How to Draw Manga Animals: A Beginner's Guide to Creating Characters
160
How to Draw Manga Animals: A Beginner's Guide to Creating Characters
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Overview
The popularity of manga among young people who love to draw continues to grow. In her third manga book, J.C. Amberlyn focuses on her favorite subject matter, animals, with a fun and lively how-to-draw book aimed at beginners.
How to Draw Manga Animals takes readers through all the step-by-step drawing instructions they need to learn how to successfully create their own super-cute manga animal characters as well as the worlds they live in.
In How to Draw Manga Animals J.C. Amberlyn takes readers through all the drawing techniques they'll need to create a cast of manga-style animal characters. What makes a good character design? This book looks at elements in creating a manga-style animal character with appeal, exploring archetypes and other familiar types of characters as well as how to add unexpected or unique elements that give characters a memorable twist.
In addition, readers will learn to draw cute chibi critters and dangerous-looking monsters and everything in between for comics, games, or simply their own personal enjoyment. This book includes chapters on some common or notable real and mythological Japanese animals to provide readers a foundation of knowledge to start their own animal character designs.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781580935623 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The Monacelli Press |
| Publication date: | 05/25/2021 |
| Pages: | 160 |
| Sales rank: | 630,106 |
| Product dimensions: | 8.30(w) x 10.40(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE: STORIES AND CHARACTERS
Concepts for Creating Manga-Style Characters or Creatures
What comes first in character design, the character or the story? This is really a “chicken or the egg” question, without a clear answer, because it can be either. Sometimes inspiration strikes with a character concept and you build your story on that idea, and sometimes it’s the story that comes to you first and you then populate that story with appropriate characters. Let’s take a look at the two ways to begin your creative process.
Who’s your character? What’s its story?
Sometimes your initial inspiration to create comes from a character idea. What if there was a character who thinks and acts like this and struggles with that? Whatever “this” and “that” are, the character should spark enough conflict and interest to make you and your potential audience want them to develop further and see how they react and grow. Or perhaps you have a passion for some creature that lives in your imagination and you want to develop them more, see who and what they are, and what challenges they might face. And, sometimes, you just like drawing something! Once you have an idea of who this interesting character is, you can develop a story for them.
This intricate, detailed kirin would be perfect for a sweeping fantasy story filled with more realistic dangers and creatures.
This more cartoonish kirin would fit a cheerful, bright video game or comic full of cute critters, and an inviting colorful world.
Conversely, sometimes the story comes first. Perhaps you visualize a world that has something different and interesting to you, some challenge or property to it that you’d like to explore further. Maybe there’s a problem you see in real life and you’d like to throw some characters into that mix and see how they might react, or even solve, that problem. Once you create your scenarios, you need to invent characters to live in that world and make it come alive.
Puphons are creatures I simply enjoy drawing. I got the idea of taking the traditional gryphon (half eagle and half lion) but replacing the eagle with a puffin, the funny little seabird with the colorful bill! This led to a humorous creature that is a lot of fun to draw. Something like this could lead to ideas for a story: What are these creatures? How are they like traditional gryphons and how are they unlike them? Do they live near the ocean? How do they survive? Do others see them as silly and fun as I do? How do they react to that?
Regardless of how the inspiration hits, there’s no wrong way to express it. Creativity and inspiration can come from almost anywhere and simply need someone willing to take those ideas and develop them. That is what this book will aim to help you do. Regardless of whether the character or story comes first in your mind, both are important for developing a concept that brings a new world to life.
Stories affect the characters in them and characters affect the stories they are in. You may have a specific story in mind but as you write it, the characters may take in-character actions that lead the story in different directions than originally planned. It’s exciting when that happens. The story will affect the character, as well, and the tone of the story sets the tone for the characters that populate it. A beautiful world full of cute, cheerful, and friendly beings probably won’t have true horrific undertones. Think of something like Pokémon, which has somewhat dark elements, but nothing excessively horrifying. Likewise, a more horror-genre story probably won’t have lots of cute, fluffy critters in it. The horror videogame Five Nights at Freddy’s has what on surface appear to be cute, friendly animal mascots, but even they hint at something far darker lurking underneath with their unsettling, mask-like faces and frozen, fake, toothy smiles.
