Some of My Favorite Manga References

Let's face it:  we're totally living in a day and age where you can download any artistic reference pictures you want from the internet.

We live in an age for technology... everyone has smartphones or tablets on their person at all times, and so if you're stuck in an artistic bind... can't remember how far apart to space manga eyes? ... you google it, and BOOM! A million pictures and tutorials will pop up from all over the world. That is pretty amazing, right?

And, it's just easier most of the time to keep all of your reference/art ideas stored on your smartphone or device. Most of these are pocket size, or can be carried in your purse or art tote. I'm guilty of this myself... I have a huge folder on my tablet that I use for saving art inspiration ideas, pose references, color schemes, etc... So I'm not against it. But I was sketching out some ideas for fifties themed girls this past week, and I happened to pull out one of my favorite Manga reference books for a reference on drawing sweater texture. I keep most of these books right by my desk, in a drawer for easy access, but I don't use them as much as I should!! I've kept that book on my desk the rest of the week, just looking over some of the poses and texture ideas again, and so I thought it might make an interesting blog post to share some of the tutorial books and authors I have used and enjoyed learning from over the years!!!

By the way, I am a VERY big fan of teaching yourself to draw just by looking at your favorite manga or anime characters. That's exactly how I started out!  But, you need to get a little more in depth in your study and progression of the manga art style. It's unique for a reason, and just drawing your favorite characters, while it will help you get started, won't teach you everything you need to know. I'm just throwing out a list of the top three artists whose tutorial books have helped me (and you probably will be familiar with at least one or two of these!), but if you go to the art section in Barnes and Noble, you can now find dozens of manga art teaching books, whereas before, they were few and far between. So if you don't like one artist's style or way of teaching, find one that works for you!!  Manga art is about VARIETY!!   =-)



1. )     Chris Hart is the artist whose tutorial books I first started checking out from the library. He has several different ones available!! Now, this is a side note, but I've learned over the last few years that a lot of artists don't care for Hart's work anymore. It's hard to figure out the reasons why, but my understanding is that people don't like that the art styles in his books are not consistent with each other. This is because Hart does not do all the tutorials and poses himself, but with a team of other artists. That's never bothered me, because, as I said before... manga art is about variety!!  Not every style of manga art has to have the same style to be manga. And the genres are always changing! But anyway... when I first started really getting into this art style, I checked out tons of his books from the library and just did my best to follow along with the guided drawings. I own a few of his books as well! And he's always coming out with more!!  =-)

 "Manga for the Beginner: Chibis" was one of the first books I pored over , and I ended up buying it! This book is all about chibis. Chibi types, chibi houses, chibi pets... Super cute and lots of fun things to try drawing!!

 "Manga Mania: Shoujo" I also ended up buying. The art styles definitely vary in this one, but you get a lot of variety in things to draw, from princesses to sci-fi warriors... all in the shoujo "girl" style.

I don't own this one, but I was first to check it out from the library a few years ago when it came out! "Manga for the Beginner: Kawaii" is one of my favorite books of his, ever. I didn't know a lot about the kawaii style until going over this book and learning to draw the style myself.  This book also has a bonus section that focuses on the "Moe" style of shoujo as well!!

I'm always looking for good romantic poses to use, and this book has a lot of helpful references.

Above is an example of one of the "Moe" tutorials in the Kawaii book. How cute!!!  ^^

I can't remember what book this is from, but I know it's one of his female character centered books. A lot of variety in poses to try!!



2.)   Mark Crilley. If you are in the manga art world at all and haven't heard his name come up, you must be living under a rock. Considered the #1 manga artist and YouTube guru in America, Crilley had success with a few of his own manga series before putting out his first tutorial book, "Mastering Manga with Mark Crilley".  He also has a YouTube channel and is faithful in uploading a new tutorial video once a week, which is impressive, considering that he's got to be one busy guy! Mark's approach to manga art is fantastic, and while the pictures in his tutorial book might look daunting at first, the approach he takes with giving the guidelines is easy for anyone to follow and practice!

I own the first book, "Mastering Manga". It has many helpful references inside!!!  Here are a few below..

