HOW TO DRAW MANGA

2011-06-22T00:13:00.000-07:00

draw manga

2011-06-20T01:31:00.000-07:00

How to Draw Manga is a series of instructional books on drawing manga published by Graphic-sha, by a variety of authors. Originally in Japanese for the Japanese market, many volumes have been translated into English and published in the US. Of the wide range of manga-how-tos available for westerners, the series is seen as one of the more useful, both for its provenance and wide range of practical tips.^[1] The English-language volumes in the series were co-produced by Graphic-sha and two other Japanese companies, Japanime Co. Ltd. and Japan Publications Trading Co.

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[edit] List of books in the series

This is a list of books in the main HTDM set and other sets that relate to the main series.

[edit] How to Draw Manga

Originally there were no volume numbers on the English versions, because the original Japanese version did not have them. Then only volumes 1 - 8 were given numbers. With continued reprints and more books being released, all volumes gained a number. The dates given are the first printing. Several of these books have been discontinued, and are considered hard to find.

How to Draw Manga Vol. 1: Compiling Characters (October 1999)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 2: Compiling Techniques (July 2000)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 3: Compiling Application and Practice (August 2000)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 4: Dressing Your Characters in Casual Wear (May 2001)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 5: Developing Shoujo Manga Techniques (July 2002)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 6: Martial Arts & Combat Sports (June 2002)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 7: Amazing Effects (June 2003)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 8: Super Basics (June 2003)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 9: Special: Colored Original Drawing (May 2001)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 10: Getting Started (October 2000)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 11: Maids & Miko (November 2002)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 12: Giant Robots (February 2002)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 13: Super Tone Techniques (August 2002)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 14: Colorful Costumes (January 2003)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 15: Girls' Life Illustration File (May 2003)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 16: Guns & Military Vol. 1 (September 2003)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 17: Guns & Military Vol. 2 (October 2004)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 18: Super-Deformed Characters Vol. 1 Humans (August 2004)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 19: Super-Deformed Characters Vol. 2 Animals (June 2005)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 20: Female Characters (December 1999)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 21: Bishoujo Pretty Gals (November 2000)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 22: Bishoujo Around the World (March 2001)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 23: Illustrating Battles (October 2000)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 24: Occult & Horror (June 2003)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 25: Bodies & Anatomy (December 2001)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 26: Making Anime (January 2003)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 27: Male Characters (July 2002)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 28: Couples (January 2003)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 29: Putting Things in Perspective (October 2002)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 30: Pen & Tone Techniques (April 2003)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 31: More about Pretty Gals (August 2003)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 32: Mech. Drawing (December 2003)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 33: Costume Encyclopedia Vol. 1 Everyday Fashion (December 2003)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 34: Costume Encyclopedia Vol. 2 Intimate Apparel (January 2005)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 35: Costume Encyclopedia Vol. 3: Sexy Sports Wear (May 2005)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 36: Animals (February 2005)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 37: Macromedia Flash Techniques (February 2004)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 38: Ninja & Samurai Portrayal (September 2005)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 39: Creating Manga: Stories (April 2007)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 40: Dressing Your Characters In Suits & Sailor Suits (August 2006)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 41: Costume Encyclopedia Vol. 4 Kimono & Gowns (April 2007)
How to Draw Manga Vol. 42: Drawing Yaoi (June 2007) Note: this is a bishōnen how-to guide, not yaoi
How to Draw Manga Vol. 43: Drawing Bishōnen (December 2008)

[edit] How to Draw Manga: Ultimate Manga Lessons

This set was printed in a smaller format of 15 cm x 21 cm.

How to Draw Manga: Ultimate Manga Lessons Vol. 1: Drawing Made Easy (April 2005)
How to Draw Manga: Ultimate Manga Lessons Vol. 2: The Basics of Characters and Materials (August 2005)
How to Draw Manga: Ultimate Manga Lessons Vol. 3: Drawing Sensational Characters (November 2005)
How to Draw Manga: Ultimate Manga Lessons Vol. 4: Making the Characters Come Alive (March 2006)
How to Draw Manga: Ultimate Manga Lessons Vol. 5: A Touch of Dynamism (2006)
How to Draw Manga: Ultimate Manga Lessons Vol. 6: Striking the Right Note (August 2006)

[edit] 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 (May 2005) :0
How to Draw Manga: Computones Vol. 2: Depicting Characters (September 2005)
How to Draw Manga: Computones Vol. 3: Mecha (October 2005)
How to Draw Manga: Computones Vol. 4: Portraying Couples (June 2006)
How to Draw Manga: Computones Vol. 5: Aiming For Action (June 2006)

