Manga Help....

[Guest Soul Guider]

I want to create my own manga, i got a story and everything, but when it comes to creating characters, i just can't draw anything satisfactory..... i have no problem drawing fan art but for some reason i just can't make a decent character...
Anyone got any suggestions on how i can construct my own character and be pleased with it?

[Annie]

[color=#141416]Well, I haven't made manga myself, but I do draw characters. It takes a while, but I start off with thinking of what I'm looking for. I think up a little biography or a personality I want a character to have. I then try and match that bio/personality with a style that suits. It helps to look at all sorts of anime pictures, and different styles of manga, to get a vague visual. By then, I find certain aspects in what I've looked at, put them together/reposition/redesign/etc, and I start drawing.

Go into drawing without a grand expectation. You don't want to get your hopes up, but also, you don't want to get a bit arrogant. Don't think of the outcome, just concentrate on your drawing, shading, and coloring (if you use color). Once you feel you've done all you wanted, step back and take a look. Don't be afraid to reach out for constructive criticism. As harsh and distasteful as some of it may be, it does help; it pushes you to do better.[/color]

[benakittie]

[QUOTE=Soul Guider]I want to create my own manga, i got a story and everything, but when it comes to creating characters, i just can't draw anything satisfactory..... i have no problem drawing fan art but for some reason i just can't make a decent character...
Anyone got any suggestions on how i can construct my own character and be pleased with it?[/QUOTE]

Keep Drawing!! I have problems like that all the time, except all my manga is done by hand. So I don't have all that fancy stuff to help it look better. But the main thing is to keep drawing and restyling. Look through books for clothes, like those clothes cataloges or K-mart specials or something. (Even Fabric stores can be helpful.) It always helps to do some research on the character's history/personality. For example a care-free spirit, you might want to like into more childish clothing or design the character with pigtails or slightly larger eyes than the rest of your charcters. I have great character designs, but the hardest part for myself is drawing the angles right and drawing fight scenes! MAN THOSE ARE HARD!!! It also help to read lots of mangas to get a feel as to how they do it their way. (Manga styles.) Just read not to unconciously sopy someone else's art and work.

Good Luck!! :animesmil

[Gentle]

Look at others drawings and take them apart. It's a sort of surgery that you can go through doing transplants. Add maybe one characters legs, another hair, one's ears, another's eyes, someone's shirt, and then another mouth. When you get the basic idea of what you want your character to look like try this out and then turn it around and add something else to it. Don't copy everything. Try to make your own features in the design and keep it simple when you start so there's no big hassle over how difficult it is.

Also you can study other styles and try to copy theirs while you gradually move into your own. Drawing isn't really something you can do in a day or two, it takes lots of practice and patience to get it right. Study your family and friends and try to get them to pose for you so you can sketch a feature from them and turn it into a manga style.

[Guest Liebe ist Krieg]

[COLOR=DarkRed]
Basically, you need to remember that not all artists are cartoonists. I, myself, have tried making my own manga, and it was a good start for my first. when you think about it, every kind of art is going to have its own ideoligy, style, and rules. art has its own, which happends to be very different from manga. in art, you must convey an idea, myth, answer, or story in a single picture. in manga you must do this same thing, but over the course of many drawings, however, manga uses techniques to grasp the reader into more. The basics of manga are perspective, story, angle, irony, and originallity.
Concering your charaters, they must all have a different style of personallity, humor/seriousness, and shape to their body. never have two characters look alike, and if not possible, change the hair or types of clothes they wear to be totally different.
But always remember: you must be able to portray your charater's attributes that classify them as that special character from very many different types of angles and perspectives. otherwise the story will be boring or the reader will not reconize that character as he.
Good luck[/COLOR]