A year or so ago, he also put out a second book, simply titled, "Mastering Manga 2". It's a step up from the first book, and a helpful reference as well!

3. )  Irene Flores may not be as well known as the first two, but she's put out several books already and all of them are very helpful! Her first two books are titled "Shojo Fashion: Year One" and "Year Two". I've checked out "Year One" from the library several times, and bought "Year Two" a few years ago for my birthday. I LOVE using these as a reference, especially when referencing fabrics and textures. In following her books, you're surprised to find how easy she makes things look!

 I own "Year Two" of her Shojo Fashion series, and it's one of the best books I've bought and used the most.

Most of her guidelines revolve around drawing clothing properly, from textures, to wrinkles, to pleats and creases... But she also throws in tips for character design, and there are also many nice poses you can reference from!

By the way, she draws children ADORABLY.

I recently borrowed her latest books, "Shojo Fashion Boys" from the library, and this is a GREAT reference book if, like me, drawing guys is still intimidating to you. Lots of great guidelines to follow here, and this is a book I am definitely interested in purchasing for more reference use!



So, these are the artists whose reference/tutorial books have been the greatest help to me, and I am always learning!!  Have you heard of these artists? Do you keep up with their work? If not, I hope I've given you some new reference ideas to choose from!!   =-)


-Stasia-Chan '15

Inktober, My Biggest Marker Piece EVER, and A Kawaii History Lesson!!

IT'S INKTOBER!!!!!    =-D 

Yay!!!!  I have been so excited for this after participating my first time last year.  <3  Starting on October 1st, the idea is just making it a point to doodle something every day. It can be as big or small as you want it to be, as long as you're drawing one thing every day for the whole month. It's a fun project!!!  I still have my little sketchbook I bought for Inktober last year, and I'm excited to use it again!!  I've been going through seeing what I doodled last year, and the majority of my doodles were done backstage in the dark, while I served as stage manager for "The Crucible"... for drawing in the dark, there are actually a few salvageable ones, LOL!!   ;-)

I FINALLY finished this piece this week!!! Hmm... Now that I think about it, I'm not sure it qualifies as my biggest marker piece ever... My Charlotte's Web and Rei Hino pieces were about the same size. I guess this one feels bigger because there a lot of little details?  Anyway, this was super fun to work on, and I found myself pulling it out when I just felt like I needed to relax a bit. Marker coloring is usually very relaxing to me!!! I think this would be a great picture to offer as print. I don't see myself parting with the original... I love it too much!!!  <3


It's no secret to most people that I'm a big history buff. And after touring Colonial Williamsburg during our vacation last week, I've really had history on the brain. And that makes me think of a lot of things I would love to draw that are about history or that might encourage others to become interested in history! I've been brainstorming and I would really love to do little 8-10 page "chapters" of manga about something in history... for example, the fifties housewife (because this is something I've been very interested in lately).  However, we all know that I'm pretty ADHD when it comes to sticking with one project in art, so...  xD     I think this would be my ultimate goal in achieving something with history. A few other ideas I've had are to do sketch cards titled "Humans of History", and give them a bit of narrative like the "Humans of New York" photographs. Also, to make some "Historical Fun Fact" note cards that you can buy in a set and then send the historical fun to your friends.  Anyway, those are just some ideas... they sound a bit scatterbrained, even to me!  I'd really love to make this happen in the future though, and so I'm always researching and writing down ideas... I think I hold myself back a lot of times. I think I have a good idea, but then I talk myself out of it because I think that it sounds silly to share with others. I'm not good at getting people interested in my art because I'm shy and just hold back in advertising to people what I'm doing most of the time... I know I need to put myself out there more!!


It's a busy weekend for us here, so I'm even more excited about Inktober, because this will keep me doing some art every day, even on the busy ones!!!  

-Stasia-Chan '15

Watercolor Play

(Hey! Two blog posts in one month??  The world must be ending!)   .... (See what I did there?? ;-o )


Hello again, art friends!!

So, I think I've mentioned before that watercolors are really not my forte. But I've also mentioned that I would really like to improve with watercolors. For many reasons, but the two main reasons for me are: 1, I find it relaxing to lay paint down on paper, even if the turn out isn't the best... xD   And 2, because most watercolor blends well with Copic Marker, and if I could get a feel for watercoloring, I might be able to save some on marker expense.