Japanese anime, manga, and video games have a rich variety of animal characters that range from the cute monsters of Pokémon to the simple, appealing designs of Hello Kitty to the very stylized, detailed, powerful, and impressive-looking creatures found in the Final Fantasy games by Square Enix. Each inspired creature is expressed in a language of shapes, colors, real-world life, and otherworldly mythology. Many elements of manga-inspired animal character design are universal but some draw on a knowledge of Japanese culture, aesthetic, and native life, which will be looked at in later chapters.
How does the character help you tell the story?
Whether the story or character came to you first, to develop any kind of believable world, you must come up with the fundamental, basic concept of what your story is about. Generally, it will be something interesting to you combined with an idea of a challenge or problem one might encounter in pursuit of this basic concept—a challenge or problem that your characters can overcome. And it doesn’t have to be a bad or dangerous thing.
Look at James Gurney’s Dinotopia book series. He simply asked what would happen if people and dinosaurs lived side by side, and made an incredible series of illustrated books answering that fundamental question.
Master animator and filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki posed a lot of different questions in his many wonderful movies, such as what would happen if children could meet forest spirits face-to-face, as in My Neighbor Totoro, or whether living people could slip into the spirit world itself, as in Spirited Away.
Rusty the Red Fox, was my first (published) story (in a local newspaper), created when I was 10. He was born from my love of wildlife, the woods and hills around my home, and an intense interest in foxes! I tried to see the woodland world through the fox’s and his animal friends’ eyes. I called my comic strip, Rusty the Red Fox and His Friends, The strip explored what happened when these woodland animals encountered a forest fire—how did they react? how did they escape?—questions that helped develop the story. As I documented the animals’ adventures, people told me that my story had opened their eyes. Some had never considered how wildlife dealt with a natural disaster. I was glad to have introduced them to that idea, and, I hoped, help them have more compassion for the struggles of wildlife in the real world.
Many stories feature a Hero’s Journey (described in more detail in Chapter Two, on page 55). The protagonist must face and conquer some sort of challenge, usually through education and by improving skills, until that problem can be met head on and defeated with the newfound power and knowledge. Think about yourself and your own experiences and what sort of challenges you’ve faced and overcome, or are trying to overcome. How could those experiences be used in a story? It doesn’t have to be a literal interpretation; you can draw from real-life events, experiences, and emotions. The reason “write what you know” is an adage is because it works. When you experience something yourself you can dive deeper into the emotions, difficulties, and triumphs of that journey better than if you haven’t experienced it. Perhaps you’ve dealt with bullies. Your story might take those “monsters” from your life and make them literal monsters in your story—ones your hero can fight and defeat. Have you felt lonely? Perhaps write a story with character who’s all alone in a strange world and see how that character/they overcome that. Of course, you don’t have to always write what you know, but it can be a good starting point. From there, your imagination is the limit, so don’t be afraid to explore unfamiliar subjects, too.
Video games have their own stories to tell and the creatures that populate those worlds add a lot to the plot. Artists and authors sometimes simply want adversarial animals as naturalistic obstacles. You may not have a character in mind when designing creatures for these worlds so much as knowing you want cool monsters for your hero to fight. When you have some idea of each creature’s story, their place in the world, and what motivates them, it will help you create convincing and engaging interactions. Why does it do what it does? How does it go about doing that? Is it motivated by food, by protecting its offspring, or is it an evil creature that simply loves mayhem? Is the world it lives in a fantasy world filled with beauty and danger; a cheerful, colorful, and cute place filled with adorable creatures; or a realistic one not unlike our own? All these factors will influence the design of the creatures you make.
