ANIME USA - guest speaker/ Chisuji, How To Draw Panels
NEKOCON - maybe a one-day affair. Limited funds, you know.

Last time in my journal, I offered to make a tutorial on how to draw. Not even counting that, I get a LOT of emails and DA notes asking "how to draw anime style" or to critique and evaluate their progress. I'm honored to be asked so much, but it always seems like any person who's ever asked me that, only has a few years of practice under their belt. It's hard to reply when the only response I can think is... "Try harder?" So, I thought I'd clear the air (or cloud it up more, depending on how it's taken...) by trying to answer this common question for real:


Q: "How do you draw anime/manga style?"
A: Stop trying so hard. Learn to draw first. YOUR style, will come to you.

"Your style will come to you."
That I think is the beauty of art in general. When all your work and practice, skill and confidence comes together, it's as much a technical marvel as it is a personal and individual signature. Its your fingerprint. Its unmistakable.


I have been drawing since I was five years old. That's 1983. I've taken an art class for all grades of school that offered (there was no art classes for me when I was kindergarten through 2nd grade.)
I passed all prerequisites for college level visual arts in:
-Illustration (pencil, charcoal, still lives, photorealism, speed, etc.)
-Art History
-Modern Art Theory
-Color Theory and Painting
-Sculpture
-Digital Art (photoshop, premier, illustrator, painter, quark xpress, etc)
-Digital Media (video editing, post production)
-Photography (all 35mm, some digital)
-3D Modelling & Animation (maya 3.5)
not counting a variety of other classes that added to and related to art instruction, notably a doctorate level Human Anatomy and Physiology course (failed w/ 53%) blueprint draftsmanship (in 7th grade!), and even a modern interpretive dance course! I didn't start drawing human forms until 1996. I've drawn manga/anime/game related art, seriously and repeatedly, since 1993. I've only felt confident about it up until 2004.
---
Think about that last one. Started in 1993. More than a decade later and only now do I feel like I've cornered (NOT MASTERED) it.
And you know as well as I do that I'm NOT an expert! (look at my favorites list for evidence!)

Now, there's already a TON of debate, and endless discussions, arguments, flame wars, blah blah blah, whole chunks of Internet and several books about anime/manga style and how to get it, and where to get it, and everything. I could rant and prattle for hours and type several thousand words about it. But I'm trying to be nice and not punish you all with that, really!

I think the most important thing that anyone, ANYONE should try to remember is that whether you've taken a hundred courses, or never once set foot in a classroom; if you're damned certain to become a career animator or comic book illustrator or if you just draw for sake of drawing and have no desire beyond that...

Create art that satisfies you and communicates what your mind's eye sees. That's it.

I'm NOT going to tell anyone how to get a style. Mine came after many, many, MANY years of repeated experimentations, research, COLOSSAL FRUSTRATION, DISAPPOINTMENT, and FAILURE. There was a constant barrage of outside opinion that basically said that this form of art is career suicide (and it can be!) That's not even counting the fact that anime/manga styled art isn't even one universal 'style' but a cross section of numerous individual tastes:
[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]

I payed attention, passed what classes I could, learned the basics of ILLUSTRATION, even kept a mental laundry list of artists I like and practice from. I tried through observation to get in my favorite artists' heads and learn through their art how they think and how they work, and slowly, but surely, those lessons were reinforced in my own work into what you see today.
It didn't pave the way for a career until... shoot, right now! My time was spent in offices and at interviews proving that there's MORE to my work than it's Japanese flavoring (this DA site only has several hundred of THOUSANDS of art pieces I've done since... 2002!)

I will be more than happy to share my experience, my knowledge of structure, and anatomy, and even more (if you ask nice.)
I'd LOVE to get into some real artsy discussions and sharpen the old dulled art-brain I've got! I hope you all will find this advice useful.


But there it is. Anime style is not easy. Won't ever be. That's art.

-CB

COMMISSIONS:

Drider COMPLETED, TO BE SHIPPED
Tira IN DEVELOPMENT
original request IN DEVELOPMENT
NEW! challenge request IN DEVELOPMENT

Want a Crybringer original or more? cosmo_babylon@yahoo.com

---------

TRADES AND KIRIBANS:

--200,000th kiriban
--Ropha trade
--Princess Tara collab
--Xixa trade
--original characters

---------

SEE MY PAGES @ CHISUJI.COM
[link]
13/20 COMPLETED.

---------

CONVENTION SEASON IS HERE:

Anime USA, Virgina: TBA
Nekocon, Virginia Beach VA: TBA