Reddit reviews How to Draw Manga Volume 1 : Compiling Characters

I think a lot of people will disagree with me, but the classic How to Draw Manga series is great for getting started on drawing full body characters even if you don't want to draw in the manga style.

Another big book that people bring up on a regular basis is Dodson's Keys to Drawing. I have it, but I can honestly no longer remember how much of a direct effect it had on me. I do know that my community art instructor referenced it heavily during my first year of classes. So the ideas it presents may actually have been a bigger part of my development than I remember.

My biggest advice though would be to try a little bit of everything: watch drawing youtube videos, read articles on drawing. Follow your favorite artists on social media. Google drawing tutorials.

Do studies of other people's work (draw from their drawings). The important thing is to never post these studies as your own work (for obvious ethical reasons). Dodson's book does talk about how to do this and what to expect to come out of it.

Finally, I highly highly recommend exploring the drawing and art sections of your local library if available. A lot of drawing books are good for one read through and then they don't even have much benefit as references. If you are going to buy, buy as many of the books used as possible. These things are super expensive and many of them are mandatory purchases for art students, who then resell them when the class is over. So there are a lot of them on the used market.

I recommend buying her Making Comics by Scott McCloud as well as Understanding Comics as these two books are an extremely valuable asset for anyone who wants to pursue making comics. He does not go into the national Japanese comics drawing style, but he does go into detail about the story-telling techniques used by Japanese artists, which is much more important (IMO) than Big Eyes Small Mouth. Making Comics also will teach her some very important lessons about character building and world creation that she should learn as early as possible so as to not have to break any negative habits.
However, if she's not interested in the full process of making comics, and just wants to draw, and you're dead set on buying her a Manga Drawing book, make sure it's by a Japanese artist, I recommend this one. These artists have grown up surrounded by this style instead of discovering it later in life like an American would, and therefore adding American influence to the style, further diluting what the Japanese have worked hundreds of years to create. Also, if you are going to buy her a Manga drawing book, please also buy her a figure drawing book to help her set herself apart from all the lookalikes online. This is also very important if she wishes to attend art school or major in art, as every single professor will tell her to "Stop drawing that anime stuff, and focus on observational drawing."

EDIT: Formatting.

i don't recall any book that cover exaggerated anatomy....i don't read too much book sorry..... one that was fun to read was https://www.amazon.com/dp/4889960422/ref=sr_1_31?__mk_pt_BR=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&keywords=how+draw+manga&qid=1572536562&s=books&sr=1-31 but that actually cover more how to draw manga than anatomy....

in the beginning is hard to grasp the shape correctly, try not focus model in orthographic planes...is better use more the perspective plane to get the volume more correclty... other good tip is use the silhouette mode to see the true shape of object ... sometimes the sulpture look good but something look odd because the base shape is odd..... and more detail you put in it makes hard to see .... if that make any sence.... lol

This one is the good one for drawing manga. You can find pdfs, so I'd do that, and then order a copy.

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https://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-Manga-Compiling-Characters/dp/4889960422

I'm not sure if this is the style you want.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-Manga-Compiling-Characters/dp/4889960422

The whole series have this same style.

hope i helped

I bought a few 'How To Draw Manga" books (the Japanese translated ones, not the American or British ones with the same name) years back and 'Volume 1' ("building characters") had a whole section on "head angles" & "head shapes", the body, body types etc. All things figure & character related. If you want to save £££'s though you could do an image search for "Head angle reference", I found a lot of good ones this way a few days ago, along with ones for feet and torso's.


I found the exact book if you're interested, its dirt cheap now!:-
https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Draw-Manga-Compiling-Characters/dp/4889960422

Honestly the best way to draw great Manga styled artwork is to improve your skills overall; start from the drawing basics and build yourself up. When you have the basics down, then you can start to explore different art styles. That said, as for learning a particular style, one of the best ways is to just practice (and I mean PRACTICE, as much and often as possible) by copying what you like - make sure to pick your favorite pages from manga and figure why they work for you aesthetically.

A good series of books for learning a bit more about the process is the How To Draw Manga series, which have been around for a long time now and were authored by various Japanese Mangaka. One that was interesting was Volume 2; the volume was about traditional techniques with toning (among other things).