Filling pages with manga-style pencil doodles using a 0.5 mechanical pencil loaded with a B lead (which creates a nice dark line similar to a black gel pen) and a 2 mm leadholder loaded with an F lead (which retains its sharp point longer and works well for gradated shading).
When doing these daily practice doodles do not spend much time planning nor worrying about making a perfect finished picture, just start doodling faces, random patterns, favorite subjects, and fill both sides of the sheets to maximize your practice area. Take note of what you like, which of your manga symbols work as intended, and what needs improvement to more clearly convey your visual message. Keep the sketching habit every day during the summer break, and you will rewarded with greater confidence in your drawing skills and increased speed by the time the next school year starts.
Started a 7-lessons Manga Workshop today with a group of Middle School students ages 13 to 14. I asked them to draw these sample sketches to have a benchmark to compare against the drawings that they will be doing by the end of the Manga cartooning course.
Pentel 0.7 mm Mechanical pencils were used to draw all of these sketches.
Update 05-11-09: We had a handful of students added by the second lesson of the Cartooning class, so these are their baseline drawings plus a couple of misfiled doodles by members of the original group.
Struggling a tad finding the right angle to sketch within the tight confines of the airplane cabin. A letter size clipboard is quite useful for holding the 8.5"X11" card stock sheets, providing adequate support, and helping to find the optimal drawing position when use of the stowaway tables is not practical or allowed.
Sketching tools have to be carefully chosen for a mess-free successful productive session when traveling by air: most gel pens and some felt-tip pigmented pens work well within the pressurized cabin environment, but some liquid ink pens like the Koh-I-Noor Nexus pens tend to leak when the cabin pressure changes. For practical reasons, I tend to go with mechanical pencils or 2 mm leadholders for my graphite sketching tools. Sharpening traditional wooden pencils in tight spaces without a convenient waste basket is too much of a hassle.
Few random fantasy characters drawn with a mechanical pencil.
A couple of monster designs inspired by the Meifumado demons from the seinen manga "Lone Wolf & Cub" (Samurai-style Manga made for adult male readers).
Pen sketch loosely inspired by Greek myths. Always seem to drift towards Ray Harryhausen's visual effects style in "Clash o the Titans" when tackling this type of subjects.
Egyptian designs are quite popular sources of inspiration for fantasy sketches.
Mochica inspired scene sketched with a gel pen.
This dragon sketch was drawn last as the plane approached the Miami airport.
The 0.7 mm mechanical pencil was used to sketch a few random Manga characters. The 0.7 mm HB graphite lead is reasonably strong and does not break as easily as the 0.5 mm leads.
Laying down some basic shadows with the Cool Grey III and Warm Grey III Pitt Artist brush pens.
Using the Faber Castell Pitt Artist pens (Shonen Manga palette) to lay down the base colors of the hair and outfit, and reserving the Light Flesh #132 to color the basic skin tone.
The smallest nib size S Faber Castell Pitt Artist pigment liner pen was chosen to outline the delicate facial features.
Using the intermediate nib size F Faber Castell Pitt pigment liner pen for the sweater and hair strands.
Rendering the figure's bold exterior outline with the Faber Castell Pitt Artist black pen.
Tidying up and filling in some missed spots from the earlier rough coloring stage.
Finished sample sketch. In this sketching approach the original pencil marks still show through some of the lighter translucent color areas like the forehead. For a cleaner finished look, modify the sequence of steps: 1. draw the pencil outline > 2. ink with pigment liners from smallest to largest nib > 3. render bold exterior outline with brush pen > 4. clean ink outline by erasing all remaining visible pencil marks with a plastic eraser > 5. Color the black and white sketch after allowing the black outlines to dry (or color over a photocopy to try different color combinations) > 6. Add some shadows with the Cool and Warm Grey III Pitt pens.
Practicing some quick face symbols with 2 mm lead holders loaded with F and HB leads.
Doodling with a Uni-ball Shift Pipe Lock 0.5 mm Mechanical Pencil on another sheet of Xerox 67# Ivory Vellum Cover.
Just a few dragon warm-up doodles.
For action-figure style doodles, it's usually easier to start the head and build each figure down limb by limb using simplified cylinder shapes.
Trying out 0.3 mm and 0.5 mm mechanical pencils and a few leads of different hardness. They all showed fairly well on this card stock support, and the smaller 0.3 mm dig not dig excessively into it.
Doodling with a Faber Castell Pitt Big Brush Artist pen on sheets of Xerox 67# Canary Vellum Cover
Basic figure construction doodles.
Warm up doodles page working out initial construction of some merfolk with a Pilot G-2 05 mechanical pencil. While boys tend not to be interested in being depicted as half human/half fish hybrids as much as much as girls, sketching tritons (the male counterparts to mermaids) can help round up the cast of characters for any story involving merfolk.
Doodling possible versions of Triton, mythological character (son of Neptune or Poseidon) with the head and upper torso of a man and a fish tail for lower body and occasionally depicted with horse forefeet attached to the front. Notice how the swirly warm up doodles come in handy as shorthand symbols to suggest turbulent waters by strategically placing them in the background.
0.5 mm HB mechanical pencil doodle warm up sheet.
Warm up doodles using a Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pen M. Drawing random curves and spiral patterns is a good preliminary exercise for creating graceful cartoon mermaids.
A few of my simplified symbols for mermaids' pets and friends. I recommend sketching your own after visiting an aquarium or watching a marine nature show.
Posts
All Comments
