How to draw a Manga Head

What is Manga you may ask?

If you aren't familiar with the history of Copics, I suggest you review this brief post. To sum it up, Manga is the word for Japanese Comic Books, and Anime is a Japanese Animation. Copic markers were developed for coloring this style of artwork.

One defining feature of the Japanese comic style is the unique head shapes, eyes, and the way they draw hair. I used to teach a 6 week class to teenagers on how to draw in this style, but I'm way too busy nowdays. However, I have all these great instructional handouts that I will occasionally share with the blogging world.

Even if you don't consider yourself an artist I suggest you at least try to draw a simple manga head on your own. It won't hurt, I promise! These directions were designed for giving away as worksheets when I do demos at children's events. I have no problem with you sharing these handouts as long as it is for educational use only. Enjoy!

Drawing a simple Manga Head
After going to Anime Expo a few weeks ago I figured now is a good chance to share a handout I made a few years ago for a teen workshop I regularly teach. This is a simple guide to drawing a manga-style head. Great for kids who want to learn how to draw their own manga characters. Someday when I get the chance I'll step you through each stage in a full post. You'll need a piece of paper, a pencil, and a good inking pen for this project.

Light from a candle- part 2

Here is the second part of my advanced post on coloring light from a candle. This time I'm coloring the kitten and the jar of milk.

Kitten
Coloring the kitten is pretty easy. I started with a base of YR31, added shadows with YR24, and added the stripes with E37. I also darkened the shadow areas with E37. Note that his face and the paw are the lightest parts since they are on the side closest to the candle. When I add a final background I may darken him up a bit (especially his tail) but for now I like his colors.

Bottle & Milk
Coloring the bottle and milk are the tricky parts. The bottle and milk are colored with B32, colorless blender, C1, C3, and a hint of Y11. Once I add the background I will add some glints of light with my opaque white.

First, I colored the bottle with B32. I colored only the edges and then I faded it out with the colorless blender (see these posts on coloring a glass of water, part 1, part 2). This makes the edges strong blue yet clear looking in the middle. At this point I would add a pale version of whatever my background color is to the inside of the bottle so you could see the floor through it. However, since I haven't chosen a background yet I will just hold off adding any color until later.

You can note that I am also trying to make the bottle darker than it would be in a bright light. I added hints of C3 to the base of the bottle and as a shadow under the kitten's paw so you can see the shape of the bottle better.

The liquid inside is NOT transparent however, it is milk, so it needs to remain white. To keep it white and to make sure you know it is not the glass jar I shadowed the liquid with my cool grays. I did this both to the milk on the floor as well as the bottle. With a white background the milk looks a little dark, but remember, our background will be dark, so having the milk kind of dark is OK.

You can see that I added some pale yellow highlights to both the milk and the bottle. This is the candlelight reflecting, so it stays yellow, but it is not as strong a yellow as the highlights on his face and arm. Once again, after I add my background I will add some white in with my opaque white to really get the shiny things to look shinier.

The final artwork now looks like this, where the boy and the cat are both lighted correctly and ready for a background.

Background
I keep mentioning how I am picturing the background. Here is a quick mock-up that I made in photoshop as a way of planning how my final background will look. I haven't made my background yet in real life, but I want you to get an idea of how it will change once I airbrush it. I will need to make masks and carefully plan my airbrushing. Using Photoshop is a cheater way of seeing how it will look without doing all the work (or making a mistake on something I just worked so hard on). Hopefully this week I will have a chance to show you how to actually make this background with the airbrush system.

Friday Art Links

I hope you've had a great week. It's Friday, and since I'm in town then I can share some more good art links. Let me know if you find these helpful or not.

ArtAlly Blog- This blog is a voice for the arts. Find links to interesting art articles, art therapy, art education, and useful info for art teachers. Full of great stuff, I strongly encourage you to read.

Art House Co-Op, Sketchbook Project Library - Sign up to get a sketchbook. Fill the sketchbook, then it goes on display in galleries and eventually into a library. Their goal is to collect original sketchbooks from around the world.

Rate My Drawings.com - this website is really great for the beginning to advanced artist. It offers a chance to draw online, view tutorials, join discussions, and enter artwork into daily competitions. Look at artwork from many people and give feedback.

Tomorrow I'll post the continuation of my boy and the candlelight. Have a great weekend!

Light from a candle

This is a continuation of my last post on shadows. Although this seems like a very simple picture, I'm labeling this advanced because of how much I'll be going in-depth about the image.

Light from a candle
I drew a really cute scene and I want to step you through the process I use for coloring it. At first glance the picture is very simple. However, we have a lot of complex things going on once we try to color it.

Light from a single source, or candle
The main light source in this artwork is a candle, which is very different than the sun. From my earlier post we know the following:
• Our shadows will all move in a circle out from that point of light
• Light farther away from the candle is softer and muted.
• Shadows close to the candle are strong.

Another couple rules I want to include in our list:
• Reflective/shiny surfaces pick up light from far away in the dark, even if they are in the darker areas of your image.
• In the dark, furry things don't show up as well because light has a harder time bouncing off their surface.
• Colors quickly lose intensity in the dark, so shadows will turn more gray than they would in strong sunlight.
• Things close to the light make bigger shadows than objects farther away (I'll talk about this later, not in this illustration)

Some new points to consider about candlelight:
• Candles throw a warm (yellow) glow over everything that they light up.
• Light from a candle flickers and wavers, so your shadows can be softer.
• The candle wax glows from the candlelight.
• Intensity of the candle light is an artistic choice, however, in real life, candles don't give much light.

This is by no means a complete list, but these are the most important things to keep in mind.

Wow. That's a lot of things to think about. Now you see why I consider this a complex image to color. Let's break this artwork down into smaller parts and tackle it over the course of a few days.

Shadow Study
The first place to start is with a shadow study. We have to look at the whole picture to get an idea of how it will work as a completed composition.

Instead of drawing lines where my light is coming from I am using concentric circles to show intensity. Things that are in the first circle are going to be brighter than the outer circles. How close you make your circles is an artistic choice. My circles are'nt perfect, but it gives you an idea.

I chose to make my circles pretty large and make the candle light brighter than real life so that we can see the cat on the floor better.

Notice that the teddy bear is in the arm opposite the candle and so it will mostly be in shadow. I am not going to talk about the spilled milk today, since that is a reflective surface I am going to cover it later.


Coloring the Boy
Here is the boy colored by himself. On his night shirt I used YG06 for the lightest areas, shadowed with YG17 (a little more gray) and I blended in G28 for the deepest green areas, with a touch of BG96. His cap is V12 and V17 along with the greens.

On his skin I used E01, and I shadowed it with E33. E33 is not what I would usually use for skin shadows, but remember, in the dark the skin loses it's color intensity, so it gets dull faster. On the deepest shadows I used a touch of E44. On his face, which is closest to the candle I left it white and added a yellow highlight.

The teddy bear is E33, E44, E29 and W7. The W7 I added to make the darkest areas grayer, as they would naturally be in the dark. His hair is Y02, YR24, and E33. The candle is Y02, C1, and BV23.

Highlights
I left most highlight areas close to the candle un-colored so that I could add a nice, strong yellow (y02). You can see from this diagram where I added highlights. Things farther away from the candle, like the bottom of his night-shirt, I just added the yellow over the base color. If you swipe a pale color over a darker color enough times it will push the darker color out of the way. I did add some faint yellow hints to his slippers, but that's optional.

Don't forget to color the candle and the highlights on the candle holder yellow as well, since this is a source of the glow. I may add yellow to the background behind the candle after I'm all done, but I'm not worrying about that at this point (I'm thinking of airbrushing the background).


Night Shirt
As you are coloring, keep referring back to your shadow study. Notice that the boy's shirt is long, and it passes through a couple of the light circles. This means that the shirt wil gradually get darker as it gets farther away from the candle, even though the front side is well-lit from the candle.

If you look at the shadows on his legs you will also see that they fall in line from the candle, so they are darkest under his night shirt and lightest on the front side, though they aren't as pale as the skin on his face where the candle light is strongest. I also did not give his legs any yellow highlights.

What really makes this picture work so far is the contrast. Although the background is still white, you can tell at this point that the candle is bright and the boy will likely be standing in a dark room. His side far away from the candle is dark and deeply shadowed, but everything close to the candle is bright and vibrant.

I'll try to finish this picture over the next few days. I hope this has given you some things to think about.

FAQ- Summer Traveling with Copics

I just had a really good question come through my e-mail, and I figured this is the perfect place to share it.

