Fundamentals of Manga: Digital Illustration

In this class, you'll learn the basics of Manga illustration. We will walk through essential illustration topics and technical skills, and you will follow along with Camilla as she sketches her character and digitizes it in Photoshop. 

In this class, you will gain an artist's arsenal of real-world information and experience in drawing manga characters and refining them for print or digital output. This class is valuable whether your work is going to a publisher or you just want to create a high-quality personal art piece.

What You'll Learn

• Sketch. Learn to draw out your ideas with lessons on composition and drawing inspiration.
• Draw. Transition from pencil to ink, and learn to overcome the obstacles of the "finality" of ink work and accept mistakes. I will also cover important drawing techniques.
• Ink. Refine your ink work and prepare for the scan. I will cover brushstroke technique in depth.
• Scan. Scan your drawing into the computer, and learn to adapt the inked image into a digital illustration.
• Color. Add color to your digital illustration with my efficient coloring tools and tips.
• Print Quality. Finalize your work to make sure it is up to print-quality standards.

What You'll Do

• Deliverable. You will create a manga style digital illustration of your own character.
• Brief. You will follow along as I create an interpretation of Tanpopo and Kuro from my graphic novel Tanpopo. You will be inspired to create your own illustration based on my characters. You can  copy what I’ve done or step outside the box and create an original illustration.
• Specs. You will create a hand-drawn and digitally colored illustration of a character of your choosing.

This class will give students a stepping stone into the industry of North American comic book standards. It will also help students learn new drawing and digital art techniques. This is a behind-the-scenes look of how I create illustrations for my publisher, and the final image that I will create in this class will be used as a cover/poster for my graphic novel publishing in early 2015.