The Process of Making Manga
GPHS Anime Club
Decide on what exactly you want to do
• What sort of story do you
want to tell?
• What characters do you plan
to create? Are they good or
evil? Do they live a good,
happy life or have they
endured suffering?
• What sort of world is it set
in? Is it like ours, eg is it
Earth or a similar planet?
What are the inhabitants
like? Aliens? All one gender?
Genre
What genre you choose will have to depend solely
on your target audience.
• Are they the same age as you?
• Are they younger?
• Are they older?
• Would they be interested in your story at their
age?
• Would they be able to understand the story and
be fully able to follow it (if they are a younger
audience)?
Story
• Manga isn’t manga without a solid storyline. This
is what you have to focus on most as a priority to
the art.
• You can have a manga with amazing art but it
won’t be very popular if it has no story.
• Or you can have the complete opposite, which
will work out better for you in the end because if
your storytelling skills are great then all you’ll
need to improve on is your artistic merit.
Story (cont.)
To make a great story, these are things you should
consider:
• What your world is like before the story begins. Is it at
war? Is it peaceful?
• What brings your story to life? Does your main
character reach a certain age for his destiny to awaken
(e.g. Is he/she some sort of spiritual guardian (random
idea) and has to reach the age of say, 16, for this power
to awaken within him or something?)
• Do they meet friends along the way?
• Do they lose friends in the duration?
Story (cont.)
• Is there a special object(s) that they have to
find/activate etc? Such as crystals, keys, stuff like
that?
• Do they have to sacrifice anything? E.g. Important
memoribilia, body part, weapons, money, food or
just a warm bed to sleep in at night?
These factors and more will help create a solid
storyline. Read as much manga as you can to get
ideas. Or books. Books are just as good. 
Character design
• Once your world and
story has been decided
upon, it’s time to
design your characters.
Drawing style
• Before you design your characters (or during),
you have to decide what sort of style you will
draw them in.
Stylised
Chibi
Realistic
Semirealistic
Expressions
• Expressions are important in defining your
character’s emotions
• These are an important part of character
design, as your character may either change
his/her expressions regularly, or they may stay
the same or perhaps one might dominate all
other expressions. For example:
Meet KASANODA Ritsu
• Ritsu is a character from
Bisco Hatori’s Ouran High
School Host Club.
• What do you think of him
upon first glance? Does he
look kind or evil?
• What do you think his
personality is like? Does he
look like someone who
enjoys beating people up?
Well, here’s the truth:
KASANODA Ritsu...
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Part of a yakuza family
Loves animals
Hates painful things
Has no friends because his classmates think
of him as a ‘human blizzard’ (when people go
near him they freeze) However, he is really
lonely because of this and wants to make
friends who he can play games such as ‘Kick
the Can’ with
He also wants to make friends with his men
(underlings who look after him) who are
scared of him because of his violent exterior.
He was actually born with a scary face, which
his father saw as a good trait and brought
him up the yakuza way
He hides his embarrassment by yelling
“UH!?” or by saying/doing violent things (e.g.
You wanna die?)
Some of Ritsu’s various expressions
The host club attempted to make
him more ‘lovable’, which
embarrassed him severely...
Ritsu’s expressions (cont.)
...etc, etc.
• There are lots and lots of ideas for serious
expressions and the like.
• SD expressions are GREAT for comedy-type
manga. Other characters from Ouran High
School Host Club such as SUOH Tamaki make
some really great faces.
• The anime Pretty Soldier Sailormoon has some
fantastic SD faces. A selection of them are on
the next pages:
Sailormoon SD faces
Sailormoon SD faces (cont.)
(There’s so many great faces that it’s hard to make one page of them! XP)
You get the picture.
(Hopefully )
There were soooo many more where they came
from; look in the References page at the end
of this PowerPoint to go to the site I got them
from! X3
Anyways, try and draw some of them and then
see if you can come up with some of your
own! (^0^)/
Eyes
• The eyes that you
give a character
should always
match your
character’s
personality.
(Unless they
change sides
during your story
or if they were
‘just born looking
that way’).
Some
coloured
eyes...
Eyes (cont.)
• Eyes must also convey emotion.
Faces
• You next
have to
match
your eyes
with a
face:
(note these are
just examples
rather than
guidelines XD)
Hair
• Depending on what hair type your character
has, use similar pencil/brush strokes.
