Art Manga Improvements

[Sho Ayori]

I've been drawing my own manga for quite a while now, but I've never been completely confident in my style of drawing. I was wondering if some of you could give me some tips on the structure of my character designs.

Below are links to the comic I recently did.

[URL=http://img148.imageshack.us/my.php?image=checkup1gp7.jpg]Page 1[/URL]

[URL=http://img291.imageshack.us/my.php?image=checkup2wj9.jpg]Page 2[/URL]

[URL=http://img135.imageshack.us/my.php?image=checkup3ia5.jpg]Page 3[/URL]

[URL=http://img149.imageshack.us/my.php?image=checkup4up6.jpg]Page 4[/URL]

[URL=http://img146.imageshack.us/my.php?image=checkup5cd5.jpg]Page 5[/URL]

Apologies for the bad scanning, the pages aren't actually inked yet since I prefer the lighter lines until it's completely ready.

[jigglyness]

the story line is pretty good but when you do the panels. try to stick to one direction. The only thing I can say artwise, is that there needs to be improvement on body proportions and placement. The face is well done while the body seems kind of iffy. But there's always room for improvement. :)

I hate the dentist too. ^^'

[Chikara Kokoro]

Your art style is cute. It reminds me of CLAMP, but somehow it seems unpolished and beginner in overall quality. Most of the time the characters change in size in proportion to one another. You should focus on drawing backgrounds also. The tree trunks on the first page are far too wide, and there isn't enough structure on the top of the trees.

The panels are interesting and have clear and crisp lines. The phone is well done, and I know from experience how hard it is to draw a hoodie. The character designs are cute, but they are also very generic. I wouldn't instantly recognize them if I saw them in a piece fan art, for example. Try to give one of them a distinctive hairstyle, or change the eyes so that the character's personality shines through (I'm not sure if you can do that in your style, but a general guideline is to make the eyes larger the more innocent the character is). Find character designs you like, and figure out why you like them. That should give you a good starting point to figure out what details to put into your own character designs.

Text is also well done. You have very good penmanship. It's easy to read and the sound effects are interesting. The word balloons are sketchy, so you might want to ink this with inking pens (Sakura Micron is a good starter brand) if you publish it in any way (online or in print).

This is a cute story, by the way. ^-^

[2010DigitalBoy]

I like your characters they're adorable and the stpry is cute as well. I got a bit confused cuz I hadn't realized the sister was so small till like the 3rd comic. There are a few parts where the characters looked a bit weird, but overall I'd say you're pretty good.

[Sho Ayori]

Thanks for the pointers. The manga I normally create is usually Shojo kind of stuff, since I'm more into that rather than action and adventure. (Chobits, Carcaptor Sakura, Case Closed, Elfen Lied and other stuff like Negima or Love Hina are some of my favourites. After reading some of those mangas, I just picked up on the 'cute' drawing style and just adapted form that.
Taking in mind what Chikara Kokoro said, that's one of the small problems I have: getting the proportions right every time. Hopefully I can improve on that though.
These pages are actually part of the manga that I want to work on, since I know a story that I want it to have. It's a ghibli kind of story since I'm not too good at making action stuff. I've always found it easiest to get ideas from real-life situations and events, since they can happen every day, plus it's easier to draw.