[edit] How to Draw Manga: Sketching Manga-Style

How to Draw Manga: Sketching Manga-Style Vol. 1: Sketching to Plan (February 2007)
How to Draw Manga: Sketching Manga-Style Vol. 2: Logical Proportions (April 2007)
How to Draw Manga: Sketching Manga-Style Vol. 3: Unforgettable Characters (October 2007)
How to Draw Manga: Sketching Manga-Style Vol. 4: All About Perspective (Nov 12, 2008)
How to Draw Manga: Sketching Manga-Style Vol. 5: Sketching Sports Basics (Dec 10, 2008)
How to Draw Manga: Sketching Manga-Style Vol. 6: Sketching Props (August 11, 2009)

[edit] Manga Pose Resource Book

This set was printed in an over-sized format of 21 cm x 29.6 cm.

Manga Pose Resource Book Vol. 1: Basic Poses (2002)
Manga Pose Resource Book Vol. 2: Animals (2002)
Manga Pose Resource Book Vol. 3: Actions Scenes (2002)

[edit] How to Draw Anime and Game Characters

This set is another Graphic-Sha publication that is shown alongside the main HTDM series on the dustjacks and in ads.

How to Draw Anime and Game Characters Vol. 1: Basics for Beginners and Beyond (August 2000)
How to Draw Anime and Game Characters Vol. 2: Expressing Emotions (March 2001)
How to Draw Anime and Game Characters Vol. 3: Bringing Daily Actions to Life (August 2001)
How to Draw Anime and Game Characters Vol. 4: Mastering Battle and Action Moves (April 2002)
How to Draw Anime and Game Characters Vol. 5: Bishoujo Game Characters (September 2003)

[edit] More How to Draw Manga

Another set of manga-know-how with only four volumes, based in character creation. Note: Only three of the first printings for this series are below.

More How to Draw Manga Vol. 1: The Basics of Character Drawing (March 2004)
More How to Draw Manga Vol. 2: Penning Characters (March 2004)
More How to Draw Manga Vol. 3: Enhancing a Character's Sense of Presence (??? 2004)
More How to Draw Manga Vol. 4: Mastering Bishoujo Characters (September 2004)

[edit] Cancelled/Status Unknown Volumes

These are volumes that were going to be released in English and even advertised for ordering, but they have been cancelled.

How to Draw Manga: Digital Comic Guide Vol. 1

[edit] Cross-promotions

A special edition of the series titled How to Draw Manga Special: Colored Original Drawing was produced detailing how to use Copic markers. It explains how to avoid blotches, use colorless blenders, select paper, refill markers, changing nibs and the airbrush system.

2008-05-19T08:28:00.000-07:00

see the picture

male and female

2008-05-12T08:05:00.001-07:00

how to draw manga

2008-05-12T08:04:00.001-07:00

how to draw manga

2008-05-11T21:33:00.000-07:00

Interesting post here..i really agree with what u say and i'm looking forward to do my research as well...keep on the good work as usual ... this blog rules !!!

2008-05-11T07:25:00.001-07:00

The term ‘manga,’ meaning ‘irresponsible pictures', was first coined by Hokusai, the famous Japanese artist. The production of popular comic books and pictures of everyday life emerged in Japan early in the 19th Century and flourished into the 20th.
It has been adapted easily to the medium of film and become ‘anime,’ the moving-picture branch of manga. The first animated features in Japan were produced in the 1930s and 1940s, but the futuristic fantasy films we know today as anime emerged in the 1950s and owe much to the experience of Japan during and immediately after the Second World War.

The emphasis on the romantic adventure story and on science fiction, coupled with themes such as Armageddon, death and destruction and rebirth through sacrifice and unselfishness, reflect the trauma of Japan’s near-destruction during the Second World War and its adoption of new technology enhanced by a dedication to rebuild the shattered nation.

The ever-present fear of a devastating earthquake, which remains an imminent threat, also contributes to the preoccupation with the post-apocalyptic wilderness.
Anime first made its mark in the UK with the release of Akira in 1991 and since then has become a boom industry, with an increasing number of distributors marketing this material, the biggest being Manga and Kiseki.

To a large extent, anime is the triumph of form over content, though often the non-linear narrative allows complex themes to be explored. To many non-Japanese, cultural barriers prevent any deep understanding of the underlying themes and imagery.
Many anime fans watch for the spectacular animation and the breathtaking leaps of imagination. Who needs an understandable storyline when you are being taken on a high-tech mystery tour of a far-off galaxy?

