What You Need
Many aspiring artists worry too much about art supplies. There almost seems to be the belief that buying the right stuff is the single most important key to creating great art, but that’s like thinking you’ll be able to swim as fast as Olympic gold medalists do by wearing the right swimsuit. It doesn’t work that way.
What really matters is not the pencil but the brain of the person holding it. Experiment to find the size, styles and brands you like best. If it feels right to you, that’s all that matters.
PAPER
I almost want to cry when I see that someone has put hours and hours of work into a drawing on a piece of loose-leaf notebook paper. Do yourself a favor and get a pad of smooth bristol. It’s thick and sturdy, and can hold up to repeated erasing.
PENCILS
Pencils come down to personal preference. Perfect for me may be too hard or soft for you. I like a simple no. 2 pencil like the sort we all grew up with, but there are pencils of all kinds of hardness and quality. Try some out to see what kind of marks they make. The softer the lead, the more it may smear.
PENS
Get a good permanent-ink pen at an art store, one that won’t fade or bleed over time. Don’t confine yourself to super-fine tips. Have a variety of pens with different tip widths for the various lines you need.
RULERS
Get yourself a nice, clear plastic ruler so that you can see the art as you make lines. A 15-inch (38cm) ruler is good for even some of the longest lines.
KNEADED ERASERS
These big soft erasers, available in art stores, are great for erasing huge areas without leaving tons of pink dust behind. However, they aren’t always precise, so feel free to use them in combination with a regular pencil eraser.
PENCIL SHARPENERS
I’ve come to prefer a simple hand-held disposable sharpener over an electric one. You’ll get the best use out of it while the blade is perfectly sharp.
Making the Manga Eye
PUTTING YOUR MATERIALS TO WORK
Let’s get started with a warm-up exercise. Here’s a step-by-step demonstration that will get you used to the process we’ll be using. Eyes are a great place to begin drawing as they are key to the characters, simple yet even if you’ve never drawn before.
Materials
bristol board
clear plastic ruler
kneaded eraser
no. 2 pencil
pencil sharpener
pens in a variety of tip thicknesses
STEP 1
Pencil in two horizontal lines 1 inch (25mm) apart. Connect them with four vertical lines, each an equal distance apart. The three shapes that result should be slightly taller than they are wide.
STEP 2
Draw the eyebrows, and upper and lower lash lines. The angle of each line tilts up slightly toward the center of the drawing. The upper eyelashes’ curves are more pronounced. Your guidelines help get the proper distances for the lash lines, but for the eyebrows you need to use your judgment to get the correct space between each line and the lash lines below.
STEP 3
Add the iris of each eye, leaving a small white circle at the top for the highlight.
STEP 4
Place an oval behind the highlight within each iris. Add a smaller loop within each of those ovals to indicate the pupils. Extra credit if you replicate the slight flattening of the bottom of the ovals as they near the lower eyelashes. Add two curving lines above each eye for the eyelid folds.
STEP 5
Use your pen of choice to ink. If you’ve been careful, you now know exactly where to put the heavy black lines.
STEP 6
Once the ink dries, erase all the pencilled guidelines.
Keep Your Pencil Lines Light!
The pencil lines in the step-by-step lessons of this book appear darker for clarity, but you’ll want to keep them quite light in your own drawings. Pencil lines need to be erased after inking.
Character Design
Choosing Your Style
Note that each head has as its base a circle at the top with intersecting lines in it. This is a great starting point because it’s the same every time. The dead center of a circle doesn’t change. Once I have the circle, I add intersecting lines. The rest of the face can be built once you see where the lines should fall to produce the type of face you want.
Realistic
This face falls so close to true human anatomy it almost doesn’t qualify as manga. On a real human face, the eyes are much smaller, and the nose and mouth far more prominent. The ears are at the same level as the eyes.
Slightly Cartoony
This facial construction is what you might see in boy’s action-oriented manga. The eyes get bigger, and the nose and mouth become less detailed. However, the distance between the eyes and the tip of the nose is still pretty close to real anatomy.
Very Cartoony
In this approach the enlarged eyes result in a different relationship with the rest of the features, and the ears are now level with the nose.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to replicate this balance if you want to do this style. Manga fans are a discerning bunch. If you get it wrong, they’ll see it and let you know!
Extremely Cartoony
We’re reaching the far edge of the spectrum here, but have not pushed it to the limit. This style lends itself more to the shojo romance genre, where expressive eyes are what it’s about. Looking at the circle of the blue-print drawing, you’ll find the eyebrows are very high on this head.
Pay Attention to the Whole Face
In all these drawings it’s not just a matter of “the eyes get bigger.” They do, of course, but the nose and mouth get de-emphasized as well.