This cute salamander-like creature could easily populate a video game. It has a simple design that would be easy to model or create in animation and an appealing look appropriate for a cute monster one would catch Pokémon-style, or perhaps have as a traveling companion or pet.
When designing an animal or creature for any role, begin with its basic concept, then flesh out that concept with the [b]character traits[/b] and [b]motivations[/b] you want to explore. The stronger your concept, the stronger your designs will be. Take the time to figure out what it is that you find unique or interesting about this character, visually or in concept, and go from there. Explore something that looks really cool to you or a trait or concept you’d like to develop further. You can do this in your head, with words on paper, or with doodles and sketches. There’s no wrong way. Just do something to get the creation process started.
What’s the end product?
Designs will differ according to what you want to use them for. Designs for characters in a manga series will be different than designs used for a video game. How simple or complex the design itself is will be determined partly by the intended end product.
A creature designed for animation will likely be simpler than a creature designed for a lavishly illustrated book. In hand drawn animation, the same character has to be drawn hundreds or thousands of times, and a simpler design is easier to repeat with consistency.
A simpler character is also easier to make recognizable from all angles ad perspectives. Even in 3D animation, a simple design is easier to make instantly understandable to the viewer or game player. While a 3D animated character can be more complex than a hand drawn one, a simpler design is still easier for you to animate and to make its behavior and actions clear to the audience. Anything overly complex is likely to confuse and frustrate people.
On the other hand, if you are designing a creature for yourself for the occasional illustration and love delving into detail, then have at it! Add all the detail and complexity you want. You know best how much detail you can draw consistently to make it look always like the same character.
Your end goal will determine how you design your characters. The simple, cartoony unicorn on the left is more suited for some things (like repetitive drawing and animating) than the more detailed unicorn on the right, which fits others.
Main, supporting, and background characters
Another factor in the simplicity vs. complexity of your character’s design is whether it is a main, supporting, or background character.
Main characters tend to have more detail and striking design characteristics than supporting and background characters. It makes sense to put more thought and “wow” factor into the characters the audience will most often see and spend time with. That doesn’t mean you don’t put thought and care into the other characters. You do. A well-designed cast will all have something interesting to look at every level and in every layer, and all characters should support the general feel of the world they inhabit, whether they are the main attraction or anonymous inhabitants.
This brave young cactus mouse may be slightly injured, but it doesn’t dampen her spirit. She stands out as a main character in several ways, from the cast on her arm to her yucca plant blade walking stick. The supporting cast of characters adds visual interest to her character. Her best friend, a kangaroo rat, is familiar enough to fit with her, yet just different to have a distinct identity.
Meanwhile, cactus mouse’s striking and dramatic nemesis is the kingsnake who wants to eat her! The background cast of other mice and small animals may not stand out as much as cactus mouse, but they add interest, layers, depth, and life to the created world.
In manga, the main character will often have some kind of a striking hairstyle, bright colors, or some other clue that this individual stands out from the crowd. Main characters often display primary colors like yellow, red, or blue to pop out from the rest (see more about color theory on page 142).
Supporting characters may not be main characters but they should be memorable and interact in meaningful ways with the main character. They support, enhance, and compliment the main character—by bringing a nice contrasting color scheme or simply by looking cool standing next to the main character. They should stand out as interesting characters on their own but not overpower the main character, the star. (As an exception, an antagonist/bad guy that your main character has to grapple with all the time can be a co-star.)
Supporting characters should also support and enhance and the world you’re trying to establish. They should fit in with the population of that world and the setting you’ve chosen.
Background characters do not stand out like main or supporting characters do, and are there to populate and bring the world to life and provide a backdrop for the main cast. However, they can still be interesting. Visually interesting background characters and creatures can add extra depth and interest to your video game, manga series, or whatever it is you’re designing.