The result of the above is that anime sometimes appears to have little respect for the boundaries of taste and decency. Graphic violence, sex and sexual violence often appear within a medium which, in our western experience, has traditionally been free from such incursions.
Adult themes are starting to be explored through animation in western animated films (the backstory of O-Ren in Tarantino’s Kill Bill is a good example), but this is largely as a result of Japanese influence and ‘cartoons’ are still often seen as a children’s format.
A great deal of anime would seem to appeal to a young audience, populated as it is by teen and pre-teen characters, furry fantasy creatures and robots. However, there is sometimes a mismatch between the theme and the presentation and appeal, and this has presented difficulties for the BBFC.

Some of the most problematic anime works for the board have been those in which children are presented as sexually active. The characters in anime works are often presented as childlike, with their big eyes and high voices. They can change form according to their mood and a character that appears adult in one scene can look like a toddler in the next. Sometimes the only way to tell which character is which is through the consistent nature of their hair colour and style.

In addition to their childlike features, characters are often presented in school uniform, which usually takes the form of a sailor-style top and shorts or a mini-skirt. Until relatively recently, Japanese university students were required to wear uniform and it is sometimes the case that these uniformed characters are actually supposed to be at college.
However, there is a clear link between school uniforms and the notion of underage sex and the Board is always mindful of this when making classification decisions. Cuts have occasionally been written at '18' for such content.
For example, in the series LA Blue Girl Returns, characters presented as children (dressed in uniforms, physically small) are explicitly involved in sexual activity. It was felt that the link could potentially encourage an interest in underage sex and these scenes were removed.

Other scenes in the same work were removed due to their focus on sexual violence. Women are penetrated by a tentacled beast in explicit detail and, again, we felt these scenes contravened our guidelines. Such ‘tentacle rape’ scenes are a feature of a branch of anime known as hentai, a Japanese term meaning ‘strange appearance.’ The term has come to be used to describe pornographic anime works.
As a form of expressing sexual fantasy, hentai works can include depictions that are deemed unacceptable by society, or run counter to social norms. Such fantasies are often depicted in the extreme, demonstrating subconscious desires or purely carnal motivations.
Sexuality or sexual violence is often perpetrated by fantasy creatures or by humans with abnormal anatomy. Despite the fact that this sexual activity is drawn, the Board treats these explicit works as it would live-action sex and explicit detail has been removed or pushed up to the R18 category.
Examples of works which have been cut for sexual detail include Mission of Darkness and Alien of Darkness. Both these works were also cut for instances of sexual violence, which very often goes hand-in-hand with explicit sexual content. A further work in the same series, Sex Beast – Idol of Darkness, was rejected as there was barely any salvageable material once the explicit sex and sexual violence were removed.

Despite these examples, cut works remain a very small percentage of the anime product which comes through the Board. Most works are passed at the '12' category, perfect for Manga Entertainment’s stated target market, ’12-19 year old British males.

Find out more:
BBFC Guidelines

history of manga

2008-05-10T06:04:00.000-07:00

Ishinomori Shotaro passed away this year on the 26th of January. He was famous as the author of A Manga Introduction to the Japanese Economy. He was also widely know abroad thanks to the English translation of the same work. Ironically, however, the success of this work has actually given rise to misunderstandings about the nature of Japanese manga. In this installment I will be discussing this work and its author, Ishinomori Shotaro
Several years ago I was visited by a newspaper reporter from a certain developed nation in Europe who wished to discuss Japan's thriving manga culture. The reporter's first words to me were, "Japanese manga can be divided into three categories, economic manga, erotic manga, and violent manga. "This comment came as quite a surprise to me and I was sad to think that Europeans had such a distorted view of Japanese manga. Like the proverbial troupe of blind men who try in vain to identify the elephant, it struck me that Europeans had no concept of Japanese manga as a whole.
Needless to say, there is no such tripartite division of Japanese ma nga. In terms of content alone there are many other genres of manga, including sports manga, romance manga, literary manga, historical and joke manga. While there is such a thing as erotic manga, there are no established genres devoted specifically to economics or violence. As for violence, the difference is only a cultural one (Japan has a lower incidence of violent crime than the United States and Europe), and "economic manga" are just one part of the larger genre of 'information manga" (also known as expository or textbook manga). Moreover, these information manga are not regarded very highly among manga.
Information manga exploiting the illustrative function of the manga form to serve as study aids for children have existed since before the Second World War. With the extraordinary development of manga as an expressive form during the 1970s, so-called "academic manga" began to appear in general magazines mostly read by businessmen. They do not necessarily have a narrative structure, but the protagonists are shown applying themselves to the study of the origins of and various anecdotes about food, liquor and annual festivals.
It was in this context that A Manga Introduction to the Japanese Eco nomy appeared in 1986. Unlike most manga in Japan, this work was released not in serialization but in book form from the start. Nonetheless, its three volumes sold a million copies, and it was even read by people born before the war. In this way even those who had previously shown no interest in manga and who did not belong to the so-called "manga generation" were compelled to recognize the expressive power of the manga form.
This led to the appearance of ever more manga dealing with subject matter such as history, science, and classical literature. At the same time, manga even began to be employed as a public relations tool by governmental agencies. As a whole this new category of manga began to be referred to as "information manga," "expository manga," or "textbook manga." In some cases, they were referred to, with some measure of irony, as "educational manga for grown-ups."

