2021.12.04

Manga Tutorial for Beginners 09 Let’s draw people and natural objects

Hello, this is ГФ !
In this tutorial, I will be drawing “People・Nature”; in other words a free-hand drawing.
To be honest, these illustrations change a lot by the artist’s personal preference but I will be explaining the parts that can be applied regardless of the design.

Index

1. Drawing people

These are the basic steps to drawing a person.

① “Atari”: Walk through an approximation
② Draw the draft
③ Ink the drawing

Fill-ins and screentones will be in later tutorials so I will explain the process upto inking.

① Drawing an approximation

Atari and rough drafts are often referred as the same thing but personally, I think rough drafts are a drawing process to catch the overall image of the illustration.
Whilst “atari” is a process that decides on the proportions and settings, which will be applied in the finalized drawing.

In manga, it mostly begins by deciding which drawing gets placed in which panel but when you want to be particular about the composition, you should start off by the rough draft and then proceed to approximation only when your composition is finalized.

There is various ways for atari and no answer regarding how it is done so I think you should choose a method that allows you to replicate the style of your drawing.
The type of your layer doesn’t matter here so draw the approximation using whatever color you like.

② Drawing a draft

Making the approximation much closer to how the final outline looks. Lower the opacity of the atari layer and trace your approximation in the new layer. Same as before, the type of layer doesn’t matter here either.
In cases when it’s a hassle to draw, very easy to draw or your pen feels light you can skip this drafting layer and go straight to inking after the atari.

③ Inking the drawing

Lower the opacity of the draft layer and create a new 1 bit layer to ink your drawing.

Rather than tracing the draft lines, use it as a reference when drawing. When you feel obliged to trace the draft lines properly, your illustration can become a little stiff so it should only be used as an approximate reference.

When your design is a little complicated, I think it is the best to draw each body part in different (new) layers instead of drawing everything in one layer.
You can erase the unnecessary bits and merge your inked layers together later.

The facial expressions are the most important part of manga and also what catches everyone’s attention the most so make sure to put a lot of effort into them and redraw until you are satisfied.

When you want to draw a complicated pose, I recommend you to do the pose yourself or look at the book / photos instead of imagining them all in your head.
Once you practice drawing easy poses, you will be able to draw much quicker. If you are confused as to how you should practice, start off by reproducing an entire book on basic human poses.

2. Drawing the nature

There are various elements of nature used in manga like trees, mountains, rocks, sand, river, ocean, sky, wind etc.
In this tutorial I will talk about grass, trees and rocks.

Since they are usually a part of the background, you don’t have to put as much effort as you do for the characters.
Which means you can make a clean ink copy right after drawing the approximated atari.

① Grass

For grasses growing on the lawn or sideroads, you can simply duplicate long leaves.
If you want to draw multiple types of grass, you can observe them outside or look them up in illustrated books.
Adding multiple shapes of leaves makes your drawing more like weeds.

② Trees

Before inking a clean copy, draw tree trunks, branches and blocks of leaves in the approximation.

You can use leaf brushes or draw densely like you would with grass.
In most cases the shape can just be the same as street trees but if you want to be particular about them, pay attention to the classes and age.

③ Rocks

Draw the abstract shape in atari.

Pay attention to the bumps of rocks while drawing.
You can use screentones or draw the shading yourself.

Applying this technique, you will be able to draw cliffs.
Dirt blocks, mineral rocks and ice chunks can be drawn similarly as well.
If you also want to be particular about rocks, you can change your drawing between volcanic rocks, mudstones, conglomerates and meteorites but as long as the readers can see that it’s a rock then that’s generally alright.

How was this tutorial ?
In the next tutorial, I will be explaining about “Adding your own brushes and materials” that will help you save your time !