Making a real manga requires a lot of time, dedication and artistic skill but don't let that discourage you form trying. You take to start somewhere.

This tutorial provides some step past step tips on how to plan out your manga before you start drawing as well as some drawing tips for when you lot do.

Step 1 – Make up one's mind the Blazon of Story You lot Will Tell

Manga character types, normal, fantasy, sci-fi, historical
Manga character types

Determine the blazon of story you have. Slice of life, fantasy, sci-fi , historical, etc…

Stride 2 – Write Out a Quick Summary of Your Manga

Pages & text drawing
Writing a summary

Write down a basic summary of your manga that describes the principal events of your story.

Step 3 – Create Graphic symbol Profiles & Design Your Characters

Manga ninja girl drawing & character design
Designing a manga grapheme

Write a contour for each of the major characters in your manga and blueprint their appearance.

For advice on making your characters you lot tin meet:

4 Important Steps to Make Your Own Manga or Anime Character

Step 4 – Determine the Settings

Determine where your story will take place. For case if information technology'south a fantasy world what is it called? What are information technology's main defining features. What are the major locations?

It's as well of import to note that fifty-fifty not fantasy or sci-fi stories can still take place in imaginary locations (countries, cities that don't exist).

Yous should plan out the locations of the manga where the bulk of events will take place.

Fantasy map drawing
Fantasy map cartoon case

If you accept a fantasy setting y'all can start by drawing the overall map of the world or the function of it where story takes place. You can use icons to prove the different locations (yous can also add notes to each icon)

Town map drawing with icons
Town map drawing case

In a non-fantasy manga you lot tin can skip the world map anddraw the map of the principal town or towns in your story (you will desire town maps for a fantasy manga besides).

For a town map you tin can draw things like the location of the main characters house, their friends house, the path they take to go to work or school, the key locations around town where the story will take place, etc… Use simple icons to draw the map and only for locations that are relevant to your story.

If yous want to apply a real town as the setting for your manga it's a good thought to utilize a existent map of it and have photos of real locations.

House drawing front view
House drawing

Next you can sketch out the locations themselves. For example the street view of the main characters house, the school, etc…

Room plan drawing
Room programme cartoon

Finally you can sketch some of the more of import interiors where the story will take place such as a classroom, or the main characters room. This will help you institute the location of the master objects in the room (bed, desk, etc…).

The reason for this type of planning is to avoid inconsistencies when drawing your manga and to also help you plan the story. For instance you will know that the characters demand to walk past the convenience shop to get to the beach. And so you can have them buy snacks on the way. While at the same time yous tin can avoid mistakes similar forgetting the location of the store and having them walk past information technology on their way to the park in another chapter.

For drawing rooms you can also run across:

One Point Perspective Room Drawing Tutorial – Pace by Pace

Stride 5 – Determine the Length of Your Manga

Point form notes drawing
Signal form notes

Plan out how much of your story will happen in each chapter.

Write betoken grade notes of the major events in a given chapter and the characters that will participate in them.

Example of bespeak form notes:

  • Protagonist wakes up and makes breakfast
  • Protagonist stops by best friend's firm & they walk to school together
  • On way to school protagonist and best friend talk virtually…
  • At first of form a new transfer student is introduced
  • etc…

Of form y'all will desire to use the bodily names of your characters in the notes.

Clearly label each ready of bespeak grade notes like "Chapter one, Chapter two, etc..". If you are going to proper noun your capacity include the proper noun after the number (example: Chapter 1 – Chapter Proper name). You want to stay well organized.

Step six – Plan Your Pages

Sketching manga with chibi characters
Sketching out a manga page using chibi characters

Plan out each page in a given chapter by doing rough sketches of it. A skilful way to practice this is to use printer paper. It's fairly cheap and y'all can easily discard a sheet if you make a mistake. Be certain to number your pages equally you draw so you don't go confused later.

Speed things upwardly by drawing "Chibi" characters for this role of your manga creation process (big head with a small trunk and not much particular).

For more on drawing chibi characters you tin can see:

16 Examples of How to Draw Chibi Anime Facial Expressions

Y'all should also include the dialogue that will accept place on each page.

Your sketches can exist adequately rough (a lot more then than the case), the idea is to quickly establish what will happen in every panel in a way that makes sense. Be aware that yous may accept to arrange the size of the panels in the bodily manga as the size of the pages can be dissimilar (read the next step for explanation of printing and size). You should however still use the same number of panels and they should exist laid out very close to the manner y'all will draw them in the last manga.