check out this article

2008-05-08T10:41:00.000-07:00

MANGAPHOBIA: MANGA FOR PEOPLE WHO HATE MANGA
Are you mangaphobic? Maybe I can help. I fully sympathise with anyone who has been put off trying manga by their so-called 'manga style', the set of alien, alienating clichés of big Bambi eyes, teeny noses, cutesy smiles, mad haircuts, speed lines and sweatdrops. You can almost be forgiven for saying that all Japanese comics look the same, because a great deal of those put into English to date superficially do, since they have been cherry-picked to tap into the built-in niche following for their animated versions among 'otaku' SF/fantasy cartoon fans. Anime on TV, DVD and the cinema screen continues to be a highly effective ambassador for manga, but manga are so much more than anime. I wonder if it's the welter of anime imports that may have distorted public perceptions and created the false impression that all manga conform to certain standardisations of subject and style found in fantasy anime. In fact, just as superhero comics don't represent the entirety of American comics, so the preponderance of anime-related or anime-looking manga in the West represent merely one narrow band of the full spectrum of this massive mass medium. Don't dismiss manga till you've tried to see the full spectrum.
Another deterrent for mangaphobes is the outlay for stories that can run to 12, 20 or more volumes. It still surprises me that most publishers don't indicate anywhere how many there will be in a saga. Sometimes this is excusable, because the series is still running in Japan, so no one knows yet when it will end. But if it is already completed, I for one would like to know from the outset the total number of books I'm being expected to shell out to get the whole kaboodle (sometimes you can find out on the publisher's sites). Luckily prices are getting better, now that Gollancz Manga have brought out their line of Viz titles at under a fiver and several bookstore chains are pushing 3-for-2 deals. Before you buy, other options are to check out the sneak peeks in free samplers or online or see what titles you can take out from your local library.
Another grumble from some is having to read manga 'backwards'. More accurately, you have to read the pictures and balloon order right-to-left, but of course the dialogues inside the balloons read left-to-right, so you're processing in two directions at once. True, it can be disorientating at first, but persevere and you'll be surprised how you get used it. Remember, it's also more respectful to the artists than having to flop their panels as if in a mirror just so we can read them more easily.
So if you're wary of trying manga, but are open to suggestions, I'll start by shamelessly plugging my own deliberately broad-ranging, eye-opening guide, Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics. I heard that one Gosh! customer, a true manga aficionado, bought over £180 worth of books that he discovered through its pages. As for other reference works, don't be too disheartened by the generic types - a buxom she-devil and a strapping swordsman - on the cover of 500 Manga Heroes & Villains (Collins & Brown). Inside, expert and champion Helen McCarthy casts her net far wider to encompass all manner of characters, from sports, history, business, girls romance, horror and others. To impose some order, she classifies them into eight A-to-Z lists of: male or female heroes; anti-heroes; male or female villains; teams; and two catch-alls, 'non-humanoid & semi-human heroes and villains', and 'historical, mythical & literary heroes and villains' from Nefertiti to Hitler. A minefield of information, this 352-page directory fortunately comes with an index, so if you don't know the characters' names, you can always find them by looking up their creators or the titles of their manga. Or just dive in and see where she takes you.
A sensitive interpreter of the culture, Helen packs her entries with facts, plot synopses and real insights to many series, several tantalisingly untranslated as yet (notably by Tezuka). By writing about various characters, good, bad and in-between, from the same story, she can reveal its themes from multiple perspectives. She adds some more in-depth spotlights on creators like Akira Toriyama, Go Nagai, Leiji Matsumoto, and megastars like Lupin III, Godzilla and Golgo 13. Not every entry can be illustrated, but with over 160 images, mainly covers, there's much to look at too.
