Art How To Draw Manga ~ Books!?

if its so easy to trace someone style how come everybody cant draw ranma? or cowboy bebop? simple becuse they have a style! you think stan lee can draw inu-yasha or todd mcfarlane could draw ghost in the shell? using other artists work as refernce isnt blatant tracing its an aquried gift of a true artist,being able to take differant aspects of things that inspire you and make it your own. no art company wants artist's that can draw like star artists,if they want art to look like ghost in the shell they'll get the guy who did ghost in the shell! if they want art to look like the guy who did the how-to books guess who there going to get? iv seen tons of potencial artists denied becuse there style looked to much like somebody else's. its the thing thats unique that gets the attention and your style should be no differant.it wouldnt be so bad if the books teached you techniques to find your own style..like differant ways to draw shade and volume or techniques to finding highlights in the eyes etc etc...i just think the books give a short cut to learning how to draw a very advance and deceptivly dificult style, and there should be no one definite way to draw it.

 

7thson, have you even read the 'how to' books?

 

In the local store for otakus and such kind of ppl, the seller gave me the advice about beginning buying the 4th book (the human body) of How to draw manga. It's quite good for a beginner, and tolds almost everything about the human anatomy. And about the 1st, she told me that it's a bit useless, because of the reasons given here.

 

no i havnt read the books? im just talkin out my *** becuse i have nothing better todo...mayeb im just more into developing individual style by expiermenting with differant approaches then by settling for one book or a series of books to give me all the answers.

 

what can i say ..i have a tendency to geta little off topic..but i never agreed with anyone. i still think that the how-to draw books are only good for people who draw anime for a hobby or very early beginners..iv looked at most of the how-to draw books and there not worth 20 bucks..the only how-to draw book i got was the non-official one some kind of generic japanese version which had 4 pages of references for how to highlight eyes (my biggest problem then) .bottom line if you wanna draw for manga for a living you better be practising more then just anime..you better be practising realizm with special attention to form and texture and with multiple formats like ink,watercolor,pastel,oils and charcoal,then apply those skills to your manga style. if your not then you should stop spending your time trying to augue with someone in some forum and get to practiceing.

 

I suppose when people see me posting a reply, they could look at my number of posts and go "nurr shes a newbie" i'm not actually, the thing is that i dont post stuff very often, sometimes i just like to observe. However 7th son, you also have a low number of posts, and im not gonna jump to that same old conclusion. But you're coming on here, on a topic that i started to ask peoples opinions on a reference book, and actin as if some of us have never come across art media before. Yes i've had plenty of practice with the inks and the pastels, Fineliners are good (especially when u draw and hatch with them and then add water, they look wicked) anyhoo, im not a beginner nor am i in the dark about art. I thoroughly practise my techniques and well, i doubt ill go into a career in anime, its hardly practical in the UK, best left to the japenese, they do it best, but i'll certainly be going into a career in illustration in the future. Maybe i've done a "7th Son" and gone off topic, but hey, it's self defence right?

 

Well from my experience with those "how to" books is that your better off getting a good life drawing book and practicing on the real thing.
Everytime time I tell this to people though I get the same reply about not wanting to draw realisticly. But trust me life drawing, drawing real people is the best way to improve your skills in drawing figures. From realistic drawings to super deformed characters. And from it you can develop your own style rather that some hackneyed style from a popular anime.
Knowing anatomy helps big time too.

Copying other peoples styles just for practice is okay for a while I guess but your gonna want to develop your own style. The inspiration of your favourite artists will always be there, you just gotta try and hide it in your own style.

 

i still doitn understand why some people have taken to defence over the fact that im right. if your studying like you should be you wont need a how-to draw manga becuse you will develop your own way of drawing it. nuff said too many people are quick to buying those books and getting the idea that if they read it they can draw manga. me perosnaly would save my money for refernce books like architexture,period clothes or life study books, i think the books sell an easy answer and dos'nt stress enough the idea of self expiermentation. developing your style is just that! going out and finding what works for you and what dosnt! now if you want to sit and argue with me about if i think all of your are newbies,sitting in your house for 30 min a day practising dragon ball z art,then thats fine, me personally i have booths at comic conventions and talk with many comic book publishers and iv seen many great artists turned down becuse all they could do was anime or all they could do was charecters or all there stuff looked like somebody elses! so once again bottom line if you wanna be a illustrator the rest of your life stick to drawing realizm then go to anime/manga or whatever, theres thousands of would be anime artists out there and you have to compete with them all and the only weapon your going to have is your style on the other hand if you just want somthin to mess around with go buy the books so you can impress your friends

 

but the point is, we want to draw MANGA, thus, the how to draw Manga books, your own style is just there, You can't just decide to change it entirely, and if you don't know Manga basics, what good are real-time books gonna do for ya' ??
Think about that and say something smart nex time.

 

Gach! that's exactly what they always say!
I don't know if any of ye realise this but, drawing anime/manga style? there's nothing to it. You can learn "manga basics" just by reading a few comics. And there's far more to manga than just character designs too.
It's just like any other style. And if it's all the same it gets boring and cliche ridden.
Nothing makes me cringe more than a cliched anime character design in a cliched anime pose.
They're no better than the muscle bound marvel crap you see on the comic stands.

There are plenty of Japanese artists out there with original styles, they all don't draw like that.

 

mmmmm somthin smart gee let me think....your super intelect is to powerful ah cripes now my head hurts, im curious to what real-time drawing is? anyhow what you said makes absolutly no sence! how can you begin to draw anything if you don't know the basics. im talkin form,composition,proportion etc etc now if you wanna come back and argue with common sense be my guess.but the only purpose you'll serve is to prove my point even further and you'll just make yourself look ignorant and miss-informed.

 

Hey don't drag me into the slagging match I was just trying to give advice.
But I bet that the great manga artists out there have a background in life drawing. If you look at any of them it's obvious.

If your gonna draw charactures of people, you need to know how to draw people.
Unless your designs are totally abstract or you are amazingly gifted.
That's just the advice that every teacher and professional has given me.

It's just like doing life drawing from pictures of people, you can't substitute it for the real thing.

 

exactly! well said hamish

 

Well, I draw, I only used Manga for refrence and my drawings are still comptetely origional,
unless there are drawings similar out there that I haven't seen yet which is a posibility I guess I mean what is origional to some people is cheezy to others and so on,
anyhoo,
We will never agree, so can I just stop this agument now and we can agree to disagree? Please?

 

i think everbody can just agree that opinons are like ***-holes...everbody has one

 

I'm not gonna argue any more, were all just proving the other person right then wrong, then right and so on.....

edit: Izzy, I didn't start wiv manga, I drew all kindsa things before I knew about manga, but the drawings sucked and weren't any sort of style. That wasn't important I know,

 

Yeah, I think most started drawing their favrourite cartoons(Transformers and the Ninja Turtles for me). But an early start is very advantagous if you plan to take drawing seriously.
If I could go back in time I'd go and slap my 12 year old self with a life drawing book. Cos I was amazed at how much my drawing improved when I did it.

I'm not trying to argue or anything. But if any one is gonna continue to draw, check out life drawing. 7thson said something about arcitechture too, never tried that but it sound like a good idea. Cos if you go on to do some kind of art course in college, that's gonna play a big part in it. Especially in something like animation, which is what I'm doing. Just pray you don't get an awful ***** of a teacher like mine.