Talia Horsburgh - The Art of Drawing Manga: A Guide to Learning the Art of Drawing Manga—Step by Easy Step

It is always helpful to have graphite pencils of a variety of densities. Make sure your pencil kit includes a light shade (2H), a medium shade (HB), and a darker shade (2B6B). A popular choice for many mangaka is a mechanical pencil, which allows for different lead thicknesses and colors. Try different pencils and see what works best for you.

Inking is an important part of the manga process, both as a major part of illustrating manga comics as well as the preparation stage for coloring. Manga artists like to use fine-line pens or dip pens for this stage. When using liner pens, make sure to have a variety of thicknesses. A great nib thickness range is from 0.03 to 0.5 or above, plus a brush pen. Many art supply stores sell these in ready-made sets to make starting your collection easier.

Traditional manga illustrators use dip pens with interchangeable nibs. The most popular nibs for manga artists are the kabura pen for straight lines, G-pen for diverse thick and thin lines, and maru pen for extremely thin lines. If you are a beginner at inking, try liner pens first, and then move on to dip pens once you become more confident.

Four popular coloring media for manga are alcohol markers, watercolor, gouache paint, and colored pencils. Alcohol markers are a popular choice among mangaka for their superior blending and color range. Use watercolor for backgrounds and light, transparent elements. Gouache is more opaque than watercolor and can be used for any part of an illustration. White gouache is often used for highlights and finishing touches. Colored pencils are the perfect finishing layer on top of paint and markers to add deeper coloring blends and textures to your piece. Experiment with them and see what you love!

Choose your paper depending on the medium you are using. Unless practicing, avoid using generic printer paper. Wet media such as watercolor or markers will need thicker paper, as opposed to dry media such as colored pencils. Mixed-media paper is a great all-round option if you arent sure what you need. Use bound sketchbooks for practicing. For in-depth illustrations, use sketchbooks with easy-to-tear paper so you can display your completed drawings.

You can draw manga digitally as well. Generic-use tablets with pens can be used for digital drawing, with more and more drawing apps becoming available at a low cost or even for free. Many web-based manga, such as webcomics, are created digitally, so it doesnt hurt to be versed in both traditional and digital options.

If youd like to invest in higher-quality digital drawing tools, there are many to choose from. Graphics tablets that connect to computers are very popular, but before investing a lot of money in a graphics tablet, research your options and test some out to make sure the tablet you buy is right for you.

Manga drawing styles are extremely diverse, but there are some common generic styles. The four generic styles are shonen, shojo, realistic, and chibi. You may find yourself switching between these styles before settling on something you prefer.