Character designers often strive to make sure background characters are unified with a theme. Is your story set in a cold place? Then perhaps your background characters live in a Nordic-themed village and wear cold-weather clothing. If your main and supporting characters wear brighter, primary colors, your villagers could wear more muted browns and gray-blues. Perhaps your video game is populated by jungle-dwellers in reptilian and tropical themes—scaley or feathered creatures in the greens of various frogs and some of the bright colors of tropical birds can decorate you background characters.
Perhaps you’re designing an underwater world and would like background characters or creatures to resemble fish. There are so many different and amazing fish and underwater invertebrate species that can provide an endless source of inspiration. From left to right: a dwarf gourami, a dwarf shrimp, and an angelfish, all interesting and colorful underwater species.
I took elements I liked of each of the species above, and exaggerated or played with them to create new versions. Your imagination is the limit and you can go much further than I did. The angelfish creature, for instance, looks like it has fire coming from its tail. How would an underwater creature produce fire? Or, could it be some sort of spiritual energy, something like a will-o-the-wisp, producing eerie light in bogs and swamps? This thinking could lead to many different ideas, such as a ghostly fish-like creature with a will-o-the-wisp style of energy ball on its tail, ready to mislead nighttime adventurers. Why would it do that? Is it mischievous? Or, does it guard some treasure it doesn’t want people to find? One idea can lead to another and eventually you’ve got a whole story imagined and ready to go! Even if your viewers or players don’t know the background story, it can still add to the richness to your imagined world as you create it.
Designing as a group effort
Designing with a group of other people is a very different process than designing characters on your own. In a group effort there is a lot of give and take, brainstorming, and many rejections before arriving at the final design. These rejections are not to be taken personally. The creative process involves constant experimenting and all sorts of “what ifs”, some of which will be more successful than others. The ability to edit out the things that don’t work and keep what does is essential if you want to get to the core of what really will make your initial idea work in the end. Constructive criticism aids the process. It can be hard sometimes, especially if you like something that the other Creatives have given the axe to, but it’s important when working on a group project to work as a team, and taking criticism and having ideas rejected is part of that. Be prepared to incorporate input from your team, and be willing to try new things. Sometimes you’ll be surprised just how well it ultimately works. Overall, having a good attitude while going through the inevitable revisions will make people want to work with you on other projects in the future.
Working on a group project can be challenging at times, but also rewarding.
Getting Ideas
Ideas are everywhere. Your own imagination is where you begin and end this process, but you can use outside sources to inspire you and give you new ideas. Movies, books, and games can all supply inspiration: perhaps there is a creature or the way a character is designed that you really like. This can provide the spark for ideas of your own. You don’t want to copy and plagiarize other people’s ideas, but using some small part or spark of an existing character, as long as it isn’t recognizable as belonging to that character, can be a good base of new designs.
Keep alert for ideas. You never know when they’ll show up!
Another source of ideas and inspiration is the internet. Looking through online image and art galleries can inspire all kinds of new and fresh character designs and lead you to more visual sources. Look at what other people are drawing, sure, but also look for other visuals that interest you. If flowers fascinate, collect images of them. If the ocean calls, create a library of sea images that speak to you—underwater images for the interesting way that light and color filter through the water; rocky shorelines, because the dark, jagged shapes against the wet, wild waves looks cool.
Nature and the outdoors provide more inspiration. Take photographs of anything that grabs you, even things that aren’t obviously character-related, like an old metal wall that catches your eye. The peeling paint color contrasting with underlying rust-laden patches could provide inspiration later, perhaps when designing an old, rusting robot. Ideas are fluid and something that catches your eye or interest can lead in unexpected directions, which is good. In fact, it is often when you connect two or more seemingly unrelated things in a way that hasn’t been seen before that you come up with the most interesting, fresh ideas. It all starts with learning and observing as many different things as you can. Eventually some seemingly unrelated things will melt together in your mind for exciting new concepts. As an exercise, think of two things you really like, the more unrelated the better, and then see how you can bring them together in one design.
The creative process is often sparked by one thing that catches and holds your interest, something you can dwell on and think about.