Step vii – Program for Printing Earlier You lot Draw the Actual Manga

Trim, bleed, safe area for printing drawing
Trim, Bleed and Live Area breakdown

Earlier yous get-go drawing the bodily manga at that place are a few things you should be aware of.

If you actually plan on getting your manga professionally printed you should do some research on the standard print sizes for such material. If you are just drawing your manga for exercise and will print information technology at dwelling house you can do any your home printer can handle. With that said it might notwithstanding be ameliorate to try and do i in a size standardized for the industry even if it's just for practice.

Information technology is of import to also be aware that the standard sizes for a manga in a country like Japan may be unlike to what is standard for a comic book in other countries. Be careful to actually become the size that is available for you to print in.

If yous want your manga printed you should also be aware of the "live area", "bleed" and "trim".

Page Live Area

This is the office of your page where your drawing is safe from having parts of it cut-off.

Page Trim

Trim is the point at which the surrounding material will be cutting off.

Page Bleed

The bleed is the expanse past the cut-off expanse. The reason for information technology is to insure that there will be no unwanted white borders or spots on the edges of your page. If you want a background colour or a drawing that goes all the manner to the edge of a printed folio you will need to depict by the cut-off area into the bleed area.

Additional Aid When Printing Manga

You lot can do additional research on printing on your own but the above printing tips are all things to exist enlightened of.

If you feel yo need more assist in this expanse a expert person to consult with can be a graphic designer. They often deal with print and should exist easier to discover than an bodily manga or comic book artist.

Web Manga

You can as well skip the printing procedure all together and but publish your manga online. This is probably by far the cheapest and easiest way to do things. However you should still endeavour and make up one's mind the best size to apply in case yous practice want to impress it later.

Pace 8 – Option a Speech Bubble Style

Speech bubble

Dissimilar types of bubbles tin be used to reinforce the bulletin they comprise. For example a normal oral communication bubble can exist a simple oval with a tail that points towards the characters mouth. If a grapheme is shouting y'all may want to emphasize that with chimera with jagged edges.

Different manga artists tin sometimes also use slightly different styles of speech bubbles. Generally you will desire to pick one set of styles and stick with it throughout your manga.

For a listing of the more common styles of manga speech bubbles and well as explanations of when to use them come across:

How to Depict Manga Spoken language Bubbling Tutorial

Step 9 – Cartoon Your Manga

Inking manga drawing
Inking manga

When everything is finally planned out yous can start drawing your manga.

You lot should brainstorm by doing a light pencil drawing and ink it in afterwards.

For inking a manga you lot can use a Nib Pen and ink. If yous have never used one before you should probably do drawing with information technology earlier you try and ink your manga.

You will eventually need to scan your drawings which means you can clean them upward digitally. For this reason if y'all make a pocket-size mistake when inking it should non be a major problem.

Alternatively if you have a pen tablet and the right software you can draw your manga digitally all together. In this instance you evidently would not demand to browse or ink the manga in traditional sense simply you should still start with a lite sketch and go over information technology with dark lines afterwards. Pretty much everything else that was mentioned before would notwithstanding utilise.

If a drawing tablet is something you are interested in you lot can bank check:

  • Should You Buy a Pen Tablet for Drawing Anime and Manga?

Bonus Tip – Get Feedback

You tin can get some basic feedback past showing people your graphic symbol designs and giving them some idea of the plot. You tin can also prove them your planning sketches to encounter if what is happening in the panels actually makes sense to other people.

It might be difficult for a friend to criticize your piece of work but ask for honest feedback.

Criticism may besides be hard to take only if you lot are truly serious about doing something then yous should be willing to listen to the opinions of others. At the same time recall that not equally of advice or criticism from everyone is ever valid. Definitely try and talk to more than one person and get a general consensus of your piece of work.

If you know someone who is a professional artist or writer they may be a very adept person to inquire for some help and advice.

Determination

Making a manga is time consuming but if you managed to read this far you lot've already shown some persistence equally this is a fairly long mail service. An important thing when taking on a large project is to plan information technology well and not rush to get it done too quickly every bit you may burn yourself out. Do a certain amount of work each twenty-four hours or each week and stick to it.

While this tutorial is quite extensive you may want to do even more inquiry if you are serious about making your own manga or comic volume.

If yous need assistance drawing in the anime and manga mode you can ever cheque the Tutorials section for some drawing tips.

Practiced luck!