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9 Steps to Making Your Manga or Comic Book
Making Your Manga or Comic Book – Making actual manga requires time, dedication, and skill but do not discourage you from trying. You have to start somewhere.
This tutorial provides step-by-step tips on how to plan your manga before you start drawing and drawing tips when you do.
Step 1 – Find the Type of Story to Tell
Decide what kind of story you have. A piece of life, a myth, a sci-fi, history, etc …
Step 2 – Write a Quick Summary of Your Lie
Write down the basic summary of your manga that describes the main events of your story.
Step 3 – Create Character Profiles & Design Your Characters
Write a profile of each central character in your manga and design their look.
Step 4 – Decide Settings
Decide where your story will take place. For example, if it is a dream world, what is it called? What are its main descriptive features? What are the main areas?
It is also important to note that even non-dream or sci-fi stories can still occur in imaginary environments (countries, cities do not exist).
You should plan manga locations where most of the events will take place.
If you have a dream setting, you can start by drawing a map of the world or part of it where the story takes place. You can use icons to show different locations (you can also add notes to each thumbnail)
In non-fiction manga, you can skip the world map and draw a map of your story’s major cities or towns (you will need city maps to find a false manga).
To get a city map, you can draw things like the character of the main character, the house of their friends, the way to work or school, the important places around the city where the story will take place, etc … Use simple icons to draw a map and only sites related to your account.
If you want to use an actual city as your manga setting, go ideas its accurate map and take pictures of real places.
Next, you can draw the places themselves. For example, street view of the main character’s house, school, etc …
Finally, you can draw some of the essential interiors where the story will be like a classroom or the main character’s room. This will help you establish a space for the main items in the room (bed, desk, etc …).
This type of planning is to avoid conflict when drawing your manga and help you plan the story. For example, you will know that the characters need to go through the store to get to the beach. So you can let them buy snacks on the way. At the same time, you can avoid mistakes like forgetting the store location and making them pass through it on their way to the park in another chapter.
Step 5 – Find The Length Of Your Lie
Plan how much your story will happen in each chapter.
Make notes of significant events in the given chapter and the characters they will participate in.
Example of Note Form Notes:
- The main character gets up and makes breakfast.
- The Protagonist stands near a friend’s house, and they go to school together.
- On the way to school, the main character, and a great friend talk…
- At the beginning of the class, a new changing student is introduced.
Etc…
Yes, you will want to use the real names of your characters in the notes.
You want to stay organized. Clearly label each set of notes in the form of points such as “Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc.”. If you name your chapters, include the name after the number (example: Chapter 1 – Name Chapter).
Step 6 – Organize Your Pages
Arrange each page in the given chapter by making rough drawings. An excellent way to do this is to use printer paper. It is very cheap, and you can easily discard the sheet if you make a mistake. Make sure you write down the numbers on your pages as you draw to avoid getting confused later.
Speed up things by drawing the “Chibi” characters for this part of your manga creation process (big head with a slim body and not too many details).
You should also include a dialogue that will take place on each page.
Your drawings can be complex (more than an example); the idea is to determine what will happen to all the panels logically quickly. Note that you may need to adjust the size of the boards in the actual manga as the page size may vary (read the next step for print and size description). You should still use the same number of panels, and they should be placed very close to how you will draw them in the final manga.
Step 7 – Plan Printing Before Drawing Real Manga
Before you start drawing real lies, there are a few things to know.
If you just draw your manga to train it and print it at home, you can do whatever your home printer can handle. If you are planning to have your manga printed professionally, you should research the standard print size of such items. It may be best to make one limited in the industry, even if it is a habit.
It is also important to note that the standard manga sizes in Japan may differ from the usual comic book standard in other countries. Note that you have found the available size to print.
If you want your manga to be printed, you should also be aware of “live area,” “bleeding,” and “reduction.”
Page Live Location
This is the part of your page where your drawing is safe to cut into sections.
Page Cutting
They are determining where the surrounding objects will be cut.
Blood Page
Blood is a transcendental area. Your goal is to make sure there are no unwanted white margins or spots on the edges of your page. If you are looking for a background color or drawing to the end of the printed page, you will need to pull past the cut area into the bleeding zone.
Additional Help When Printing Manga
You can do more research by printing alone, but the print tips above are all things to be aware of.
If you need more help in this area, the best person to consult can be a photographer. They often deal with printing and should be easier to find than a real manga artist or comic book.
Web Manga
You can also skip the print process together and publish your manga online. This is probably the cheapest and easiest way to do things. However, you should still try and decide the best size you can use if you want to print it later.
Step 8 – Select Speech Style
Different types of bubbles can be used to reinforce the message it contains. For example, a typical speech bubble can be a simple oval with a tail pointing at the mouth of a letter. When a character shouts, you may want to emphasize a drop with edged edges.
Different manga artists can sometimes use slightly different styles of speech bubbles. You will usually choose one set of techniques and stick to it throughout your manga.
Step 9 – Drawing Your Manga
When everything is ready, you can finally start drawing your manga.
You should start by making a simple pencil drawing and write it afterward.
To install manga, you can use Nib Pen and ink. If you have never used one before, you should practice drawing with it before you try to install your manga.
Eventually, you will need to scan your drawings which means you can digitally clean them. For this reason, if you make a small mistake in ink, it should not be a big problem.
Alternatively, if you have a tablet and the right software, you can digitally draw your manga altogether. In this case, you will not need to scan or ink the manga in the traditional sense, but you will still have to start with a light drawing and then go over it with black lines later. Well, everything else mentioned earlier will still work.
Bonus Tip – Get Feedback
You can get a basic answer by showing people your character’s design and giving them an idea of the plot. You can also show them your planning drawings to see if what is happening on the panels makes sense to other people.
It may be difficult for a friend to criticize your work but ask for a sincere answer.
Criticism may be hard to take, but if you are serious about doing something, you should be willing to listen to the opinions of others. At the same time, keep in mind that not all advice or criticism from everyone is valid. Try and talk to more than one person and find common ground for your work.
If you know an artist or a writer, they can be very good at asking for help and advice.
Conclusion
Making manga takes time, but if you have read so far, you have shown some resilience as this is a very long post. When you do a lot of work, the important thing is to plan well and not rush to do it quickly because you may burn yourself out. Do a specific amount of work each day or week and stick to it.