No short survey can be exhaustive; as she says, "half the challenge of doing a book like this is deciding what to leave out". What she has chosen to put in inevitably reflects Helen's tastes, which generally veer towards manga linked with anime, her other passion. Now anime movies are capable to doing so much (look at Hayao Miyazaki), but still they tend to be dominated by versions of manga's space operas and epic fantasies, because Japanese directors on a tight budget find such fare too expensive to film in live-action. For cheaper live productions, they turn to the wealth of manga's other diverse and engaging genres.
Evidence of these comes from a recent Japan Foundation manga-to-film season around the UK. Audiences could discover Cromartie High School (ADV Manga) based on Eiji Nonaka's wacky Pythonesque skits about the pecking order and posturing of Tokyo's dumbest punk pupils, among them a mute Freddie Mercury lookalike, a gorilla and a tin-can robot. If you never thought table tennis was your thing, the film Ping Pong will grip you with Taiyo Matsumoto's tale of tabletop rivalries and speeding balls; now that the DVD is out, could Viz please get round to translating this sports gem? A recent classic in the shojo or girls' genre is Kiriko Nananan's single-volume Blue (Ponent Mon) about the deepening friendship between two schoolgirls, made into a movie in 2001.
Manga's freewheeling storyworlds are the key well-spring of some of the strongest hits on the big and small screens, from 2003's Old Boy (Dark Horse) and last year's Nana (VIZ), friendships and romances among touching twenty-somethings from the manga by Ai Yazawa. While the film of Dragon Head (Tokyopop) may not have topped the polls, the original 10-volume manga by Minetaro Mochizuki is a chilling post-earthquake shocker, highly recommended, as is Lady Snowblood (Dark Horse), the source of the movie that "inspired" Tarantino's Kill Bill.
Two of my current favourite translations are also lined up for the cinema, but why wait when you can catch the compelling manga now? Naoki Urasawa's Monster (VIZ) is an 18-volume rollercoaster ride, already adapted into an anime TV series. The prospects for Japanese super-surgeon Tenma at a renowned German hospital look promising, as long as he lets himself be exploited by the hospital's callous director and by his fiancée, the director's spoilt daughter Eva. Status, funding, publicity, are the director's prime concerns, so when it comes to saving lives, a famous opera singer is much more important than some lowly Turkish labourer. As Eva tells him, "After all, people's lives aren't created equal."
Tenma won't accept this ethical compromise. His career and life, however, unravel after he ignores an order to operate on the city's mayor and decides to save a critically injured boy, whose twin sister is in shock and whose parents have been mysteriously killed. Tenma loses everything to save this one child's life. His faith that he did the right thing begins to falter, as others around him inexplicably die. Some ten years later, he comes face-to-face with the angelic-looking killer and realises the horrors he is unwittingly responsible for. How far will Tenma go to stop this "monster" he saved from death? Drawing in a low-key, naturalistic style, Urasawa unfolds his drama with clinical precision and stokes the tension as Tenma becomes a prime suspect in the mounting multiple homicides.
My other tip is Death Note (VIZ) about the lethal relationship between bored student genius Light and a bored death god called Ryuk, whose Death Note falls into his hands. What would you do if you found a notebook with instructions on how it can kill whatever human name is written inside it? Watching the TV news, Light decides to test it on a killer holding hostages in a school. When reporters announce that the criminal has died from a heart attack, Light is almost convinced it works, but decides to try it out on the street.
Here, Light's superiority and self-righteousness surface as he ponders, "Start looking around you and all you see are people the world would be better off without." Spotting a biker harassing a girl and overhearing his name, he writes it into the Death Note book followed by the words "Traffic Accident". Before his eyes, almost instantly the biker is mowed down by a juggernaut truck. Light's revulsion and guilt, however, soon give way to a mission to "clean up" the world. "I'll make a world inhabited only by people I decide are good!" Complemented by Takeshi Obata's beautifully crisp artwork, writer Tsugumi Ohba's moral dilemmas are fiendishly clever, as cool-hearted know-it-all Light tries to evade Interpol's tricky unseen super-agent, code-named 'L', in an escalating cat-and-mouse game with the lives of millions.
A prescription of class acts like these, rich in characterisation and plot, might just help you conquer your mangaphobia once and for all.
The original version of this article appeared in Comics International, the UK's leading magazine about comics in 2006.

