Book Review: How to Draw Manga: Sketching Manga-Style: Volume 1 Sketching to Plan

How to Draw Manga: Sketching Manga-Style is a series of instructional manga drawing art books. The 'Sketching Manga-Style' in the title means the only pencil used in the series. The artists whose work are featured are Hikaru Hayashi, Takehiko Matsumoto and Kazuaki Morita.

Volume 1 is a 184-page paperback.

It starts with the very basics at sketching and planning, more specifically on figure drawing. It teaches stuff like drawing heads, faces and posing characters - in manga style of course. There are many examples of different body parts and types of poses. The examples drawn are very nice because they are from professional artists. Also included are two step-by-step look with photos at the drawing process of the manga artists. Great for getting a feel on how they work.

There are lots of helpful drawing tips on beside every example, on every page. For example in drawing the neck, there would be examples on different gender, drawn in different perspective to show the muscles and there are commentary on how the neck works. Same goes for other body parts.

Having prior knowledge on anatomy is beneficial prior to reading this book. The anatomy section in this book is very thin. And since manga is a form of stylization, knowledge of basic anatomy is fundamental and will be useful while following the examples.

For those interested in learning to draw manga, this is a book I can recommend easily.

-

This book is available at all Page One bookstores, and should be stocked by Basheer Graphic Books also. ISBN: 9789812459312

If you know German, they have the whole series in German and available on Amazon.de

It seems that the series was originally published by Graphic-Sha Publishing but now out of print and selling at crazy prices on Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | JP).

Page One is now publishing the books now.