But other times, ideas come randomly, at unexpected moments. Let yourself mull on these flashes of interest and see where they lead you. Think about what they might mean to you or others and how they might relate to other objects, animals, plants, colors, functions, or activities. Creativity is a flow; see how one idea can lead to another.
Here are some examples of how I approached character design and what my inspirations were.
Javelina Skull
Javelina (also called collared peccaries) are distantly related to wild pigs and hippos, and live in the southwestern United States, where I am located.
I have this javelina skull. I’ve always found it interesting that the javelin skull has large tusks that slide alongside one another so closely they actually seem to sharpen one another. (The bone along the base of the top tusk has a raised ridge with a flat area that the lower tusk tip rests on.) There are other, interesting shapes and grooves in the skull as well.
I really find this skull fascinating and wanted to design a creature using it as a template. First, I drew the skull itself, seeking to understand its anatomy. Then I let my imagination take over, experimenting, stretching, and exaggerating the various shapes to see what kind of creature I might make out of them. The end result was several different creatures. There’s no wrong way to interpret and imagine and if I’d continued, I probably would have come up with even more creatures.
Javelina and skull. I drew the skull with a Palomino Blackwing drawing pencil as the skull sat before me. As I drew, I took note of the key shapes, mass, and curves.
Here’s a page from my drawing pad. I explored the shapes of the skull, exaggerating and defining the shapes I liked most. I didn’t think too hard about any of it, simply allowing each sketch to develop as it wanted to. There are some recurring themes, like the prominent tusks, the ridge on the top base of the tusk, and curving nasal groove. However, each drawing is somewhat different as I emphasized different things I found interesting. Eventually, I focused on the nose and tusks and started to see this almost cyclops, rounded head shape. I explored that further and wound up with some cat-like cyclops creature.
Once I’d spent some time just free-forming ideas, letting drawings develop as they may, I started to refine those ideas. The shapes were heading in three ways that I liked and decided to explore. One was the one-eyed cat-like creature, which I drew from various angles. Another was an almost goat- or antelope-like creature, which I decided needed horns and so added some wavy, gnarled ones that fit the creature. Finally, I tried to use some of the facial shapes of the dragon, which has skull-like armor plating on its head. These three different creature designs all came from one single source of inspiration: the javelina skull. I encourage you to try something like this. Find anything that is interesting to you visually and see what variations on it you can come up with. It can be an inanimate object, a living animal, a plant—anything that has an interesting shape. Even shapes in walls or wood can spark an idea.
Pets
Many of us have or know pets and they can provide endless sources of inspiration. Their behaviors and appearance can give us ideas. Their friendly familiarity gives us feelings of warmth and can make characters instantly appealing as they remind us of animals we know and love.
Many of us are at least familiar with salamanders and newts, like the tiger salamander pictured here. Even more of us have pet cats. Artists at Dreamworks Animation combined the likenesses of these two animals to make the memorable and appealing dragon named Toothless. Toothless’ attitude and postures are rather like those of a pet cat, and it adds to his appeal, despite his more reptilian/amphibian outer appearance.
Dogs
I have two dogs named Sam and Pippin. They are loyal companions who inspire me with their beauty and can make me laugh with some of their behaviors. I get many different character ideas from them.
Here I’ll brainstorm a few such inspirations and explain some of my thought processes as I designed.
Sam the German Shepherd Dog (top) and Pippin the Australian Kelpie.
One thing I do is to create cartoon characters based on my dogs. This is a fun creative exercise and makes you really see your pet and their physical appearance in more detail than you may have before. I went for friendly, appealing designs. Sam is much larger and blockier than Pippin, so I sought to emphasize that fact. I kept the lines and shapes fairly simple, so these designs could be used in something like animation or drawn repeatedly in a comic.