Sooo...

My biggest problem in watercolor has always been not being able to mix a nice skin tone. And that was frustrating, because most of my drawings need a smooth skin coloring!!! I watched this awesome tutorial by Megan Carrigan, a famous Disney art watercolorist, on how to properly mix skin color. And I had been making the mistake of trying to mix white and pink or yellow to get a peachy color for skin. So after watching her tutorial (which wasn't even very long or complicated!),  I decided to sit right down and try what she was doing, AND IT WORKED!!!!   I was very excited. The tutorial I watched was here...  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1LOsq-uh9M


Anyway, I had sketched this piece of Sailor Mercury from one of the manga volumes. It was sketched on watercolor paper, and so it seemed like a good subject to try watercoloring again.

And this picture above is right after I mixed skin tones and tested them.... Once I got the light consistency I wanted, I was shocked how good it looked after I applied it!!!!  I was so excited!!! I love learning new art abilities.. It feels like leveling up in a Mario game or something!!!   <3

The picture below was the finished watercolors. While I thought it looked nice, I knew that adding more depth to the colors would make it even nicer, and I also wanted to give the bubbles more of an edge. But I was afraid to try adding more with watercolor, because it looked nice enough that I didn't want to risk messing up if I didn't really know what I was doing  (and I probably don't xD).

But, I have used Copic and watercolor before, and so I added extra shading and detail with marker!

The finished version really seems to pop now with the added color from the Copics. I didn't touch up her skin much, just added a touch of shade here and there because I didn't want to lose the original color.  I'm very proud of this one, because I really worked to make the watercolors nice and even, and it turned out way better than I imagined!!!

So after I finished this, I decided to try a second one, again with a sketch taken from one of the manga books, this time using Mini Moon as the subject.

My process for this picture was pretty similar to the Mercury one, and so below is the final version after applying Copic!

These have been my projects over the last few days... and learning the new watercolor tips has helped already, because I've been able to apply it to some secret Christmas surprises for people. ;-)  I'm also enjoying using my new watercolor pens that hold water in them... very nice and very portable. We're getting ready to take a family vacation this week, so I'm excited to take these brushes with me and try some painting on the trip!!  ^^

It's always fun to learn something new!!!  I'm excited to start another drawing soon... maybe Sailor Saturn or Sailor V next... I've been on a Sailor Moon kick recently, it seems!!!  ;-)

-Stasia-Chan '15

The Screenshot Challenge

Things have been really busy most of the summer, so there wasn't a lot of time for serious art. But I finally got a break last week, where I got to spend almost the whole week drawing and catching up, and so I decided to finally do something I've been wanting to do for a long time:   A screenshot challenge!!!

To be honest, I'm not sure if this is really a thing or not. But I had this cute screenshot of Rei Hino from "Sailor Moon" saved on my tablet, and I thought it would be fun to try drawing it to see how close I could get to the original. And then I just finished watching the first season of "Sailor Moon", and so that kind of inspired me to go ahead and do this challenge.

                                                          This is the screenshot I used!!




   

The pencils and inking on this piece were fun to do.  I decided to use watercolor paper, since I wanted to color it with markers and know that watercolor paper doesn't make the colors bleed over as much.

My version ended up being more of a close up than the original screenshot, so I had to change a few things in the layout of the background. Some of the coloring was tricky, like the tree behind her, and also the building and sky we see in the distance has a purplish wash over the whole area... which is something I don't normally try to do, but looked really cool!!!

Once I got close to being finished, some of gray tone Copics started to get really streaky... because this paper is more durable and sucks in the ink, and also because there was so much gray area to be colored. So I was really upset... I had come this far and it was looking so nice, and I didn't want to leave it streaky looking!! So I pulled out my Prismacolor pencils and started trying to blend over top of the streaked gray areas. It took A LOT of blending, but I got it to look just like the marker, and so that is what I used to finish the sidewalk and street behind Rei!

 This is what the finished version looked like before I added a little bit of shading to her jumpers and skin...

