A N I M E M A N G A
The History of Manga starts in the 19th Century. A common misconception made by Westerners is that the term 'manga' simply refers to anime and animated projects. While this is true to a certain extent, the word manga itself actually means 'Comic'.
The first manga appeared early in the 19th Century - in 1814. This was called the Hokusai manga, and consisted of a series of sketchbooks by a Japanese artist named Hokusai. Each sketch in the Hokusai manga is based on various topics including gods, monsters, mountains, flowers, and birds - the sketches were loosely if not at all related to each other.
It is important to remember that at that stage, the images in the Hokusai manga weren't representative of the manga we see today. The Hokusai manga style was that of sketchings, and it wasn't until later, when the influence of the western world set in, that we began to see the drawing style we see in manga today. This was known as Ponchi-e - when Japanese artists began to concentrate on effectively using thick lines, colours, and forms. The era of Ponchi-e also went hand in hand with animated films, and in the 20th Century we saw the first emergence of manga animation - today commonly known as 'anime'.
Animation quickly became very popular in Japan due to the under-developed 'live action' entertainment industry it had at the time. The 1980's saw a boom in production of anime, as mainstream Japan began accepting it more and more readily. In the 1990's and 2000's Japan's anime influence spread overseas, and currently there are anime series' that broadcast almost on a global scale. An example of this is the ever popular Dragon Ball Z anime, which broadcasts all over America, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and Europe.
Today, we see western countries like America becoming more and more enravelled in the jap-anime style of drawing. Safe is it to assume that anime will live on, and the background and history, of anime and manga will spread and diversify due to exposure from western cultures, and the more advanced animation technologies we have today.
SOME TIPS HOW TO DRAW MANGA
Japanese style cartoon figures or manga has own the hearts of millions of cartoon fans all over the world. If you are like me you are also a fan of manga style. I enjoy this style of drawing very much. And let me tell you one secret you can have lot more fun by drawing beautiful manga style characters than what you can have just by looking at the art created by others.
And drawing manga is not too difficult either. No matter whether you are an expert artist or a rank beginner you can pick up manga drawing skills with some honest effort.
There are some typical features in a manga style character’s body and face. Once you are aware of these you can create beautiful manga and amaze your friends and family.
In manga style some body parts are exaggerated and some parts are represented using very simple hint-lines. Like, eyes are drawn bigger and expressive and for nose and mouth small lines are used.
Girl’s eyes are larger than boy’s eyes and most of the evil characters are drawn with really small eyes. Body is drawn taller than normal. Limbs are generally thin and long.
When drawing hair you have more than one option --you can draw lots of individual lines to represent hair, or you can use volume hair as if hairs formed a number of thick tubular structures. Both the styles are popular, use which suits your temperament and your characters mood.
Few precautions: when drawing head start with an oval shape and draw the eyes at the half way from the top if you draw the eyes above that level you run risk of ending up with a character with flat looking scalp.
While drawing exaggerated eyes make sure eyes do not cross the cheekbone this is a mistake beginners often make.
FACE DRAWING
 | First draw an oval. |
 | Now keep in mind this shape actually represents the head of your charater and is 3 dimentional. The guide line line drawn here will help you to visualize it's 3d nature. Draw eyeballs as shown. |
 | Add eye brows. |
 | Now add ears. |
 | Time to give some hair. |
 | This is a chin up posture. Note how the nose looks at this pose. |
 | Adding mouth makes your character more expressive. |
 | Add double chin and other finishing touches to complete your work. |
CARTOON HEAD AND FACE DRAWING
 Cartoon Head 1 | Draw an oval and divide it into in four parts as shown in the example graphic. Please think of this oval as solid 3d object like egg. If you see as a 2D shape you will have difficulty in drawing the head. |
 Cartoon Head 2 | Now draw the eyes on the horizontal line as shown in the example. Note that how close the eyes are to the intersection point of the horizontal and vertical line. Also draw the eyebrows and see how your the cartoon head is taking shape. |
 Cartoon Head 3 | Now it's time to go ahead and add more details to your comic head. In this step you will add nose to your cartoon character. After adding nose again note the area of the face the triangle made by two eyes and nose tip covers. It is actually a very small part of the entire face. Many new aspirants get this wrong, so be careful. Add the ears as shown in the figure. Cartoon head 3 |
 Cartoon Head 4 | Add mouth now. See how adding two simple line can create sunken cheeks. Create sunken cheeks on both the sides. |
 Cartoon Head 5 | Now it's time to add some hair. |
 Cartoon Head 6 | Now give finishing touches using shading and shadow technique. |
DOG DRAWING
 | Draw four shapes as shown in the figure. |
| The top two shapes represent the head of the dog. Add few lines as shown in the figure these will end up as your dog's ear. |
 | Now add eyes to the dog's head. |
 | Put the nose in correct position. |
 | It is time for neck and legs both front and back. The dog is almost finish. |
 | Now polish your work a bit. You have your loyal friend ready to follow your every command. |
