Check out this awesome promotional video for Mastering Manga With Mark Crilley!

Be sure to preorder his book from our North Light Shop and we will ship as soon as it’s available!

Check out this free demonstration from Mastering Manga With Mark Crilley, which will be hitting shelves soon!

The Father Figure

Some manga stories take place in a world populated only by teenaged characters, where adults have seemingly been banished from the scene. Still, even the most youth-obsessed story will have at least a couple representatives of the adult world, and if you’re going to draw them properly, you’ll need to learn an entirely different system of body proportions. Manga grown-ups are much closer to real human anatomy. Many of these adult characters have smaller eyes and fully rendered noses that we are more likely to associate with Western comic book characters.
1 Build Your Frame
Begin by drawing eight horizontal lines, equally spaced. You’ll want them to be at least an inch or more apart to allow for details
later on. Draw your character’s head between lines one and two.

2 Create the Torso
Draw the neck, shoulders, torso and right arm with a rough indication of his hand. His left arm is hidden behind his body. The bottom line of the torso is about two-thirds of the way between lines four and five. This guy’s pretty big: almost three heads wide across the chest. His hand extends just a touch beyond the bottom line of his torso.

3 Sketch in Legs and Feet
There’s no need to worry about the width of his ankles because his pants cover them. The right foot touches line eight. The bottom line of his left foot is about one third of the way up between lines seven and eight. There is a slight diagonal lean to the legs. This will help to convey his solid, confident stance.

4 Add Fingers and Hair
Add a hairstyle suitable to his age and personality. You could even leave him bald. Refine the hand, showing the curve of his fingers. The angle he’s holding his hand makes the index finger look longer and hides the thumb.

5 Draw Clothes
Place his tie, lapels and buttons closer to his left because he’s standing at an angle. Suit coats don’t wrinkle much, so draw just a few lines near the elbow and shoulder.

6 Fine-Tune
Add folds to his trousers and drape the cuffs following the curve of his foot. Add soles to the bottom of his shoes.

7 Finish It
Add ink and, if you like, gray tones or color. He doesn’t look like a teenager, and that’s exactly what we want. 

2012 is going to be an exciting year! Do you do resolutions? If so, what are some of your goals this year relating to your art?

Here at IMPACT Books, we want to help! We have a great year ahead of us with some exciting books coming out, including Mastering Manga With Mark Crilley, an awesome book showing you everything you need to know about drawing characters and scenes in a true manga style. Mark doesn’t just cover the basics; he shows a wide variety of figures and faces; characters that you need to make a dynamic story, but aren’t covered in other how-to books. Check out his website at markcrilley.com and look for his book to be in stores in March and you can preorder today!

In May, look out for some fun Color Workbooks heading your way. I don’t want to give too much away yet, but I can guarantee you’ll love the the instruction from a variety of your favorite IMPACT Books authors, plus lots of line art you can color yourself!

You’ll start Fall off right with some breathtaking dragons, and be ready to mark your holiday wishlist for new, adorable furries and their friends.

And that’s just a small sampling of what we’ll have on offer. This year we plan to offer you more comics, more fantasy, more graffiti, and more everything you love to draw and want to learn!

It’s been a great year at IMPACT Books and we’d like to share some of our highlights with you! Learn how to draw some of our most popular subjects with the help of these free tutorials and then gift someone with your artwork–and a copy of one of the books they come from, too! When learning a new skill is this fun, everyone benefits!

Check out Supittha Bunyapen’s tips for Cloud Do’s and Don’ts, then go in-depth with a skin color tutorial using Copic Markers. You can pick up a copy of her book, Shojo Wonder Manga Art School for more great lessons.

Like Unicorns? Want to learn how to draw one? You can with this great tutorial from Denise Vasquez and Randy Martinez’s Sketch Card Mania.  You can follow that up with Emily Fiegenschuh’s tutorial on how to draw a flying fish from The Explorer’s Guide to Drawing Fantasy Creatures.

If graffiti is more your style, check out Scape Martinez’s demonstration on how to create your own abstract letters. Scape Martinez shares his vast graff knowledge with you in Graff and Graff2.

Extreme Face Painting went wild this Halloween, but makeup special effects can be used for all kinds of reasons and seasons. If you have your own Miss Piggy, why not show up to a screening of The Muppets in fine style?

Check out these escape pods currently being designed! They hold up to four people and float on water. I could see this being the basis–and the setting–for a futuristic fantasy story. Anyone want to draw that comic?

This pod could someday save your life.

Anime and Manga have become extremely popular over the years. With conventions having 1000+ people in attendance, and having both Anime and Manga being immersed in our mainstream media, it is safe to say  that Anime and Manga is here to stay. But though it is a very popular part of art, it had to get it’s start from somewhere. The Minneapolis Institute of Art has an exhibit entitled Edo Pop: The Graphic Legacy of Japanese Prints. This exhibit shares some of the historical Japanese prints from Japan’s Edo period. For anyone wanting to understand the origins of Manga, then this exhibit is a great start. You can click here to see some of the prints from the exhibit.

