The Process of Making Manga

GPHS Anime Club

Decide on what exactly you want to do

• What sort of story do you want to tell?

• What characters do you plan to create? Are they good or evil? Do they live a good, happy life or have they endured suffering?

• What sort of world is it set in? Is it like ours, eg is it Earth or a similar planet? What are the inhabitants like? Aliens? All one gender?

Genre

What genre you choose will have to depend solely on your target audience.

• Are they the same age as you?• Are they younger?• Are they older?• Would they be interested in your story at their age?• Would they be able to understand the story and be

fully able to follow it (if they are a younger audience)?

Story

• Manga isn’t manga without a solid storyline. This is what you have to focus on most as a priority to the art.

• You can have a manga with amazing art but it won’t be very popular if it has no story.

• Or you can have the complete opposite, which will work out better for you in the end because if your storytelling skills are great then all you’ll need to improve on is your artistic merit.

Story (cont.)

To make a great story, these are things you should consider:• What your world is like before the story begins. Is it at

war? Is it peaceful?• What brings your story to life? Does your main character

reach a certain age for his destiny to awaken (e.g. Is he/she some sort of spiritual guardian (random idea) and has to reach the age of say, 16, for this power to awaken within him or something?)

• Do they meet friends along the way? • Do they lose friends in the duration?

Story (cont.)

• Is there a special object(s) that they have to find/activate etc? Such as crystals, keys, stuff like that?

• Do they have to sacrifice anything? E.g. Important memoribilia, body part, weapons, money, food or just a warm bed to sleep in at night?

These factors and more will help create a solid storyline. Read as much manga as you can to get ideas. Or books. Books are just as good.

Character design• Once your world and

story has been decided upon, it’s time to design your characters.

Drawing style• Before you design your characters (or during),

you have to decide what sort of style you will draw them in.

Realistic Semi-realistic

Stylised

Chibi

Expressions

• Expressions are important in defining your character’s emotions

• These are an important part of character design, as your character may either change his/her expressions regularly, or they may stay the same or perhaps one might dominate all other expressions. For example:

Meet KASANODA Ritsu• Ritsu is a character from Bisco Hatori’s Ouran High School Host Club.• What do you think of him upon first glance? Does he look kind or evil?• What do you think his personality is like? Does he look like someone who enjoys beating people up?

Well, here’s the truth:

KASANODA Ritsu...• Part of a yakuza family• Loves animals• Hates painful things• Has no friends because his classmates think of him

as a ‘human blizzard’ (when people go near him they freeze) However, he is really lonely because of this and wants to make friends who he can play games such as ‘Kick the Can’ with

• He also wants to make friends with his men (underlings who look after him) who are scared of him because of his violent exterior.

• He was actually born with a scary face, which his father saw as a good trait and brought him up the yakuza way

• He hides his embarrassment by yelling “UH!?” or by saying/doing violent things (e.g. You wanna die?)

Some of Ritsu’s various expressions

The host club attempted to make him more ‘lovable’, which embarrassed him severely...

Ritsu’s expressions (cont.)

...etc, etc.

• There are lots and lots of ideas for serious expressions and the like.

• SD expressions are GREAT for comedy-type manga. Other characters from Ouran High School Host Club such as SUOH Tamaki make some really great faces.

• The anime Pretty Soldier Sailormoon has some fantastic SD faces. A selection of them are on the next pages:

Sailormoon SD faces

Sailormoon SD faces (cont.)(There’s so many great faces that it’s hard to make one page of them! XP)

You get the picture.

(Hopefully )There were soooo many more where they came

from; look in the References page at the end of this PowerPoint to go to the site I got them from! X3

Anyways, try and draw some of them and then see if you can come up with some of your own! (^0^)/

Eyes

• The eyes that you give a character should always match your character’s personality. (Unless they change sides during your story or if they were ‘just born looking that way’).

Some coloured eyes...

Eyes (cont.)

• Eyes must also convey emotion.

Faces

• You next have to match your eyes with a face:

(note these are just examples rather than guidelines XD)

Hair

• Depending on what hair type your character has, use similar pencil/brush strokes.

• E.g. Straight hair, straight strokes; curly hair, varied, wavy strokes...