• E.g. Straight hair, straight strokes; curly hair,
varied, wavy strokes...
Body
Factors you will need to consider their body care
habits:
• Regular, mundane person? Any variation of body
type
• Body conscious? Most likely skinny
• Martial artist? Covered in muscles which will
show a long duration of training, however if they
are just starting out, then don’t give them any
• Gluttonous (eats a lot)? Actually they are usually
normally shaped, it’s rare for them to be what
they eat.
• Etc, etc 
Clothes/costumes
• This will depend on the
world they live in.
• Inspiration can come
from modern fashion,
period fashion, cultural
dress, etc. The list is
endless. All you have to
do is think of what you
want them to look like!
(Generic examples, I know,
but examples
nonetheless):
Son Goku
Shaolin Monk
Sailormoon
Japanese
school uniform
(sailor fuku)
Panelling
• Choose whether you want to do normal
panelling or 4 koma.
4 koma
Regular
panelling
Toning/Colouring
• Choose whether you will tone or colour 
Toning
• Is done by either
using special tone
sheets or by
creating effects
digitally
• Is used by pretty
much all manga
authors as it is
much cheaper to
print
Colouring
• Takes a lot longer
than toning, in
both process and
learning
• Looks much nicer
than toning
• Has more
solidarity
• Very expensive to
print
Book! (^0^)/
• Can be either
magazine, book
or both
• Most famous
manga titles
were originally
printed in
magazines
References
http://theanimeblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/oz-manga-dorothy.jpg
http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/024/9/5/Happy_Manga_Girl_by_NaNi0713.jpg
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l87/Joker_0410/Tutorials/sketch.jpg
http://www.pinkkryptonite.com/images/pinkkryptonite/ultimo/Ultimo2_500.jpg
http://www.reimeika.ca/marco/beauty/realistic_manga.png
http://www.otakunovideo.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/dragonball_big1_500.jpg
http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/179/e/5/Yu_by_Jin0410.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e07qqyPSSSE/Tao5fY_IGPI/AAAAAAAAAe4/rPiGUatiHXs/s1600/Usagi_Manga.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_g8LVu1EPwsQ/TQY4_rXdVFI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/4aVCDCVCrDs/s1600/miku+chibi.jpg
http://www.animepalm.com/images/nyoron-churuya-san.png
http://nd01.jxs.cz/843/120/5eae5f18a4_43891330_o2.jpg
http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/18000000/Neko-Kasanoda-ritsu-kasanoda-18046672-640-480.jpg
http://cdn.static.ovimg.com/episode/317175.jpg
http://images2.fanpop.com/image/polls/499000/499194_1279926547378_full.jpg
Sailormoon SD faces from: http://bssm-faces.tumblr.com/
http://20th-centuryanimationstudio.webs.com/manga-eyes2m.jpg
http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/13900000/manga-eyes-manga-13923000-750-750.jpg
http://www.howtodrawguide.com/wp-content/uploads/image/how-to-draw-anime/manga-faces/manga-faces.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wK0FlrkFD_U/R7Wa_kbz74I/AAAAAAAAAqQ/vBPEdv3qo04/s400/Manga_Eyes_.jpg
http://www.pxleyes.com/images/tutorials/video/4ac63b8753532.jpg
http://www.petshopboxstudio.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/03_hair_the_basic1.jpg
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/images/stories/large/2009/10/26/son-goku-as-a-child.jpg
http://www.shifuyanlei.co.uk/images/kungfuimg1.jpg
http://mandaray.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/sailormoon.jpg
http://cn1.kaboodle.com/hi/img/b/0/0/3d/8/AAAAC5Y4iAIAAAAAAD2FBA.jpg?v=1237853235000
http://mangatutorials.com/tut/basic/panelbasic1.gif
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KIsGHT8YYxE/TB9jns5R_eI/AAAAAAAABks/Rc9KYkKhGp0/s1600/PAGE+7.jpg
http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii169/Arhazivory/DA_Ch020_Pg13Mangaddicted.png
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/WSJ.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r1zdiabb2Hg/TZ1bWqbT60I/AAAAAAAAErY/KxiMSzojVzY/s1600/One_Piece_Manga_Volume_60_Cover.jpg