Essential Manga and Anime art supplies that you should have

Anime, like any other artwork, needs a few essential art supplies like pencils, pen, and paint brushes among others. Let’s explore some of them.

Paper Pencil for rough linework: Use H, HB, or B pencils, depending on the darkness you desire to have in your work.

Mechanical pencils for precision work: Use varying lead diameter to add depth to your lines.

Pen and ink or marker pens and ball pens: Marker pens are usually the cheaper amateur version of pen and ink. However, even professional artists use markers to give life to their artworks.

Paintbrushes: A lot of artists use brushes for their linework and coloring. A stable hand is mandatory if you dare to use brushes for drawing your outlines.

Inks: Try to use the best quality ink to make your art looks exceptional. You can use Indian ink, drawing ink, or industrial ink.

White ink: These are used to add details and highlights to your drawing. They can also be used to correct inking mistakes.

At the end of the day, all that matters is your desire to draw. Get a piece of paper and a pen and draw your heart out.

Drawing Anime Characters: What Beginners Should Know

If you are an otaku, you would have tried to recreate your favorite manga characters. Drawing a brand new anime character is not as easy as copying an existing one.

Let’s Discuss some basics of drawing anime characters.

Use construction lines and guides: Be it body or the face of the character, guides help you to set its form and stance.

Draw from large to small: Use rough sketches to plan the whole structure first, rather than starting from the face and building the rest of the body eventually.

Work on Different Elements: Work on different elements of the drawing simultaneously so that mistakes can be noticed easily.

Draw hidden parts too: Some elements of the drawing will be hidden in the final artwork. Do not forget to draw them in your basic sketch. This step helps to maintain the proportion of each element.

Observe: Watch a lot of anime movies and series, read tons of manga, and study the characters and their styles. Observe their face structure, anatomy, clothing, and stance to get inspiration for drawing your anime characters.

Do not hold back your urge to draw anymore. Grab your art supplies and create your character now.

Steps to Draw Chibi Anime Characters

Chibi is an Anime character drawing that’s usually two to four heads tall. They have an expressive face and cute appearance as well. Chibi has been a widely adored form of Anime and here are some tips to draw the characters.

Drawing the head: Chibi heads are spherical. Features on the face are usually smooth and rounded. Eyes are big and distinctly expressive. Hair is made voluminous. Draw the linework as simple as possible. However, be careful to emphasize the unique features like eyes, hairstyle, among others of the character.

Drawing the body: The body is usually too small to support the head. No basic principles of anatomy have to be followed when drawing a Chibi. Place the features to create a balance between the torso and legs. Many times necks are omitted in a Chibi drawing. Shoulders are rounded with a simple torso, arms, and legs. Bodies are usually as uni-sexual, without any specific feature standing out.

With simple lines and minimal features, Chibis are super easy to draw and super cute in appearance. This is why much popular anime series in Japan has an equally popular Chibi version too.

Common Anime Drawing Mistakes and Tips To Avoid Them

Anime looks very easy to draw. But, a few mistakes can reduce the overall quality of the drawing. Some common mistakes are:

Wobbly line work: The line work should be made as a single line stroke. Multiple strokes and wobbly lines are a big no-no. To solve this issue, you should draw by moving your shoulder or elbow instead of your wrist, and practice a lot.

Poor color choices: Colors should not blend in with the outline. Use colors that will let the black linework stand out too.

Misaligned parts: This mistake mostly occurs when a part of the drawing is hidden. Misalignment gives an odd appearance to the artwork. To solve this, one can sketch the whole object lightly using a pencil first, and erase it afterward.

Confusing styles: Sometimes, people tend to confuse many similar methods of drawing with anime. Use references from existing manga series and anime movies to solve this.

Odd perspective: Perspective can be tricky when it comes to Anime drawings. The wrong perspectives could give an odd appearance to both characters and backgrounds. Use grid-lines to solve this issue.

Master the art of manga drawing by carefully avoiding these common mistakes.