OK, looks like I missed this last angle of the face position. The Downward Look:

Ok, this is the last angle that the book (Manga for the Beginner) shows as essential views:

I also had time during my lunch break to make a super quick sketch version, which I find helpful for digesting the practice:

Another view of the girl. This time from a 3/4 view, which is supposedly the most attractive view:

Continuing with yesterday’s drawing of a Manga Girl. Today is the profile view. After today, I’m not going to keep posting the full breakdown of steps I take since I don’t want to undermine the greatness of Christopher Hart’s “Manga for the Beginner”–even though I’m posting more broken down steps than the book does ^_^

Even still, I wanted to present a few details that are left out of the book and that I feel are really important (but I won’t republish all the great hints and tips that are throughout the book :). Again, reverse order:

Manga Girl Profile – Step 6 – Final Ink:
At this stage, I went over my 0.1 Sakura Micron pen with a 0.2–just to darken up a few places.

Manga Girl Profile – Step 5 – Time to Erase:
Unlike the examples in the book, I’ve left most of my original pencil in place up to this point (even the ruler guidelines and temporary structural marks). The inking here is done with a 0.1 Sakura Pigma Micron pen.

Manga Girl Profile – Step 4 – Starting Ink:
I just wanted to point out where I begin inking–the flower is the frontmost object, so I figured that was a good place to start. Then the Eye and the rest of the face, followed by working into the hair.

Manga Girl Profile – Step 3 – Final Pencil (HB):
Here I switch to an HB grade pencil for a little bit darker touch.

Manga Girl Profile – Step 2 – Hair

Manga Girl Profile – Step 1 – Form (2H):
I like to start my drawings these days with a 2H. It’s light and a little hard (but not nearly as hard as the 6H that I used to start with). I’ve been working my way up as I become more confident in the lines I’m creating–but everyone likes to start with a different grade–some even like to start with heavier grades.

I’ll probably continue to take pictures of the steps as I draw them and I might upload them to my flickr account here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/atomantic/

I picked up a copy of Christopher Hart’s “Manga for the Beginner”, which has a ton of great info and step by step guides for drawing manga. I’m just starting it–so here’s my take on the first lesson. I took pictures of it along the way, breaking it into a few more steps than the book had. I’ve arranged it in reverse so you can see the final product first :)

Step 7 – Ink:

Step 6 – Final Pencil:

Step 5 – Detail:

Step 4 – Hair:

Step 3 – Eye Detail + Nose, Mouth:

Step 2 – Eye Position and Relation:

Step 1 – Basic Form:

I found this strange seed tonight at the playground. Ilya was digging up the sand, filling up a pail to make a cake and she uncovered this thing. So I took it home and sketched it a bit–and then played with it a bit too :)

Well, it’s been one of those weekends. Yesterday, I had a totally short lunch (yes I work on Saturdays–but I get Monday’s off)–so I just drew a few random sketches. Today, I did a quick Tezuka character–though I don’t know the characters name:

So yesterday, I (sort of) randomly drew a portrait for my daily doodle. I showed my wife and she was like, “Why didn’t you draw a picture of me or Ilya?” and I was like, “yeah… uh… I already thought of that. That’s what I’m drawing tomorrow.” So today, here’s a sketch of my wife. Beware that it’s a bit rough and the mouth and eyes didn’t turn out like I wanted. I’m going to ease off portraits for a while before getting around to drawing Ilya. I want to focus on building more of a comic book style form–and get better at shading. I have no intention of drawing portraits very often anyway–I’m going through a few drawing tutorials and haven’t quite gotten to those parts yet. So tomorrow, no portrait.

I went back to the art store to pick up some missing pencils. When I first went to the art store in August, I didn’t know the difference between pencil grades and I didn’t think I even wanted to learn much about pencil shading, which I’m still working on (a lot) so I just grabbed a range (6B, 2B, B, HB, F, H, 2H, 6H). They didn’t have anything beyond 6 in either direction so I figured I was getting the spread.

But I figured I should fill the gaps so I got the missing ones–or so I thought. After I left (and the store closed), I realized that when I reached into the 4H box, I grabbed an HB. So I’m still missing a 4H and I’d like to get an 8B or 9B (or maybe just some charcoal)… anyway:

(yay pencils)

I’ve got to spend more time with Manga Studio before I get the hang of inking my sketches but I figured I should at least pull out the 2B and 6B and darken up this one on paper: