Transcription
Manga art is just so damn epic, especially when you remember that most of these artists are literally just selftaught. So, today we're going to explore how they taught themselves to draw as well as how they got so obsessive with it in the first place and how we can emulate a bunch of that to improve at drawing.
Now, Kishimoto, the guy who did Naruto, had a very interesting art journey. See, although he went to art school, he stated that it was kind of a waste of time for him and held him back because his self-study of art is what improved his skill the most. Not just him, he goes on to state that most mangakas, most manga artists get a majority of their skill from self-study. And so to understand exactly how they did it, let's look at this mangaka Akashagi who described his process. So when he was still in the period in his life where he was building his drawing skills, what he do is he took panels from his favorite mangas like Hajime or something like that, recreate it and then lay his drawing right beside the original. And this is where he would do the analysis, right? the direct comparison to try and understand the exact things, the exact aspects that were separating his drawing from the original. And the thing with something like this is that over time you start to notice certain patterns and like, hey, here's how the best mangakas tend to do their line art. Here's how they tend to do their hatching. Here's how they tend to simplify the human forms, you know, stuff like that. And so you can imagine for Akashagi as time goes on he gradually began implementing all of these teeny tiny stuff into his work and it obviously adds up which sounds so simplistic and obvious but when you think about it considering how so many of the best monas got so much of their skill by doing something as simple as this it just makes you wonder like damn bro is that the secret series is really that simple like huh?
Well, obviously there's a lot more to it because sure, this whole self-study thing is great. And we will go into all the different ways that you can actually implement this in your own art, but none of this would have mattered if they weren't actually drawing consistently. So, let's go into that how dedicated these guys were, as well as how we can mirror it.
Now, a consensus top five mangaka of all time has to be Kentara Mera, the guy who did Berserk, because Berserk has some of the most mind-boggling manga drawings that you're literally ever going to see. So, the thing with Mera is that he got really obsessed with drawing from a really early age. So much so that when he was still in like elementary school or something, he started a weekly manga section in his school's newspaper which ran for like dozens of volumes, which is kind of the most perfect thing that could have happened for his art. Because that's another thing with like damn near all manga artists is that there's always like a stretch, a certain period of time in their life where they're just all in and just drawing and drawing and drawing. And not because drawing is drawing a lot is like the only key to getting better or whatever, but it's more about how it can literally change the way your brain interacts with the act of drawing. And what I mean by that and what I mean by that is like, okay, I've delved into it in a couple older videos. I mean, they're okay videos if you really want to go and watch them. You don't you don't have to watch them, but like here's a basic rundown.
So, obviously, like you have to get this out the way. The thing with a lot of manga artists is that they have deadlines, external deadlines that their entire livelihood is riding on. So, of course, they're going to be drawing all the time, but to even get to the point where they're good enough to be serialized in like a manga magazine, they had to obviously have been practicing consistently. And the reason I really want to emphasize this is because this kind of thing like inconsistency and demotivation to draw and stuff like that is one of the most common complaints I see people make. But something you will notice is when you listen to manga artists talk about their earlier days where they're just drawing a lot and trying to get better. The thing you'll notice is that they don't it's like they don't it's like drawing isn't like some activity to them that requires like a spark of inspiration or that they have to like drive themselves to do. It's just something that is done. It's just a regular habit in the day. Just kind of like how you brush your teeth every day. You don't need to watch a YouTube video on how to be motivated to brush your teeth every day. Just an autopilot. You literally just brush your teeth every day. Right. Right. And so the way I see it, that should be the end goal of the drawing as well, just to make it a regular habit in the day. Something you don't need to think about. You don't have to motivate yourself to do it or you just do it, you know?
Now, I just want to go over this a little bit. Now, you may have heard of the 80/20 rule, which is the idea that 80% of all the results you want in something will come from doing 20% of the stuff, right? Basically saying that things are not that complicated for literally anything. And so if for mangakas we can say that their 20% is proper self-study and drawing consistently then how do we adopt that for ourselves because even if you don't want to be a manga artist they're obviously super duper duper good and there's obviously a bunch to learn from them. So let's start with that manga level of consistency. How do we get to that? So it's kind of funky. You know how you might have experienced those moments where you know you want to draw but you just can't get yourself to do it. Like for some reason your brain just isn't cooperating with itself. See scenarios like those are kind of like unavoidable. you you can't skip them. They're canon events. Basically, the thing is with that like friction you feel where you really you want to do it, but you also can't get yourself to do it. That friction, no matter what motivation videos or tactics you use or whatever, there's literally only one way to get rid of it, which is just to kind of punch your brain in the face and make yourself do it. Literally, just force yourself to draw when you don't feel like it, which sounds overly simplistic, like, huh, if you don't feel like drawing, bro, just just just make yourself draw more often. But but there that's kind of like like there's there's really like nothing else you can do. Like you can't just wait for spark or motivation to come. It's not going to come. Bro, it's kind of not a bad thing that that's the way like our brains just work because that friction you feel doesn't really last very long. Like if you force yourself to draw when you don't feel like it. You won't be forcing yourself to draw for like an hour. That friction might last for like the first 3, four, five minutes or something like that, then after that you'll get into a groove of things. And the beautifulst thing is that when you zoom out and look at a longer time span, if you have to force force yourself to start drawing like for two days in a row, three days in a row, the more you force yourself to do it, the less you're going to need to be forcing yourself to do it because the act of drawing regularly is just going to be something your brain gets used to doing.
So the basic summary is that to get that manga level consistency, well, first of all, you have to like kind of set a time in your day. That is something that does help. Like just set a time in your day and just bite yourself in the balls. The more you just force yourself to do it, the less you need. And I kind of feel weird saying that cuz I I really wish there was some hack I could give you. I mean, in the videos I've made about it, I do talk about some things you can do, but like they're kind of just things you can do, but they're not going to like solve it. Like, you just have to no matter no matter what tactics you use. Yeah, of course. So, I've said that so many times, but just it's just because of how true it is. Oh god, I wish our brains had like some I wish you could just configure it like a computer. It would be so much easier. But I think a slight comfort we can have is that it's just that initial hump that's really hard to get over. Keeping a momentum is really easy. It's just like getting momentum is just really hard, you know? So, it's really that initial hump that's really hard, but once you get over that initial hump, it's a lot easier to be consistent, you know?
And that ties in really nicely to self-studying because again, you can be consistent all you want. If you aren't if you aren't actually studying properly, then what's the point, right? Here, let me tell you how I've implemented what I've learned about how monks study. I'll tell you how I've implemented it into how I do things and then you can judge me for it. Okay? Yeah. So, for example, I really like how certain manga codes draw. Like I like how Murder from Punch Man, I like how he draws. Uh Sakamoto from The Climber, I like how he draws. Even though sometimes it gives a character really long necks and dry lips, it's like, "Bro, what are you doing?" But just look, it just feels so right. So, I like it anyway, you know. So, when I want to work on something drawing specific, like, you know, I want to see how these artists, if I want to see how these artists simplify certain stuff, you know, I'll look into how they do things. But when I want to work on something else, maybe something that maybe I want to work on my understanding of values or color, literally anything else that's not seen in mangas, then I'll look at other artists. Maybe I'll look at like guays on Instagram or I'll scroll on uh Pinterest. I kind of scroll through to see pieces of art that do specific things how I want to be doing it. You know what I mean? So I look at different art that do specific aspects in the way I I in ways that I like and then I study that specific aspect from them. And when I'm studying a different aspect, I might look at different art. You know what I mean? So, I'm sampling from a bunch of different art styles instead of just studying one kind of art style. Um, which I don't know if that's better or worse. Um, who knows? And I'd say the main thing I've learned from like the mangakas thing, like the mangaka story I gave earlier is that real emphasis on the subsequent analysis. So, you know, you have a reference, you redraw it or something or you repaint it. and then doing that analysis. Usually what I what I would usually do is I'd maybe take some notes on things I recognized, but I wouldn't go as indepth as I would have liked or I wouldn't have like thought about as deeply as I should have. So I'd say that's like the main thing I've had to bang into my head ever since like diving more into how mangas do their thing. So you know that's kind of cool. Again, I'm not sure if this broader way of like looking at different art styles is better than just looking at I mean if my goal was to be a mangaka, I'd probably mainly study manga artists. Even manga artists look at different stuff like Tay Kubo, the guy who does bleach. Uh he he studies a lot of fashion magazines. That's why Bleach characters have the best drip in the entire game. It's kind of not even close, you know. But generally manga artists tend to study mainly manga artists because they want want to be manga artists.
Yo, so I forgot to mention something. So when I was talking about Akushinko, right, the manga who would take the manga panels and then he would recreate them and then study the differences. So another thing that he talked about doing was he would take he'd obviously have his drawing, he'd have the reference and then he'd also take like his older drawings and put all three side by side by side to kind of like see the differences. I think I just think that's cool. It's also like inherently more positive when you really think about it because because whenever you do like a study, you know, you're you're taking your current drawing and then you're comparing it to the reference. And obviously, your drawing probably won't be on par with the reference. So, you're always going to be looking at the things you're getting wrong, like, oh, I'm getting this wrong, I'm getting that wrong. But if you're taking your older drawings and you're comparing them to your current drawings, it's going to be more positive cuz it's like, oh, I've gotten better at this, I've gotten better at this, and I've gotten better at this. Which is kind of cool, right? Unless you haven't gotten better at anything, which which you know kind of sucks. Or if you've gotten worse, that also kind of sucks. Um, but yeah, I just wanted to say that it's kind of cool. So, I'll keep up this more broad thing where I'm studying different kinds of art for specific stuff. Maybe in the future I'll make a video on it where I show the results, discuss the results, results. So yeah, studying really good artists and being consistent with drawing accounts for like probably 80% or whatever of how Monas gets so super duper.