Body

Factors you will need to consider their body care habits:• Regular, mundane person? Any variation of body type• Body conscious? Most likely skinny• Martial artist? Covered in muscles which will show a

long duration of training, however if they are just starting out, then don’t give them any

• Gluttonous (eats a lot)? Actually they are usually normally shaped, it’s rare for them to be what they eat.

• Etc, etc

Clothes/costumes• This will depend on the

world they live in.• Inspiration can come from

modern fashion, period fashion, cultural dress, etc. The list is endless. All you have to do is think of what you want them to look like!

(Generic examples, I know, but examples nonetheless):

Shaolin Monk

Japanese school uniform (sailor fuku)

Son Goku

Sailormoon

Panelling

• Choose whether you want to do normal panelling or 4 koma.

Regular panelling

4 koma

Toning/Colouring

• Choose whether you will tone or colour

Toning

• Is done by either using special tone sheets or by creating effects digitally

• Is used by pretty much all manga authors as it is much cheaper to print

Colouring

• Takes a lot longer than toning, in both process and learning

• Looks much nicer than toning

• Has more solidarity• Very expensive to

print

Book! (^0^)/

• Can be either magazine, book or both

• Most famous manga titles were originally printed in magazines

Referenceshttp://theanimeblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/oz-manga-dorothy.jpghttp://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/024/9/5/Happy_Manga_Girl_by_NaNi0713.jpghttp://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l87/Joker_0410/Tutorials/sketch.jpghttp://www.pinkkryptonite.com/images/pinkkryptonite/ultimo/Ultimo2_500.jpghttp://www.reimeika.ca/marco/beauty/realistic_manga.pnghttp://www.otakunovideo.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/dragonball_big1_500.jpghttp://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/179/e/5/Yu_by_Jin0410.jpghttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e07qqyPSSSE/Tao5fY_IGPI/AAAAAAAAAe4/rPiGUatiHXs/s1600/Usagi_Manga.jpghttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/_g8LVu1EPwsQ/TQY4_rXdVFI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/4aVCDCVCrDs/s1600/miku+chibi.jpghttp://www.animepalm.com/images/nyoron-churuya-san.pnghttp://nd01.jxs.cz/843/120/5eae5f18a4_43891330_o2.jpghttp://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/18000000/Neko-Kasanoda-ritsu-kasanoda-18046672-640-480.jpghttp://cdn.static.ovimg.com/episode/317175.jpghttp://images2.fanpop.com/image/polls/499000/499194_1279926547378_full.jpgSailormoon SD faces from: http://bssm-faces.tumblr.com/http://20th-centuryanimationstudio.webs.com/manga-eyes2m.jpghttp://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/13900000/manga-eyes-manga-13923000-750-750.jpghttp://www.howtodrawguide.com/wp-content/uploads/image/how-to-draw-anime/manga-faces/manga-faces.jpghttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wK0FlrkFD_U/R7Wa_kbz74I/AAAAAAAAAqQ/vBPEdv3qo04/s400/Manga_Eyes_.jpghttp://www.pxleyes.com/images/tutorials/video/4ac63b8753532.jpghttp://www.petshopboxstudio.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/03_hair_the_basic1.jpghttp://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/images/stories/large/2009/10/26/son-goku-as-a-child.jpghttp://www.shifuyanlei.co.uk/images/kungfuimg1.jpghttp://mandaray.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/sailormoon.jpghttp://cn1.kaboodle.com/hi/img/b/0/0/3d/8/AAAAC5Y4iAIAAAAAAD2FBA.jpg?v=1237853235000http://mangatutorials.com/tut/basic/panelbasic1.gifhttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KIsGHT8YYxE/TB9jns5R_eI/AAAAAAAABks/Rc9KYkKhGp0/s1600/PAGE+7.jpghttp://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii169/Arhazivory/DA_Ch020_Pg13Mangaddicted.pnghttp://robot6.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/WSJ.jpghttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r1zdiabb2Hg/TZ1bWqbT60I/AAAAAAAAErY/KxiMSzojVzY/s1600/One_Piece_Manga_Volume_60_Cover.jpg