... and then here is the final version with just a tad of shading. I decided to not go too heavy on the shading, since there was none in the screenshot!!!

This was just something really fun to do. I think that I could have gotten a bit closer in a few spots, but overall, I think I did a nice job, because this was something I was really into doing. When you're really into a project, you're going to do your best on it!!   =-)


Oh, and since we're talking about screenshots, here's another screenshot picture I did earlier this year, and just got around to coloring!!  This one is on regular sketch paper, so I colored it with Prismacolor pencil. I'm really satisfied with the blending on this, and that it looks so nice and smooth!!! 

I'm going to be working on another screenshot picture soon!!!  In the meantime, I'm working on a few other things that I've been wanting to catch up on, like my Alice in Wonderland picture, and some of my "Little Women" sketches. I'm also trying to sell some of the art that I have sitting on my desk taking up space, like sketch cards and a few cups that I did. I'm at a point right now where there isn't much going on and so I can focus a bit more on some of my forgotten art and not feel like I'm neglecting other stuff!!! 

Have you ever done something like the screenshot challenge?   If so, I'd love to hear about it or see it!!! 


-Stasia -Chan  '15

Keeping a Sketch Journal

Most people who know me know that I am an extremely busy person. 

Being such, I just have days where there is either no time to draw, no motivation to draw, or, I am just plain too wore out to draw. 

Last year when this happened, I bought a cute little sketchbook at Wal-Mart for about $5, and decided I was going to keep some sort of a sketch journal. At the time, I decided to theme that particular journal around Black Widow and Hawkeye Chibis...

I did pretty good at keeping up with this sketchbook. If I fell behind, I just caught up the next day. And, I actually managed to get most of the entries in that journal colored, too (which always seems to be a time thing for me)! 

And so after I pretty much filled up that sketchbook, I didn't keep another one for awhile. I had time to do some sort of art every day at the time, and so it wasn't as necessary as it had been before.  But this summer has been so crazy, jam packed full, that squeezing in any time for art has just not happened. I know I sound like a broken record when I keep talking about it, but when you're someone that wants to be drawing and improving all the time, it can be very discouraging!!!  So I went back to Wal-Mart and purchased another blank sketchbook to keep as a journal. 

Most people that keep art journals or sketch journals nowadays really do so much with them, that it makes mine look really shabby in comparison!  But for me, my sketch journal is just about taking a few minutes each day to sketch something. Some days, it's all I have time for!! 

Some days I have time to do some really nice sketches, and time to get them all colored in, too!!  (I recently purchased some new glittery gel pens from Sakura, and I love them!) 

 

                           Some days I only have time for something really basic and quick.

                        I have so many reference/concept ideas saved to my tablet that I've
           been wanting to try drawing, and some of my sketches have come from those!

It's really all about just trying to keep some sort of goal each day. And I have days where I fall behind and don't get the sketch done; so I just pick it back up the next day and draw two entries. I have managed to ink most of them, and color a few, but I'm pretty behind on coloring. They don't all have to be colored in, though I'd prefer that they get colored at some point!!  =-)    I decided to try drawing Alice (an original character) every day for now, because I wanted to practice keeping a consistency with one character.

  If you are like me and have days where you don't have much time to draw, I'd encourage you to pick up a nice blank sketchbook and start keeping a sketch journal yourself!!  I think it's one of the best things you can do as an artist, to make time for it every day. It's also a great way to relax at the end of a busy day, and, in a year, it's fun to go back and look through your entries to see how much you've improved!!!   =-)

-Stasia-Chan '15

Anastasia Romanov Progress Pictures

This isn't really much of a blog post..  I just thought it would be really neat to see all the progress pictures stacked together like this!!!    

I know I keep saying it, but life is just absolutely CRAZY this summer, and so I have a kind of drag right now when it's coming to rolling out new art. Right now, I'm working to sketch something  every day in my sketch journal, and trying to work to get a few things colored. This piece that I finished is a possible entry for the fair, but I also have two others I am trying to get colored that I am considering as entries. And trying to work out a crocheted blanket pattern... I wanted to enter that in the fair too, but it's a mess right now so that may not happen this year!!   xD   

Hope you like the finished product!!  <3

-Stasia - Chan  '15