Almost everyone goes through the same stages: You read manga for free online or watch lots of free anime, develop a set of favorites, and dream of drawing your own great series.
On the other hand it doesn’t even have to go like this. Maybe you just want to learn how to draw your favorite characters or learn enough to doodle in your spare time. Drawing is a wonderful creative hobby, and who knows how far you can take it when you get along well?
So if you want to make money with manga. How do webcomics make money? How do webcomics make money? The web is full of content ranging from general humor webcomics to webcomics for geeks. Whatever your genre, whatever your niche, you will find an audience as long as you write well… Read more or just have fun with it, here are some tutorials and resources to help you get started. They are divided into written resources and Video instructions.
Written resources
Aside from books, there are very few quality written manga tutorials out there. Here are the useful ones I found. If you’re not impressed or not helpful, you can skip to the video tutorials instead. They are much better.
/ ic / Basic art advice
If you’ve never visited 4chan, this is probably for the best – but the site has several subcommunities that are actually very helpful and productive. One of those subcommunities is / ic / for artwork and critique.
The / ic / community has an excellent 56 page guide for beginners and newbies. It covers all kinds of basics and walks you through common beginner topics: Mindset, techniques, tools, software, etc. It’s not specific to manga, but it’s all applicable to manga art.
You do not want to visit 4chan? That’s good. The guide is publicly available at your own risk in Google Docs Visit 4chan!
Complete tutorial on how to draw manga
The folks behind Corel Painter, a drawing software used by many artists, have released a collection of art exercises to help you get started from scratch. The tutorials cover traditional art, photo art, and illustrations.
One of these tutorials is an overview of how to draw manga, which includes eyes, hair, expressions, and other various tips. It’s a good introduction if you’re new to the art scene, and I recommend giving it a try everything of tutorials.
Although these were written for Painter, they are still useful if you use other software.
How to draw manga?
How to Draw Mangas is a free website with a handful of beginner tutorials that will be useful to newbies. These are not Comprehensive Tutorials, so don’t expect too much. However, they contain many good tips and concepts that you can use as a starting point.
Note that the website sells a resource called How to Practice Manga for Beginners for $7, but I haven’t bought it or looked at it, so I can’t speak to the quality of that guide.
Manga Coloring Tutorial
If you are familiar with drawing manga characters, you can proceed to paint them. This coloring tutorial from mk-junior on DeviantArt is an important basic resource: it includes step-by-step instructions written in text and shown in screenshots.
There are many ways to color manga, so don’t take this as the only true technique! For example, check out this manga allele tutorial from Celsa on DeviantArt, which also features step-by-step snapshots supplemented by text commentary.
Video tutorials
Nowadays you can find tutorial videos everywhere. I’ve done my best to find the best of the best and cover as many different topics as you need to become a talented manga artist. Not all are manga specific, but all are important.
Proko
Proko is not specific to manga, but it is a need to watch YouTube channel for any aspiring artist. If you play through all of his videos from start to finish, your drawing ability will improve tenfold. I am not joking.
He covers two extremely important topics that are rarely taught in detail in YouTube videos: Gesture and Anatomy. Start with the Figure Drawing Playlist (to give life and movement to your drawings), and then study the "Anatomy of the Human Body" playlist (to give your drawings the right scale and details)..
If you know these basics, you will get the manga drawing much simple. There are no shortcuts when learning to draw, but if there were, Proko would be one of them. Don’t skip this channel.
Art by Wei
Art of Wei’s channel is a good first stop for newbies. While he has several videos on manga art, you’ll actually learn more from his series on drawing basics.
Start with the basic tools for drawing and the basic ways to draw playlists. Then proceed through the playlist drawing lessons for beginners. Finally, check out the How to Draw Manga and Hair Drawing playlists. Once you understand these techniques, drawing manga will be a breeze.
Whyt Manga
Whyt Manga is the best channel for manga-specific tutorials. Not only are his videos on point, often touching on all sorts of topics, but he also has it so many from those who will learn you for a long time.
And we’re not talking about five-minute clips. His videos are always at least 10 minutes long and sometimes up to an hour long.
Start with the playlists for manga tools, manga anatomy, and manga tutorials. After that, you’ll learn a lot about the How to Create a Shonen Manga playlist (fight scenes, storyboards, character design, etc.) and the Manga Camera Angle playlist (paneling and other visual storytelling tips)..
Mark Crilley
Mark Crilley is often recommended to manga newbies, and for good reason: he has a lot of content that will keep you engaged. The artwork in his earlier videos isn’t that good, but the techniques are solid, so don’t forget that and don’t get turned off.
Drawing and making manga playlists are good starting points. Also read his playlists for drawing hair and drawing eyes. And don’t forget the Speed Drawings playlist – here you can learn a lot about the practical application of drawing theory!
Koizu
Koizu is a YouTube channel dedicated to the art of manga. You’ll learn genre-specific tips and tricks, like z. B. drawing manga body proportions, shading techniques and poses.
The only downside is that at the time of writing, the channel has been inactive for two years. So don’t expect new content. Fortunately, there’s enough here to at least get you started.
Alphonso Dunn
Alphonso Dunn’s channel doesn’t touch on manga at all, but I recommend it here: All of his artwork is done in ink. If you want to draw manga, coloring is one of the most valuable skills you’ll learn.
You should go through Everything from his videos, so you can absorb as many techniques and tricks as possible. However, if you have time, the most important videos are in the Shading playlist.
Mikeymegamega
Ignore the gaming half of the Mikeymegamega YouTube channel and focus on the drawing half.
The Draw, Simple, Easy playlist contains medium-length videos that show how to draw specific characters from manga and comic books. The Draw With Mikey playlist includes longer videos in which he draws and chats with viewers for free.
While this channel doesn’t offer much instruction, it’s a great way to learn by watching. Along the way, you’ll find various tips and tricks and maybe even develop your own personal style.
Learning to be a better digital artist
If you want to create and publish a web manga, read our guide to starting a webcomic for free. Note that digital manga art can be easier with a graphics tablet. The best graphics tablets and graphics software for digital design The best graphics tablets and graphics software for digital design We’ve compiled the best graphics tablets and software you can use if you want to break into cartoons and other forms of digital art. Read more .
If you are willing to pay $20 per month for a Lynda.com subscription, we highly recommend these excellent online digital art courses. Learn digital art from the ground up with these 22 Lynda courses Learn digital art from the ground up with these 22 Lynda courses with hundreds of Lynda.com is the fastest way to master digital art. Here are a few courses to get you started. Read more . Lynda doesn’t have any manga-specific courses, but the digital comic drawing courses can prove helpful.
What is your favorite anime and/or manga? Are there any other useful learning resources we’ve missed? Share with us in the comments below!
Highlighted image credit: Bartosz Budrewicz via Shutterstock.