manga is life

2008-05-08T10:37:00.000-07:00

When the chimes sound at 10:30 am, the young men pour through the doors. First a few dozen. Then a few hundred. Then, in a matter of minutes, a few thousand. Mobile phones pressed to their ears, empty backpacks flapping on their skinny shoulders, they tear across the floor of the Tokyo Big Sight convention center as if pursued by demons.
"Hashiranaide!" cry the blue-shirted security officials. "Hashiranaide!" Don't run! But it's no use. The collective force of so many men fed on a combo platter of anticipation and desire is unstoppable. Call it the running of the otaku. For what has stoked their fires isn't flesh or cash but stack upon precious stack of manga.
As you may have noticed, Japanese comics have gripped the global imagination. Manga sales in the US have tripled in the past four years. Titles like Fruits Basket, Naruto, and Death Note have become fixtures on American best-seller lists. Walk into your local bookstore this afternoon and chances are the manga section is bigger than the science fiction collection. Europe has caught the bug, too. In the United Kingdom, the Catholic Church is using manga to recruit new priests. One British publisher, in an effort to hippify a national franchise, has begun issuing manga versions of Shakespeare's plays, including a Romeo and Juliet that reimagines the Montagues and Capulets as rival yakuza families in Tokyo.
Yet in Japan, its birthplace and epicenter, manga's fortunes are sagging. Circulation of the country's weekly comic magazines, the essential entry point for any manga series, has fallen by about half over the last decade. Young people are turning their attention away from the printed page and toward the tiny screens on their mobile phones.
Fans and critics complain that manga — which emerged in the years after World War II as an edgy, uniquely Japanese art form — has become as homogenized and risk-averse as the limpest Hollywood blockbuster. Pervading the nation's $4.2 billion-a-year industry is a sense that its best days have passed.
Wired art director Carl DeTorres discusses the evolution of the manga cover for the November issue.
Wired art director Carl DeTorres discusses the evolution of the manga cover for the November issue.
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Which ought to make what's happening here at Comic Ichi — a manga market the size of several airplane hangars that will attract some 25,000 buyers — so heartening. The place is pulsing with possibility, full of inspired creators, ravenous fans, and wads of yen changing hands. It represents a dynamic force that could reverse the industry's decline.
There's just one hitch, one teensy roadblock on the manga industry's highway to rejuvenation: Nearly everybody here is breaking the law.
This spring I spent two months in Japan looking under the hood of the manga industry. I met with key players in the supply chain — from the artists who create the work and the editors who polish it to the retailers who sell it and the fans who devour it. I argued with manga critics in Tokyo, hung out at the country's only college manga department in Kyoto, and paid homage to the God of manga in Osaka. I was hoping to get a sense of why Japanese comics have become so insanely popular around the world. What I got instead was a tantalizing peek into what might be the future business model of music, movies, and media of every kind.

Manga isn't just for freaks and geeks. Ride the Tokyo subway and you'll see graying salarymen, twentysomething hipsters, and schoolgirls all paging through a manga weekly or a graphic novel.Photo: Ofer Wolberger
To understand manga's place in Japan, you must begin with its ubiquity. Even though the popularity of manga has fallen in recent years, it still comprises about 22percent of all printed material in Japan. In many parts of Tokyo, you can't walk more than two or three blocks without encountering comics. (Trust me. I checked.) Most omnipresent are the magazines — Weekly Shonen Magazine, Weekly Shonen Jump, Young King Ours, Shojo Comic, and countless others. They're teetering in messy piles at convenience stores, stacked in neat slabs at every subway station, and for sale just about anywhere someone might be inclined to pull a couple hundred yen ($2 to $4) from their pocket. Published on flimsy newsprint and often as thick as a Baltimore phone book, these magazines can contain 25 different serialized stories that run about 20 pages each. The most popular series then get repackaged as paperback graphic novels. These books dominate long stretches of Japanese bookstores, and their sales figures would make American authors and publishers weep with envy. One example among many: The paperback editions of Bleach, a series about a ghost-spotting teenager that has been running in Weekly Shonen Jump for the past six years, have sold some 46 million copies (in a country of 127 million people).
And manga, unlike most American comics, isn't reserved for freaks, geeks, and pip-squeaks. Ride the Tokyo subway and you'll see passengers peering at their mobiles. But you'll also inevitably spot gray-haired businessmen, twentysomething hipsters, and Japanese schoolgirls alike paging through a manga weekly or a graphic novel. The city of Hiroshima even has a bustling public library devoted entirely to manga.
Yet the role of manga in the broader economic ecosystem is perhaps more important than its actual sales figures. Japan's vaunted pop culture apparatus, it turns out, is really a manga industrial complex. Nearly every aspect of cultural production — which is now Japan's most influential export — is rooted in manga. Most anime (animated) movies and television series, as well as many videogames and collectible figures, began life as comics. Dragonball — now a multibillion-dollar international franchise comprising movies, games, and cards — debuted as an installment in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1984. Uzumaki Naruto, the protagonist of the mega-property that bears his name, first showed his blond ninja head in the pages of the same magazine eight years ago. Trace any of Japan's most successful media franchises back to their origins and you'll likely end up inside a colorful brick of newsprint, where 20 pages of exquisitely matched words and drawings tell the inaugural story.

picture

2008-05-07T09:55:00.001-07:00

my dream car

lesson 3

2008-05-07T09:47:00.000-07:00

Drawing comparisons: The history of Manga and classification
The term ‘manga,’ meaning ‘irresponsible pictures', was first coined by Hokusai, the famous Japanese artist. The production of popular comic books and pictures of everyday life emerged in Japan early in the 19th Century and flourished into the 20th.
It has been adapted easily to the medium of film and become ‘anime,’ the moving-picture branch of manga. The first animated features in Japan were produced in the 1930s and 1940s, but the futuristic fantasy films we know today as anime emerged in the 1950s and owe much to the experience of Japan during and immediately after the Second World War.

