Making Characters Consistent
Today on our Making Manga series, we will talk about drawing your characters consistently. I know that I sometimes have an issue with that. So here we go.
One way to ensure that you know what your characters looks like and can make them look the same across sequential panels is to practice drawing the character as much as you can. I do this a little bit in images but I have to say that sometimes my character Shiro Ijima looks different from page to page in the graphic noiz manga.
If you draw a character sketch at different angles or a character sheet you can collect data about the character and their expressions. I tried to do this for Shiro. Once you have the character sheet you can use it as reference for every time that you draw the character. It should include a short paragraph about the character’s personality if you want and outfits as well as expressions.
For Noiz, he has the signature hair so you can always tell who he is even if his expressions are a little off. This is only my second manga so I have a lot of practice still to do.
Once you have the character sheets refer to them often to help with character consistency. Practice drawing the characters at different angles and get their outfits right. In the story for graphic noiz the mangaka Noiz also has some issue with getting the character Angel consistent which the editor brings up in the review of chapter 1 of the Fissure scifi manga.
You can measure the eye spacing and the mouth to also help you with the look. The more practice that you do the better it will be.
It is also good to know the personality of the character. The more you know your characters, the easier it will be to draw them. They may react in a certain way that can be portrayed in their expressions in the action.
How to improve your drawing
One of the ways that can help you to be consistent is to redraw drawings that you have done previously. You can see the progress you have made when you repeat doing a drawing.
You need to learn to see your mistakes and not be afraid of the eraser. One of the things that you can do is look at drawings that you have done previously and see what things that you like and try to expand upon that. Look at the drawing carefully and try to point out where your skills are and your style.
Another way to help improve your art is to draw every day and draw a lot. The more you draw the more familiar you will become with the tools. If you are familiar with the drawing implements you will be more comfortable with them and be able to put in the work. This will also increase your speed in execution when you are able to hold the pencil/pen in your hand and know what it feels like how to render an image.
In the sketching phase you want to get the poses down. If you need to use a reference like a model, that can be done. There are models that can be used for reference images that you can use such as BODY KUN and BODY CHAN models when I need more dramatic poses. The model or doll can be placed in the pose and you can refer to the body position for the drawing.
Drawing from life is also another thing that you can do. Use a reference and try to recreate a drawing from an image or draw your friends.
The way that you want to think about the drawing is getting the base image down like the pose, then you want the face and the hair. Finally you can get the clothes in the drawing and get things done in layers.
Like your pencil and know how it feels. Use the eraser and don’t be afraid of it. Know what the pencil feels like.
Making a yaoi manga chapter
So there are 7 chapters in the graphic noiz manga and I created chapter opening art for each one. One of the bad things I did this time was not to have the dialogue and story written out ahead of time. You usually want to do this. If you have a storyboard and camera angles written down and then the dialogue and narration this can help you immensely. Just follow the story and you don’t have to wing it as you come to each chapter like I did this time.
Now, when I made the “A Storm’s Coming” manga I had the whole story written out which made it easy, just follow the action. The dialogue was taken directly from the short story all that was needed was to follow the storyline and draw the images.
For graphic noiz, the manga takes place between book 1 and book 2 which are already written. Since I have a basic idea of the story I was more apt to just start drawing. The storyline of the manga kind of overlaps a little with book 2 but there are things in that book that are not in the story that are hinted at in the manga. Even though I don’t have the dialogue I have a basic idea of what I want in each page and in the scenes.
Figure 1: bringing a yaoi feeling t0 life
Since the story in graphic noiz is yaoi or LGBT M/M, that means there needs to be character interaction in a boy’s love sense. Again there is no sex in graphic noiz, just hinting and the last scene in chapter 4 does just that. I needed to ensure that the feelings of sensuality were relayed in the images but that it was not too suggestive.
The above drawing is in a scene when Noiz is at Shiro’s apartment and they are talking and Shiro just kind of dives into kissing the artist. The interaction between the two of them needs to be light with no hint of erotic anything. I want this to be a YA (young adult) yai novel so I need to be respectful to the medium and the storyline and not include sex. Some yaoi includes sex but I like I have written in blog posts before am not going there. Even in the books there is no sex to be had in the story. There is a suggestive scene in the manga but it does not show anything just more of a loving interaction between the characters.
Because I want the yaoi to be sensual I need to ensure that the characters are feeling each other and that there is a loving vibe between the two. Though they are not in a relationship, I wanted to make the writer’s emotions complex and in a sense confusing to him. Why does he like the artist? Why is the artist having an affect on his arrogant personality? It is changing him? Noiz’ influence on Shiro is making the writer come out of his normal place in space where he dumps women harshly and is mad at people all the time.
Noiz is gentle and I think that this throws the writer off. All this has to be relayed in the images as having an affect on the writer. By making Noiz’ character “soft” around the edges I can show the influence that he has on the “hard” personality of the writer.
Shading and Relaying Depth
So initially I do all the lineart with no shading and then reduce the drawings from 10×14 and 11×17 to 8.5×11 so that I can scan them. This time the lineart will be on two paper sizes and I will reduce them down then shade them. I have a new set of neutral grey copic markers which I am going to be using for the shading.
I will possibly have to do this a few times on reducing the lineart because I have not shaded anything in a while so I may be a little rusty. Shading will give the lineart some depth. I will be able to use the deep blacks for Noiz’ clothing since I want to make him a little goth as he is a skateboarder. I wanted to use the grey markers because this is manga which is slated to be in black and white so that this would be consistent when they are scanned. I will be shading hair using a 002 and 003 copic markers and facial features with 000, and 001. I originally was going to use cool grey but figured that would give a bluish tint to the work so decided on neutral grey.
I did do some shading in an old doujinshi I created a few years back that was successful. I will just refer to that as reference and use that for this work.
Depth can be relayed using blacks and inking lines. Since I work inking in after all the drawings are done. Since there is no dialogue in the drawings at this time the shading will have to be done before the images are scanned in and ready for the words.
I think that I might have a few trials initially with the shading as I go and get back into working with the copic markers. Out of everything I learned at art school, I did not learn how to ink so it is still a new skill for me. I do it but there is more practice that is needed. I use copic fineliners for inking and have used them often so I am familiar with them.
I will get more into inking in a later Making Manga post, but for now. I hope you enjoy the Making Manga series from the grydscaen blog as we go through the entire process from start to finish of making the graphic noiz manga.
Thanks for listening.
BODY KUN and BODY CHAN are copyright their respective owners.
