I’ve always wanted to learn how to draw using the anime or manga technique. I was fascinated with the style long before it became as popular as it is in North America now. I didn’t know that it was called “anime” or “manga”, but I found the fantasy, cartoon-like images to be captivating.

Manga, literally translated, means “whimsical pictures”. The word first came into common usage in the late 18th century. (from Wikipedia) Most people think of manga as comic books drawn in the Japanese style. The fact is, they pictures are usually whimsical, even when they depict something as gory as decapitation – a subject that could well be the theme of a manga illustration.

Of course, being somewhat compulsive and obsessive, once a thought strikes me, it consumes me. My life will not have any meaning until I have completed at least one picture.

And it’s a lot harder than it looks.

I don’t want to just “copy” a picture. I want to make one of my own. My first idea was to draw it on the computer. That didn’t turn out so well. The lines were too jerky, and it just didn’t feel like drawing. Then I decided to use pencil and paper. Too many eraser marks and smudges, probably because I don’t know what I’m doing, and because I haven’t done that type of thing for some time. I scanned a couple of pencil drawings and tried touching them up on the computer. That didn’t work as well as I hoped.

So, I sent my feeble attempts to my son (ain’t the internet wonderful?) to ask his opinion and advice.

He pointed out a few areas that might help me out. He suggested I should work work on the eyes and shape of the head, the facial expressions, nose, mouth, body, legs, arms and hands. The hair was a little out, and the clothes weren’t quite right, and I should really consider attaching feet to the legs. And, last but not least, the boobs on the girl were too small.

I realized from this critique, that I was actually pretty close to having it perfect.

So, after deleting all of the old files and shredding all of the paper, I managed to come up with this:

Anime girl with pink hair

This attempt was drawn from scratch using the computer, and my trusty old Wacom drawing tablet. I’m not a big Photoshop user, so I used the Gimp as the drawing program.

And yes, I know theres no boobs, arms, legs, body, hands, feet or clothes. I’ll get to them eventually.