coloring from the materials needed to actual tutorials on coloring in cel shading, airbrushing, and painting (or natural media as they call it) style. What I really like about this first half of the book is how they walk you through into how to create the characters by adjusting, rotating, resizing, and adding layers. How to work with the materials within the book is key and much more important than learning how to color it, however nicely that part of the book is presented, and I must say that it was done in an easy-to-understand manner.

In regards to the artwork, they are divided into two sets; characters and everything else (i.e. backgrounds and accessories). The female characters within this book were set in the following fashion styles: contemporary, sci-fi, traditional Asian, traditional European, warrior, child, and kawaii (aka chibi's). Each "fashion style" features four pages of sample characters that may be made in three drawing styles done by Li. These samples feature a nifty box that shows you exactly which parts were used to make the characters and beside each character is a list of the specific part used. A rather nifty addition for those who want to ape a particular look.

For such a gender specific book, I think it would have been nice if older women were also available. All the characters within the book can be seen as, at most, middle-aged and younger but where are the grandmothers? I understand the book is marketed towards the younger generation who are more interested in their own age group or younger but I find it disappointing that the older generation are not represented in some way. If you're artistically inclined, though, this wouldn't be a problem but artistically-challenged individuals will have to make do without the golden girls.

Moving on to backgrounds and accessories, I have one thing to say: bea-u-tiful! I can't stress that enough! The backgrounds are absolutely gorgeous! The amount of details and the composition of the backgrounds are downright fantastic. I almost feel like they were taken from photos - they're that good. With such great backgrounds, I feel sort of put out that there isn't more though eight is a lot more than what was present in the first Manga Clip Art book. The accessories are just as detailed and I will say that you will find nothing to criticize (except maybe that the game console Li drew is a PSP when everyone knows that the DS is so much better! ;D ).

There is one downside to what I just said and that is with all the details found in the backgrounds, there are bound to be some things that get missed. Case in point, one particular background had lines that should've been cleaned out. Being an artist myself, things like that bother me as I consider such errors as sloppiness. For those of you who don't want to fix them or can't seem to find them, this is not really a problem as the average person who looks at drawings don't look at the details and won't see these mistakes.

Last but not least, this book is also allows buyers to use the artwork for commercial purposes. For full details on what you can and cannot do with the assets, check out the license agreement here. All artwork are is PSD format with layers intact and ready for you to manipulate. With that said, with PSD files only available in the CD, that requires you to have a software that can handle it. Though Photoshop would be the best software to use, there are free alternatives like GIMP out there for you.

Below are some scans taken from the book. Have a look!
tips ~ europe ~ modern ~ chibi 1 ~ closeup ~ manipulate ~ chibi 2 ~ fighters ~ background ~ chibi 3 ~ cg ~ asia