The emphasis on the romantic adventure story and on science fiction, coupled with themes such as Armageddon, death and destruction and rebirth through sacrifice and unselfishness, reflect the trauma of Japan’s near-destruction during the Second World War and its adoption of new technology enhanced by a dedication to rebuild the shattered nation.

The ever-present fear of a devastating earthquake, which remains an imminent threat, also contributes to the preoccupation with the post-apocalyptic wilderness.
Anime first made its mark in the UK with the release of Akira in 1991 and since then has become a boom industry, with an increasing number of distributors marketing this material, the biggest being Manga and Kiseki.

To a large extent, anime is the triumph of form over content, though often the non-linear narrative allows complex themes to be explored. To many non-Japanese, cultural barriers prevent any deep understanding of the underlying themes and imagery.
Many anime fans watch for the spectacular animation and the breathtaking leaps of imagination. Who needs an understandable storyline when you are being taken on a high-tech mystery tour of a far-off galaxy?

The result of the above is that anime sometimes appears to have little respect for the boundaries of taste and decency. Graphic violence, sex and sexual violence often appear within a medium which, in our western experience, has traditionally been free from such incursions.
Adult themes are starting to be explored through animation in western animated films (the backstory of O-Ren in Tarantino’s Kill Bill is a good example), but this is largely as a result of Japanese influence and ‘cartoons’ are still often seen as a children’s format.
A great deal of anime would seem to appeal to a young audience, populated as it is by teen and pre-teen characters, furry fantasy creatures and robots. However, there is sometimes a mismatch between the theme and the presentation and appeal, and this has presented difficulties for the BBFC.

Some of the most problematic anime works for the board have been those in which children are presented as sexually active. The characters in anime works are often presented as childlike, with their big eyes and high voices. They can change form according to their mood and a character that appears adult in one scene can look like a toddler in the next. Sometimes the only way to tell which character is which is through the consistent nature of their hair colour and style.

In addition to their childlike features, characters are often presented in school uniform, which usually takes the form of a sailor-style top and shorts or a mini-skirt. Until relatively recently, Japanese university students were required to wear uniform and it is sometimes the case that these uniformed characters are actually supposed to be at college.
However, there is a clear link between school uniforms and the notion of underage sex and the Board is always mindful of this when making classification decisions. Cuts have occasionally been written at '18' for such content.
For example, in the series LA Blue Girl Returns, characters presented as children (dressed in uniforms, physically small) are explicitly involved in sexual activity. It was felt that the link could potentially encourage an interest in underage sex and these scenes were removed.

Other scenes in the same work were removed due to their focus on sexual violence. Women are penetrated by a tentacled beast in explicit detail and, again, we felt these scenes contravened our guidelines. Such ‘tentacle rape’ scenes are a feature of a branch of anime known as hentai, a Japanese term meaning ‘strange appearance.’ The term has come to be used to describe pornographic anime works.
As a form of expressing sexual fantasy, hentai works can include depictions that are deemed unacceptable by society, or run counter to social norms. Such fantasies are often depicted in the extreme, demonstrating subconscious desires or purely carnal motivations.
Sexuality or sexual violence is often perpetrated by fantasy creatures or by humans with abnormal anatomy. Despite the fact that this sexual activity is drawn, the Board treats these explicit works as it would live-action sex and explicit detail has been removed or pushed up to the R18 category.
Examples of works which have been cut for sexual detail include Mission of Darkness and Alien of Darkness. Both these works were also cut for instances of sexual violence, which very often goes hand-in-hand with explicit sexual content. A further work in the same series, Sex Beast – Idol of Darkness, was rejected as there was barely any salvageable material once the explicit sex and sexual violence were removed.

Despite these examples, cut works remain a very small percentage of the anime product which comes through the Board. Most works are passed at the '12' category, perfect for Manga Entertainment’s stated target market, ’12-19 year old British males.

