For those that don't know, I'm currently working on a new How-to-Draw Tutorial book relating to manga and character art. 113 pages down with another 15 to get done by the end of the year!

My first book 'The Art of Drawing Manga' came out 12 years ago and I still get people come up to me or message to say how much it helped them when they were starting along their artistic journey. Even though back in 2003 I didn't feel I was at an artistic level to be teaching how to draw, I always hoped that it might at least inspire a few beginners to give it a go and I could provide a few words of wisdom and tips and I'd picked up along the way. I'm glad it could help so many :)

For 2016 I'd like 'The Artist's Guide to Drawing Manga' (TAGTDM) to help a new generation of fans learn some useful techniques to create their own manga inspired artwork. Unlike with Youtube tutorials or tutorial web pages in general, my latest book provides the opportunity to detach from the internet and take some time to read through a dedicated resource housing several key learning guides or chapters all in a single package. TAGTDM allows users to either flick through, dip into, or follow from start to finish.

While researching parts of the book via the internet I found a lot of free manga art content online, some of it totally awesome! Although there's also a far more poor quality information which isn't very concise, well written or explained, and so much is scattered throughout the web at different locations. I might find a great tutorial on how to draw a manga eye, but then might need to spend a fair while looking for a tutorial which shows how create a full manga page, then more time finding tips on how to ink or colour my work digitally, or answers certain questions I might have. Web tutorials are often given by different artists who have different approaches to their work, making things confusing for newbies. And they may not have the time to be particularly concise, or have their words copy-edited by someone else. Along with my near 30 years of love for games, comics and animation, I'd expect that if any beginner were to follow TAGTDM from start to finish they'd definitely level up and increase their skills and knowledge. I'd imaging even artists with some experience would be able to gain a few insights also.

Even if people already own a how-to-draw book, or 10, a fresh reminder of how it can be done or reading a different professional artist's take on it can always help :)

Photoshop character composite featuring artwork from my next How-To guide currently in progress. The book will give readers the chance to draw their own versions in 10 simple steps. As these will be from the 'How to draw figures' section, I deliberately gave them figure-hugging outfits to help make things a little easier to understand without baggy clothing or too many drapes and folds interfering with the body shape. Use Digital Manga if you'd like to learn in-depth Photoshop techniques for achieving the same colour results :)

I'm still currently working on my latest 'How-To' guide book due for publication in 2016. Here's a little preview of some of the characters budding artists will be drawing from the book.
The working title for the project- 'The artist's guide to drawing manga'. With so many how-to-draw manga books out already it makes the hardest part just trying to come up with a title which hasn't already been used!

In previous books I'd get some assistance- a few images contributed by other artists, help with parts of the text, or I might at least commission an artist to digitally ink a couple of the images to save me some time. I wanted this one to be 100% my own stuff, for better or worse! Since I'd used my my previous back-catalogue of artwork on Digital Manga, I'm having to create all new stuff within an 8 month deadline while having other projects on the go. A challenge, but already have 89 pages down, with 39 to go :)

[amazon asin=1784040460&template=add to cart]

The project

People have always been impressed with my digital colouring and I've wanted to create a book on how I colour my character art since my last year at uni back in 2007. Finally in 2013 I asked the Publisher of my previous titles if they'd be willing to work on such a project. It got the go ahead, but the idea was slightly altered to make it work. I was so keen to see it out there that I was happy to compromise here and there by dropping a section or two and adding in something else. I had originally wanted to create the page layouts also, but this ended up being assigned to an in-house designer.

The book was finished and Published August 2014 :)

Time

It took a while to complete- the deadline on it was around 4 months to submit both the text and images. I then needed a number of weeks some time later to revise the page layouts and re-check over the edited text.

Initial planning took a few weeks. I had already created a 30 page BLAD (book layout and design) years ago, which helped speed the initial stages up and helped when pitching the idea.

Fortunately, I also already had several finished works to contribute to the book, which would have otherwise taken a good 20 hours a piece.

I worked my own hours- some days spending 15 hours solidly working, others just 4 or 5, but with 160 pages to fill up with well written, fresh content, it was never going to be a breeze. I guess all in, I must have spent a good 500 hours on it.

Effort

I wanted the book to be one of the best things I'd ever produced, so was willing to go above and beyond to get it up to scratch. Unlike my previous book TAODM, Digital Manga needed about 55% more written content and 50% more image content. I also didn't want to use a writing assistant or several image contributions from collaborators this time around so that the work would be 99% my own.

I also took it upon myself to record several of the book's character tutorials, convert them into time lapse videos, then upload them to a web page I'd created along with downloadable content.

Positives

It may not be everyone's cup of tea or it may not be the best instructional book in the world, but I'm really proud of the end result. I've checked out hundreds of online art tutorials, forums and videos over the last decade and know the book is covering all the necessary bases and more whilst drawing upon everything I've learned about Photoshop art creation since I started using it back in 2000.

I'm sure a lot of people will just buy it for the pretty pictures but I really hope people out there get the chance to read it and make use of some of the content I provided. I really want people to learn something and for the book to help with their digital art endeavours.

Problems

The book isn't as perfect as I'd like it to be. Frustratingly there were several errors left in the book. These could have been resolved before it went to print had I been given the opportunity to check out a final proof. I imagine the publishing team were up against deadlines or problems of their own and not as invested into the project, so were not as willing to get it perfect. I will do all that I can to make sure many of these get rectified should the book get reprinted.

I needed to spend a lot of time adjusting or advising upon the page layouts sent to me. There were an unacceptable amount of inconsistencies and some horrendous design choices- use of garish, clashing colours, tacky background images. I tried to think how the book would have ended up had I not insisted on overseeing the layout stages.

I don't yet know if this will be a problem or not, but I imagine sales won't reach the same levels as my previous titles. While the book is, in my opinion, totally awesome and a huge step up from the last ones, I realize Photoshop isn't as accessible to manga fans as a pencil and paper. It's not something for complete novices either and at then end of the day, the book teaches how I work, which might not be to everyone's taste.

Dealing with Publishers

Communication was done completely over email. It was great to have a record of everything sent and received and suited my late working hours.

Although there is this detachment whereby I don't know what is going on their end. Are they also frantically trying to get everything done and staying up until the early hours to do so. Or are they not taking the project as seriously, slapping together a half-arsed job and calling it a day? It can be easy to fear the worst if there is a lack of face to face communication or if there's a problem and I can't talk to the designer, the sales team, the accountant etc. directly and instead everything is going through the editor.

What's Next?

Another tutorial book perhaps? I've been asked to work on something else which has the same kinda of visual impact as Digital Manga, but nothing has been confirmed yet. I've already given my all to this book, so it's hard to know how I can top it until I can start to build up a new portfolio and back catalogue of fresh, full coloured artwork to use in a new title. Until then, I'm looking forward to producing some more artwork and moving onto the next stage of my career :)

Character example for an upcoming book project I'm working on.

Character example for an upcoming book project I'm working on.

Character example for an upcoming book project I'm working on.

Character example for an upcoming book project I'm working on.

Character example for an upcoming book project I'm working on.

Character example for an upcoming book project I'm working on.