How do you make that perfect point of view in your manga??

[chokobanana]

Well, since I love manga, I decided to make one of my own.

At first it was just for fun so, it didn't matter if the manga was kinda a copy of other manga (like "rayearth" ;; ) and again, this was just for fun.

But then this kinda got more serious?? Well, not that much, but certainly, I didn't want to start copying old ideas instead of making my own. So, I came up with new unique (I'm not sure about that but I made it so I guess it's unique) manga ideas and started making them.

Well, I started doing that but reading over it thousands of times, I still cannot get the same effects "real manga-ka" have in their manga,, mine seems more simplistic? Kinda like 4strip garfield comic, but they're at least funny.. mine really isn't..

When I think up of a manga idea and write scripts and show to others, they say it's really great. (I don't know they're just saying that to be nice, but at least they didn't say it was horrible -_-a) But when I transfer it to paper, people reading it would often be very confused and it is not interesting much as reading was.

I looked over my manga again and kinda noticed the fact that it was pretty much the same same.. and saaammmee composition..

So,, can anybody, someone, just please tell me how to make an effective composition in your panels? Like how to set the mood different in panels like scary, funny, depressing, etc.... Please??

[rivkah]

I'm going to suggest two books: Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics" and "Reinventing Comics."

There is no one right or wrong way to compose the page for effect, mood, tone, pacing, etc. These elements are affected by actual art, panel size and layout, dialog, facial expression, camera angle, and lighting. Personally, I've started reading a lot of books on cinemetography and found they have really helped me create more interesting, dynamic, and expressive pages.

Another thing you can do is go out online and post your pages for criticism. Online criticism can be harsh, but it's usually also very honest. Also, giving criticism can be just as helpful because it's easy to see what's done both right and wrong in a piece you haven't been looking at for hours on end. And once you make the criticism, it's like, "Oh! I make that same mistake in my own work!" and you learn to correct and improve upon those mistakes.

And most important of all: experiment. Play around with what you think works. There never is just one correct answer. ^_~

-Rivkah

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"Steady Beat" Volume II available from TOKYOPOP October, 2006

[Pedes]

You can also try.. what was the name.. "How to draw manga"(?) series (It has a bit different name in my country, so I'm not sure...).
Well, FIRST thing is characters expression - not only face, but the body language. Thern are all elements that Revkah mentioned...
You have to watch carefully how professional mangaka use tehir techniques to what effects, it's also good to think like you were to make a movie - imagine camera movements etc.
And.. Practice, practice, practice.... Endless practice...

[Izlude]

I'd recommend buying some random raw japanese manga/doujinshi off ebay or somewhere. I've found that can be pretty educational.

[starlias]

I would suggest experimenting and keep drawing cos everyone has their's own unique style and ways to express things,

eg: clamp use flowers a lot in their manga to express cuteness or happiness or etc, but other mangakas does something different..eg yukiru sugisaki, she uses flowers very few times in her manga, she tend to draw feathers and have different highlights to show things etc etc..

some techniques are hard to learn..eg..the evenly spread of the highlights is actually a quite a hard technique, try to draw still life and watch carefully for the shadows..and evenually, you will get a hold of the grip for the highlights...I am still doing it and sometimes..it can be very fun!^__^


p/s:I dont find how to draw manga books helpful cos there are just soo amny diferent ways of drawing techniques, you can draw from eyes to face or the other way round etc etc etc..so..to me..those how to draw manga books arent helpful to me at all..^^;;;

[thePatches]

I have a few of the HTDM books and think their...kinda dumb ^^ The thing that helped me out the most was going through movie books and studying how movies are made, and well ,movies in general. Being in alot of , and watching a lot of plays also helps. When you can mimick and understand human movement and how a camera can capture mood, it's easier for things to flow. As for getting cool angles on people and capturing motion and stuff, try to attend a life drawing class that does genture drawing and try to get as many quick scribbly drawings down as fast as you can to use later. I usually draw each pose the model does in 15-30 second increments for each pose and move on. If you can't get to a life-drawing or genture drawing class then you can download things to draw from to do so, I've used DAZstudio before to get poses and angles just right, and it's free ^^

As far as the composition of a page goes, read some graphic design books on the rule of thirds and the like. They're really helpful ^^

I imagine mself as a director and each panel a shot and each page a take.....and so on...

[Ixis]

Best thing I could suggest is to go out and find your own style of drawing. Start with the basics of composition and page flow and expand from there. You like tones? Then add tones. What kinds of tones? Do they fit the style? The theme/mood/writing? etc.

HTDM books usually are bad and don't provide too much help, but as a kid I was able to glean a few useful skills from HTDM 01. If you're first starting out drawing seriously and haven't taken any real drawing courses (life drawing, composition, design, etc) then they can be somewhat helpful. After that, agreeing with many others, read Scott McClouds books, they're about as good as anything by Will Eisner as well. Once you've got the hang of drawing comics naturally yu desired style (be it manga or otherwise) will follow.

[chokobanana]

thank you soo much :D

[Hanna san]

HTDM books are, again - recomended. Yhey vary in quality - but they're always helfpful in some way or another.

Also, look at the use of white sapce in your panels. One thing i've noticed is that in the big. important scenes, they'll use a lot of white space aroudn the image to create imapct. It makes the image the focus and draws the readers eye.

Goos luck!

[SweetNymph]

I'd suggest studying manga. I dont' know how many times I've been stuck trying to get a character posed for an unusually put-together panel, and I've looked through my mangas to figure out how the character might look. Not even using the book for reference, really. Rather studying how they got the effect of falling or standing or sitting (as in the process of). Also watching the horizon line and actually study how they got the effects for low and high angles. That's not even going into how various hair types get highlighted, how to make clothes look like certain fabrics with and without tone, complex poses at odd angles, composition, and just all sorts of stuff.

Not to mention you're reading manga. ^^

Also, for the "real mangaka effects", what I find is easy is when I'm writing the script, I put in as much detail as I can about where the characters will be in the panel, what angle it's at, what kind of panel, and anything going on around them. Makes thumbnailing a lot eaiser, too, since I already know where everthing should be.

And dont' be afraid to use extreme angles!

[Parz]

I'd recommend studying manga too, but don't worry too much about keeping with the traditional manga "look". It's OK to be influenced by manga, or certain manga-ka, but always draw in a style that's most comfortable and efficient for what YOU need to do. You'll honestly be surprised with what you can turn out.

[Aquasakura]

I recomend getting books on creating manga (like How to draw manga by Katy Coope) and then study and pracice, and then you will have your own art style. That's pretty much how I did it when I started drawing manga. Oh and also explore other peaple ways of drawing, inking, and coloring.