Drawing Manga - Manga-Style Inking

Alright, as I've stated before, manga inking is a lot more detailed than your regular ink.

Shading and rendering is often done with ink, using hatching, cross-hatching, kake, or solid blacks. Here are some examples:


*Note- The last one doesn't always scan in well. :(


With that in mind, let's start with a basic ink.




Being the genious that I am, I've recalled that my new scanner is also a printer and copier, so I'll keep using Kurtis for this tut.

Since there are a billion and one ways you could do the hair, we'll start with the skin.




Now, there are several areas that can be rendered here. Normally, I do the nose, shadow of the chin, and the neck/shoulder area, which I've conveniently circled in red.
The way you render depends mainly on personal prefrence. My prefence is generally based on what looks best with my style or how stylistic I'm feeling.




And here we have the image rendered four (4) different ways. The first is how I'd normally do it, the rest show other techniques one could use. (Click to enlarge)

And now on to hair. :)




As I said, there are tons of ways to do the hair. Again, the first is how I do his hair. A solid black can also be used, though most opt for some sort of highlights. The third is how a lot of Korean artists do it, putting the black on the bottom and keeping the top white. Very cool. The last is blonde or light-colored shiny hair.




For rendering shiny hair like this, first divide the hair into sections (Blue). Then, ink in a bunch of little lines through your sections (Green).
You can add as many or few marks as you like.


Pretty much every artist has their own way of rendering. 
Your best bet is probably going to be trying out many different things, until you find what works for you.


On to the next Tut - DM- Manga Inks 2

Back to Inking Top - DM- Inking

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