One can take sources of inspiration and apply them in less than obvious ways. Creating character designs from my pets doesn’t mean I have to make them dogs, or even easily recognizable animals. I take inspiration from their relative shapes and colors. Sam is a big, furry, sable-colored shepherd (black-tipped guard hairs give him a dark, grizzled, salt-and-pepper appearance along his back). His black face is striking. His ears would be strikingly long, too, but he’s managed to get both tips torn up over the years, giving him a rugged, post-apocalyptic appearance. Pippin is a sleek, deep-chested, and athletic herding breed, red and tan, and she’s super intelligent and fast. I can observe these qualities and apply them to characters are not dogs. Take the bits that inspire you, leave the rest.
I decided to translate my dogs’ qualities into horse characters. Sam became a big, blocky draft horse, with markings inspired by his real-life colors. I changed a few things. This is all from the imagination and doesn’t have to perfectly match real life. I even gave Sam the horse some mottled markings not unlike his grizzled sable coloration in the spots along his back. Each spot adds to the complexity of the design, but I didn’t want it too complicated. Pippin became a sleek thoroughbred racehorse with thin legs and head and a deep chest. Her facial markings are inspired by the real-life Pippin, but not exactly. As always, I sought simplicity. Simplicity makes it easier to draw the same figure again and again.
Table of Contents
Introduction 8
Materials 9
Chapter 1 Stories & Characters 10
Who's your character? What's its story? 11
How does the character help you tell the story 14
What's the end product 18
Main, supporting, and background characters 19
Supporting characters 20
Background characters 20
Designing as a group effort 23
Getting ideas 24
Javelina skull 26
Pets 28
Dogs 28
Chapter 2 Elements of Character Design 30
Archetypes 31
Hero 31
Villain 32
Sidekicks 33
Caregiver 34
Teacher / Mentor 35
Student/Child 36
Spirit / Guardian 37
Magician 38
Ruler 39
Joker/Trickster 40
Rebel 41
Lover 41
Physical appearance 42
Body shapes 42
Meaning of shapes 42
Silhouettes 45
Color and color coding 47
Clothing and accessories 50
Themes and motifs 51
Expected vs. unexpected 52
Cute vs. cute with an edge 55
Putting this all together: creating an appealing and memorable character 57
Chapter 3 Basics of Drawing & Creating Animal Characters 60
Drawing basics 61
Four or more legs 61
Simplified bodies 62
How to draw a simple four-legged animal step by step 64
Multiple legs 67
Realistic and detailed characters 67
Two Legs 68
How to draw a simple bird shape step by step 70
Chibis, mascots, and baby types 72
How to draw a chibi step by step 73
Monsters, cute and fierce 75
Applying body language and expression to animals 76
Monsters and other creatures: how to create a creature from your imagination 78
The importance of studying anatomy 78
Merging two or more creatures into one 80
Creating characters: examples 82
Nekomata hero 82
Space chicken and space weasel 85
Dragons 88
Chapter 4 Drawing Real Animals Manga-Style 90
Dogs 91
Draw a shiba inu dog step by step 94
Cats 98
How to draw a Maneki-neko (beckoning cat) step by step 100
Rabbits and rodents 104
Rodents 104
Rabbits 108
How to draw a rabbit step by step 109
Horses 112
How to draw a horse step by step 112
Pigs 115
How to draw a pig step by step 115
Birds 118
How to draw a bird (parakeet) step by step 118
Foxes, wolves, and tanukis 122
Foxes 122
Wolves 123
How to draw a fox step by step 125
Tanukis 128
How to draw a tanuki step by step 128
Deer 132
Serows 133
Bears 134
Monkeys 135
How to draw a monkey step by step 136
Chapter 5 Drawing Mythological Creatures 140
Kitsunes 141
Tengus 143
How to draw a yamabushi tengu mask 144
Kappas 146
Kirins 147
How to draw a kirin head step by step 148
Dragons 151
How to draw a dragon step by step 152
Bakenekas / nekomatas 155
Bakus 156
Komainu / fu dog 157
Conclusion: Putting This All Together 158
Exercises To Help You Practice and See From A New Angle 159
Index 160