Welcome to the Making Manga series. Today we will talk about visualizing your characters.

So I was writing graphic noiz the manga about a fanboy manga artist and a bestselling author collaborating on a manga project of the author’s science fiction series Fissue. I got to about page 69 and then had writer’s block because we were getting to a place where the story was going to turn into a romance and that is not what I write. I did however want to make the work yaoi and suggestive but have no sex so I had to put it down for a while. The other problem I had was being able to visualize the lead characters. I did some character sheets but was still having a difficult time creating the characters panel after panel and making them look the same. So I quit it for a while letting it sit until I was ready again.

Now I have three writing projects that I am working on right now so I am unable to start up with graphic noiz at this time but I decided this morning to set out again and see if I could get the character likeness for Noiz the manga artist down. That is the picture above. Looks like I nailed him and his signature hair which was what came out in previous pictures.

You have to be in the correct mindset when you setout to visualize your characters. Noiz is 19 years old so he has to look young. He is energetic and a little of a manga fanatic. This has to come out in the sketches for the character. I think it does in the above drawing. Here he is pictured with the script he has just finished for chapter 1 of the scifi Fissure manga which Shiro Ijima, the bestselling author wrote the novel series. Noiz is jazzed in the picture because he finished the script and is presenting it to Shiro who he happens to have a little bit of a crush on. I think this image shows his enthusiasm. It would be nice to also draw the corresponding image of Shiro being aloof about the script with his arms crossed and pouting, not being interested. I might try that as well. Then we could have both images as a set.

When drawing your characters it is sometimes good to make a character sheet with the description of the character and his likes and dislikes. This can shape the character’s personality which you want to get through in images when you draw them. Once you understand the personality of the character and can get in your head you can then focus on their expressions and how you want them to act. You can’t do that if you don’t know the character well enough to know how he will react and to what.

I first do an under drawing and then start flushing out the pose. Usually I have an understanding of what the final pose will be before I start. It is my limitation of my drawing skill which sometimes forces me to change something if I can’t execute satisfactorily. The face comes later with the eyes and mouth and the hair comes last for me right before the clothes. I thought about putting a kanji on Noiz’ shirt in this picture then erased it because I wanted it to be simple, the stripes down the side would suffice. Noise is not overly into brands, he is more into his art and can barely afford his apartment so clothing with logos on it might be out of his price range since I think I want to have him shop at the flea market which he can afford though he can barely pay his rent for a 2 bedroom flat in Jersey City close to Manhattan since he can’t afford to live in the city.

I do lineart of the characters in my series and don’t usually do any shading. This is on purpose actually. I have coloured some pages for the grydscaen series when I was going to art school but I work a full time job and write as a hobby (although it is way more than a hobby) and I don’t have the time to colour all my drawings, so most are just lineart.

graphic noiz is my first yaoi story, thought grydscaen: utopia and grydscaen: sheer might pass as yaoi a little. We want to make it good. I think graphic noiz might acutally end up being a novella instead of a novel since the story is more than half done at this point I want to get back to it so I will soon, just need to finish my fantasy works for the moment and get to publishing the next grydscaen book.

Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy Noiz as we continue on his journey.