First of all, I am not a fantastic artist. I don’t own any “how to draw” books, be it on anatomy or manga or otherwise. I have never had any art training. I have never had any any graphic design training. At school, I dropped art the moment I could — in fact, I despised it as a subject. I have not studied life drawing. I have not studied composition, colour, different materials, etc. I don’t doodle in my spare time either. I didn’t even doodle in class when I was bored. I produced art when I needed to for school assignments and other things, but I had no real interest in it.

 

So when I was 18 and decided I wanted to draw a manga, it was as surprising to me as it were to everyone else. When that first story (“Shirley’s Story”) popped into my head, I didn’t know where to start, or even what kind of paper to use. I drew it on A4 computer paper (because it was handy), with fine-liners (because I didn’t yet know what “pen and ink” was). And that was that. My next story was drawn in exactly the same way. It wasn’t only until I did some research on the internet and met other artists, that I began to know more about style, techniques, and the tools of the trade.

 

But none of that matters. After all, the essence of manga/comics is not so much the art, but the story-telling, themes and pacing. These three are what you should concentrate on when trying to tell a story — any story, not just manga/comics. It’s great if you can draw nice art, but you shouldn’t start drawing a manga/comic with that in mind. When I start a story, my main priorities are the story and how to tell it. The art is a vehicle to the story — art alone cannot make people care.

 

I say this because I often get emails from comic-artist wannabes who tell me “I tried drawing a manga/comic once, but I never finished it/gave up after 2 pages/it was too long. I really admire your perseverence”. Well, I persevered not because I started off wanting to be a great comic-aartist and drawing “cool comics” (though that crossed my mind more than several times), but because I had a story I wanted to tell, and wanted to tell it in comic format.

 

So many people buy all the “right” equipment, all the “right” drawing books and start off with great ideals — then fail because what happens on the page doesn’t look as great as what they picture in their minds. Well, the key here is to not let that bother you and continue drawing. When I first started, what I drew looked nothing like what I had in my mind, but what I draw now is getting closer. Reality will never be as good as what you see in your imagination, but closing the gap requires patience, skill and hard work. You’ll never succeed in anything if you give up after one or two tries and find you’re not a natural-born talent. Even natural-born talent requires patience and hard work.

 

Last Updated: 11th November, 2018