Q- I have a couple of hundred Copic markers now and plan to take them with me while traveling which means they will be left in a hot car for several hours one day. Will this hurt them in any way? If it will I could take a cooler.


A- No this won't hurt your markers, they are very air tight

Let me tell you a little story...
Our European counterpart had a shipment of markers get stuck in the Saudi Desert during the Persian Gulf War. They were stuck in the desert for about 5 months, in temps of over 120º F. When they got the markers back they were sure that all had been ruined, however NONE of them had any problems. All were juicy and good.

I have left them in a hot car on many occasions with no problems, as they are super air tight. The only problem you may have is if you color with them in super-hot weather and then you next color with them in a much cooler temp or much higher elevation. The marker will have picked up the air pressure of the first climate and may blob upon use in the other air pressure. Just pull the caps off both sides and then their air pressure will return to normal and you won't have any problems. (this happened to me last summer).

For more marker travel tips you can check this post I made last summer. Happy Traveling!

Shadows Part 12 - Light from a single point

I'm back from Anime Expo and I hope to post a lot of useful tutorials before I need to leave again for CHA at the end of the month. Today's coloring tutorial is a continuation of the explanation I gave on coloring pleats a few days ago, as well as a new way of understanding shadows.

Light from a single point, not the Sun
This is an important distinction between light coming from one big source- the Sun, which is far away and very big, versus light coming from a single source that is much closer and smaller. Let's look at the differences between light sources.

A few things to understand:
• Light from the sun hits all objects from the same direction- If you have an object and the sun is shining on it then all your shadows will be consistent.

Look at this diagram of a holiday centerpiece. This is lit from the sun, so all the things in the picture have the same shadows on one side and highlights on the other. This is the kind of lighting I have been talking about so far in my tutorials.

However, what would happen if it were night time and we lit the candle?

• Light from a single source radiates out and casts shadows in a circle - If you have an object at night and you put a light next to it then the sides of anything closest to the object will be lit.

Now look at the lighting on our centerpiece. The bottles on either side are throwing shadows in opposite directions because the light is between them. Do you see how much our shadows have changed?

Also keep in mind- Contrast will be stronger the closer you get to a single light source. In our diagram above everything is pretty close to the candle so everything has good contrast. If we had another bottle on the other side of the table it would be more shadowed, with softer/darker shading becuase it is far away.

Before I confuse you with more shadows and turn this into an advanced post, I want to apply this basic principle to the colored pleats we learned about before.

Let's turn those same pleats into curtains hanging over a window. Without getting more complex you can see that the window acts like a candle. We know that light is coming in from the window, so anything close to the window will have highlights, and anything away from the window (the far sides of the curtains and under the window sill) will be in shadow. Now we can easily see that there is light coming in from outside (at this point I'm not worrying about which direction the sun is coming from, just that it is light outside). In the future I will try to draw something in the window and show a tutorial on coloring glass.

I hope this helps clear up a little more of the mystery about shadows. All artwork today I drew, using a 0.1 mm multiliner onto color laser copier paper.

Anime Expo 2009

Today is the first day of Anime Expo and our booth looks great! We worked hard all day yesterday to set up the biggest, coolest Copic store you've ever seen. 900 square feet of Copic goodies all for sale.

Among the new things you'll be able to buy at the show:

12 New Sketch colors
They just arrive, fresh from Japan, and we are selling them here first. Get your set today!

New Airbrushing DVD
The Second DVD in our series just arrived, Copic Airbrushing for Comics. You can see a special promo video playing all week in our booth and pick up your copy today.

The first DVD in the series, Airbrushing for Papercrafting should be shipping in a few weeks, and the 3rd DVD is almost done, Airbrushing for Landscape Architecture. Be looking for all three this summer.

Workshops & Guests
I will be in the booth answering questions all week. Come and play, enter to win prizes, and get autographs from our guest artists. If you want to learn more about Copic coloring techniques I will be teaching two beginner workshops:

Friday, July 3rd, 2:45 pm in Workshop Room 1
Saturday, July 4th 3:30 pm in Workshop Room 1

Prizes
Every hour we will be doing a prize drawing. Get your name in the drawing- one ticket free with purchase. At the end of the day we'll have a big drawing. (Must be present to win). There are some really neat prizes you can win, from T-shirts, to special Anime Expo Banners, to markers and inking pens. Stop by for a chance to win!

I need to get going, but I hope to see you at the show!