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Tried my hand at drawing manga for the first time.
Black and White

Grayscale

Click on the pics for a bigger pic. Off the bat i can tell the eyes are too close together and diff sizes. Please tell me how else to make them better.

As far as a first stab at it, it's not horrible.

The way I'm going to do this is to point out the good, then point out the bad as well as ways to improve on both (If I can actually explain it right XD Sometimes it just doesn't sound right when you read it back.... Anyway)

Image One (original character)
Good:
The eyes are actually not all that off. A general rule of thumb for a head on view like this is that there is one eye size (the distance from one side of an eye to the other side of the same eye) between the two eyes, and also on the outside of each eye to the side of the face. This is for more of a realistic image, it's my experience that the anime/manga style has the eyes closer to the outside of the face then that, but for a general rule, try to keep to that 'till you have a little more experience under your belt.

Another thing I noticed is that your shirt collar actually has depth to it. ^_^ You drew the back as being higher up to show the depth and all.

Then neck is slanted outward. While this isn't a great neck, you are showing that you understand that it's not just a straight line down. Which it isn't, so your good on that. Problem is probably that the neck is a little too long. While I am agreeing that necks aren't just straight lines, they are also not just angled lines. They are for the most part just barely curved lines.


Bad:
Nose... The nose you drew was drawn as we were viewing him from his left side. From this view, (assuming the light would be off from our left) the nose would kind of look like a lowercase b. Here is an example:

http://calibermengsk.com/gaia/redline/nose.png
As you can see from this image, it's more of a b that's been filled in, and sloped where the top of the circle meets the line. This gives the effect of having the nose, but without actually drawing the parts of the nose. There are other styles of drawing noses as well, but this is by far the most simplistic that I know of besides just two dots for the nostrils.

Ears are too small. They aren't too bad on the shape though to be honest. But definitely too small. Generally the top of the ear will be around the top of the eyebrow, and the bottom of the ear will be around the bottom of the nose.

The hair isn't too bad for your first try. Hair is really tricky to get, just like cloth is. I don't think I can explain all that well how to do hair myself, as well as it's a long process to explain it. I would suggest looking on deviantart.com for some how to draw anime hair or manga hair. There should be some really helpful tutorials there for you.


Final Notes:
For a first time drawing, not bad, but as you probably already know, it's a long process to be good at it, and even more of a process to be great. Keep at it, and I'm sure you'll come out to be a great artist. You already seem to be catching things that people don't get for a long time (such as the collar.)



Image 2 (Ichigo)
Good:
Better on the nose. This is very close to a regular style of doing a nose. The curve isn't quite as pronounced (though from this angle you wouldn't see that much line, and the line would be shadow.) and you have nostrils to make it more believeable.

They eyes are pretty good once again, though I would also suggest a tutorial on eyes as well. I say work on just one thing at a time for a little while. (10 or so drawings of just different eyes using a reference image, then 10 or so of different noses, head shapes, etc.) Though they aren't bad, they do need a bit of work.

Hair is much better. Something I noticed when learning to draw hair is that very rarely does two angles of hair meet and both lines stop. It doesn't look like a V. Add a little bit of length to one of the lines past where they meet and that may help some. Ichigo isn't really a good example of this though, as in the original arts, they don't really do this. (but you did the same kind of thing in the first image, so that's why I'm making this note.)

Ears are larger in this one. ^_^ Getting there. razz Just a bit larger still. Not too bad on his right ear (our left) as far as shape goes, but they other ear is not so pretty. Stick more to the ear on our left's shape for a head on view.


Bad:
Neck is too long again, but yet again, Ichigo is a bad example of this as he has and unusually long neck. Good part is, you did curve the one side in slightly, but also, the neck is a bit wide IMO... This may just be a personal preference though.

Shape of the jaw is kinda goofy. Looks like he's puffing his cheeks out with air. They overall shape isn't too bad, but there isn't a ton of indention like that in real life, anime or manga. Though, you do also have curves where the angles change instead of a defined angle. This is a good thing too.


Final Thoughts:
Keep up the work. As stated before it takes a while to get any decent. It also depends on how often you draw. I would suggest if you are serious about getting to be really good, then draw a few pictures a day. But also give your mind a break every once in a while.


Well, This isn't super harsh, but there is a lot said here. You aren't that great yet, but remember that you just started. Also, try doing some drawings based on real things. Anime/Manga is just a simplified version of the real world (except for the stuff that doesn't really happen...) so it is based off of the real world, meaning if you can draw the real thing just as it appears to you, then you can make an anime/manga version of it.

Good luck with your endeavors!

better then my firsts thats for sure. u shouldve seen them. their obnoxious eyes. it was hilarious.
looks like you got the eyes down. when u draw the tho, there should be a space in between the eyes about the size of the actual eye. i also noticed that both of ur drawings have interesting head shapes. what ever floats your boat. :]
looks good from there. just keep drawing alot and ull get to where u wanna be
keep up the good work biggrin

Just to answer all of your questions...
If you notice, most anime characters don't have a point. While they are pointy, they aren't a point. Look close and they are very lightly rounded. As for the shape of your first face, the indents of the cheeks are actually really there, but you massively over emphasized them. If you curve at where the cheek bone is (just below they eye line) and draw practically a straight line, then it will give the appearance of the shape going inward.

The only way to get both sides of the chin and both eyes to look the same is just practice unfortunately. Not really much secret to it. Just try your hardest to duplicate the eye mirrored to the best of your ability. A lot about drawing is repetition. Just takes time. Though, I do have to say, this image compared to your last image shows a lot of promise. ^_^.

Ok, Into the critique...


As stated above, the appearance of the cheeks going inward is pretty much a straight line. Depending on how harsh you want it to be depends on how curved it is, and what direction it goes in. (outward for overweight people and inward for super skinny people.)

The neck is still a bit too long, and still has practically no curve to it. Also is a bit too wide (In My Opinion that is.) Look at the image above for my suggestion. The red lines are what I did.

Also, the nose is still slanted quite a bit. (Honestly, it's not that bad depending on the lighting condition, there could seem to be a curve, very similar to yours.) Also, your ears are still a bit small. (move the bottom down some, the shape is good, and where the top of them start is great placement.)

Besides that, only real suggestion is wrinkles and such in clothes. (that's what the lines off to the left of the redlines are. Examples of two types of wrinkles.) Don't get too worked up if you don't get wrinkles right. It takes a long LONG time to get the right number, shape, size, and locations for them.

Lastly; The eyes are a good, nice shape and size, though, I would still experiment a bit more. I see you still have the highlights in there, which is good. I would suggest having some shading difference between the color of the eye, and the pupil. The hair is much better, and the belt for holding the sword's sheath on is great! The elbow on the one arm is a bit funky, but I don't think that you were trying to get that too much.

(O_O.... Big post again. Sorry XD)

I hope this helps you some and didn't put you to sleep. Good luck, and keep at it.

Not a problem. ^_^ Always glad to help.

Good job. It seems like you used guacamole-kun's tutorial, right?
Never be afraid to get help. Its good that you were able to do that, and you have potential.

That being said, I've done a redline as you seem to understandably notice differences better with them.


Notice how the overall drawing is the same as your's, the difference being placement and a few small shapes.

The slope from the forehead to the nose appeared to be too sudden, so I made it more gradual. A face is a complicated thing, its made of many different parts that need to combine a certain way. Try to avoid the mentality of it all being one object.

Next up are the eye and ear. The eye is good (though personally my style uses thicker lids, that's for the artist to decide) but the angle of the eye was slightly slanted upwards, which is an alignment issue. The eye itself was a bit too high up, because of how you made the forehead. The eyebrow was also a bit short, in the sense that it ended around the same size as the eye. The eyebrows are longer than the eyes, or else everyone's eyebrows would be exact matches to the upper eyelid size.

The ear was good, but again, misaligned a bit too high. You have vaguely the right idea, but in translation to profile view (the view of this picture) it became too detached from the jaw.

Because of the alignment issues throughout, the neck is very, very big.
It ends roughly where the ear meets the jaw. Also notice that since this character is male, in profile he will have an Adam's apple (the curve in the redline in the middle of the front side of the neck).

Other than that, its a very good attempt, especially given your limited practice.

Do note however, I did not redline the hair, and for a reason. I'm not very good at properly angling the hairline, so I did not want to give you false information. Despite this I must point out that the hair is overlapped incorrectly near the front; part of the forehead sticks out in front of the hair, which shouldn't be possible.

Hope this helps, and keep at it.

Made two more (in this order.)

Does any1 know a good tute on how to make clothes? Like on the faces it has you do things step by step (Draw circle, make chin, put in eyes etc.) But I don't really know how to do body/clothes

This one i slapped together pretty fast, just to see how much ive improved.

A good thing I found for helping with specific things is an artist that has been posting videos on youtube for a while now. His name is Mark Crilley and he came out with a four part manga recently. (While I've only read the first in the series, all four parts are out) You can view all of his videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/markcrilley as they are very useful.

I've used these to get an idea on stuff I haven't tried before, as well as to help better myself on things I know pretty well (feet, hands, etc.). He has quite a few videos, (61 at the time of this post) and most are how to things. Also, even the "subscriber" videos where all he does is answer typical questions vocally, he draw something in the background so that you can see how he's doing it. (sometimes it's better to see how to do something then to be told how to do it through text.)