And for anyone wanting to learn to draw Manga, then click here or check out our book store at NorthLightShop.com!

Happy drawing!

Here’s a tip from Supittha “Annie” Bunyapen for handling clouds in manga. You can find this and so much more in her book Shojo Wonder Manga Art School, where she gives great advice on how to paint with Copic Markers.

by Supittha "Annie" Bunyapen

 Cloud Do’s and Don’ts

Even basic clouds have form created with shadows and shading. Painting clouds with just simple bubble shapes and white color will make them look too flat and boring.

Do! use a variety of colors for shadows and shading.

Don’t! draw simple bubbles and only use white.

And if you like this and want more manga, check out these other fine titles from IMPACT Books!

• Shojo Fashion Manga Art School, by Irene Flores
• Manga Fantasy Madness, by David Okum
• Girl to Grrrl Manga, by Colleen Doran

Judging from the fan reaction to Irene Flores’ first book, Shojo Fashion Manga Art School, manga is as popular as ever. For those of you in the Ohio area,  set your calendars for January 27-29 2012 for Ohayocon.

Those of you who are new to Anime/Manga conventions and would like to check one out, then Ohayocon can prove to be a great introduction into the “con” culture. Ohayocon is held annually in Columbus, Ohio and provides its patrons with workshops and panels from some of the leading voices in the Anime and Manga industry. A nice sized convention that brings more than 1,000 people to indulge in all that is Anime and Manga culture.

Some of the events for Ohayocon are:

• Children’s Programming
• Anime/ Manga Series
• Video/ Table Top Games
• Art
• Japanese Culture
• Cosplay (Want some help with your makeup! Check out this video download!)
• Dance/ Movement (ParaPara, Martial Arts, etc.)
• Workshops on cool, fun things!
• Plus our theme for 2012- Space (all sorts)

Head to their website to see what else they have to offer.

The Convention season continues apace, with a series of comic-cons coming up, including New York Comic Con, this weekend. If you’re going (lucky you!), be sure and stop by Buddy Scalera’s table in Artist Alley and meet some of his models in person! Get him to sign a copy of Colossal Collection of Action Poses or check out one of his panels.

See Ridada at NYCC

Can’t get to New York this weekend? Mid-Ohio Comic con is the 22nd and 23rd in Columbus, Ohio.  I’m looking forward to scoping out some awesome loot and check out some panels, myself.

And if you were at the Anime Convention in Atlanta last weekend or any of the conventions this summer and fall, we’d love to hear about your experiences! Author Annie Bunyapen was there, and it sounds like it was a blast!

Annie Bunyapen gets into character

Check out Annie Bunyapen’s art and how to create gorgeous manga with her book Shojo Wonder Manga Art School.

by Supittha "Annie" Bunyapen

Related posts:

• IMPACT’S Emily Fiegenschuh wins first place at Gen-Con
• Extreme Face Painting author Wins First-Place
• GenCon Success (including a picture containing yours truly)

For more information and to purchase the IMPACT titles contained here:

• The Explorer’s Guide to Drawing Fantasy Creatures Emily Fiegenschuh
• Extreme Face Painting Brian and Nick Wolfe

Check out this awesome demonstration from Annie Bunyapen, author of Shojo Wonder Manga Art School. For this demo and more, you can purchase the book by clicking on the cover or the links.

Painting Tanned or Asian Skin

Illustrations of Asian characters often depict narrow eyes and lightly-tanned skin.
It is also common for Asian skin to have some yellow undertones. You can easily
achieve these effects with just a few markers.

Add the First Colors to Create Facial Depth

1 Sketch and ink your character with a brown or sepia 005 (0.2mm) waterproof technical pen. For the deepest shadow, shade the character’s skin with Light Suntan and blend carefully with Bareley Beige. Add these first colors around the eyes and lips, under the lower lip, on the left side of his face, under his hair, and around his clothes. Use the Colorless Blender to fade the colors in some areas, if desired.

Create the Middle Shadow

2 Since Asian skin requires yellow, use Baby Skin Pink as the middle tone. Paint almost all of the flesh, leaving some room for highlights.

Paint the Skin’s Basecoat

3 Slowly coat all of the flesh with Egg Shell. The basecoat allows you to subtly blend different colors without leaving unnecessary streaks or marks.

Darken the Skin Details and Shadows

4 Always make the eyes the main focus of the character. Use both Dark Suntan and Light Grape, to darken the outer corner of each. Use these colors to deepen the shadows around his lips, under his nose, lower lip and hair, and around his clothes. A touch of Light Grape will produce the darkest darks of the deepest shadow, making your character look lively and keeping his flesh from looking too flat.

For more books on manga drawing, check out these books, also by IMPACT:

• Shojo Fashion Manga Art School by Irene Flores
• Girl to Grrrl Manga by Colleen Doran

• Or get enchanted by these lovely creatures in Enchanting Fairies by Barbara Lanza