Find out more:
BBFC Guidelines

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2008-05-06T21:25:00.000-07:00

Manga is a highly regarded art form in Japan. Manga artists are highly respected not only for their skill but also for their imagination and creativity.
To draw manga, one would have to study the characteristics of manga images. Most people who wants to learn how to draw manga are usually attracted to some characters in a manga series. Without knowing it, they're not only attracted to the physical form of the manga character, they're also drawn to the personality of the character.
Manga pictures are not hard to draw once you understand its basic characteristics. And here they are.
Firstly, manga characters are adorable looking. This cuteness is defined by extremely large eyes, an almond shaped face, and a very small mouth. In fact, the faces of manga characters can look very similar, and they're differentiated mostly by their elaborate hair, dressing and accessories.
The manga face is made up of very basic shapes. So there's very little I can recommend here except to practice, practice, practice. If you can master drawing one manga face well, you'll be able to draw other manga faces as well.
The key here is to be able to capture the elaborate hair. Its not uncommon to see manga characters with long hair. Many fine lines are required to draw a fine head of hair, so do pick a sharp drawing tool for this purpose.
The dressing and accessories of a manga character is a statement of who the character is. So do not ignore these fine details. Spiritual characters often have "floating" pieces of cloth around them (e.g. cloak, scarf, etc).
Warriors almost always carry some kind of fancy weapon such as swords, spears, and so on. These weapons, together with the clothing, make-up the entire manga character.
Knowing this, the next time you draw a manga character, pay special attention to the hair, clothing and weapons of the character.

lesson 2

2008-05-06T11:58:00.000-07:00

Lose the smudges and dirty colors!
First of all, wash your hands, and consider using cotton gloves when drawing, to prevent oils from your hands getting onto the paper. Otherwise, keep a spare sheet of paper under your hand.
When using colored pencil for Manga drawing, its easy to pick up tiny specks of color from dark areas, making streaks or spots through your lighter areas. To avoid this, work from light-to-dark, doing highlights and pale skin tones first, then adding darker shades and shadows last. Use a soft brush to flick away loose particles of colored pencil.
Use the same approach when using felt pen for coloring manga, and make sure that previous layers are dry before starting on a new color, if you need to avoid blending.
Pencil lines can often be a problem, with graphite pencil smudging into colors. Use a fairly hard pencil, and draw as lightly as possible, lifting off excess graphite with an eraser.
Re-do linework after you've colored the drawing. Some artists like to use a smudgeproof Indian ink to ink drawings prior to coloring.

lesson 1

2008-05-05T19:31:00.000-07:00

Japanese style cartoon figures or manga has own the hearts of millions of cartoon fans all over the world. If you are like me you are also a fan of manga style. I enjoy this style of drawing very much. And let me tell you one secret you can have lot more fun by drawing beautiful manga style characters than what you can have just by looking at the art created by others.

And drawing manga is not too difficult either. No matter whether you are an expert artist or a rank beginner you can pick up manga drawing skills with some honest effort.

There are some typical features in a manga style character’s body and face. Once you are aware of these you can create beautiful manga and amaze your friends and family.

In manga style some body parts are exaggerated and some parts are represented using very simple hint-lines. Like, eyes are drawn bigger and expressive and for nose and mouth small lines are used.

Girl’s eyes are larger than boy’s eyes and most of the evil characters are drawn with really small eyes. Body is drawn taller than normal. Limbs are generally thin and long.

When drawing hair you have more than one option --you can draw lots of individual lines to represent hair, or you can use volume hair as if hairs formed a number of thick tubular structures. Both the styles are popular, use which suits your temperament and your characters mood.

Few precautions: when drawing head start with an oval shape and draw the eyes at the half way from the top if you draw the eyes above that level you run risk of ending up with a character with flat looking scalp.

While drawing exaggerated eyes make sure eyes do not cross the cheekbone this is a mistake beginners often make.

And do not miss these
Cartoon and Manga drawing tutorials and this Exciting Cartoon Drawing Course

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tapan_Sarkar

how to draw manga

2008-05-05T19:17:00.000-07:00

how to draw manga
how to draw manga
how to draw manga

HOW TO DRAW MANGA

draw manga

Contents

[edit] List of books in the series

[edit] How to Draw Manga

[edit] How to Draw Manga: Ultimate Manga Lessons

[edit] How to Draw Manga: Computones

[edit] How to Draw Manga: Sketching Manga-Style

[edit] Manga Pose Resource Book

[edit] How to Draw Anime and Game Characters

[edit] More How to Draw Manga

[edit] Cancelled/Status Unknown Volumes

[edit] Cross-promotions

male and female

how to draw manga

how to draw manga

history of manga

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manga is life

picture

lesson 3

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lesson 2

lesson 1

how to draw manga