The last step, the color!

In How to draw a manga girl? (part 1) and How to draw a manga girl? (part 2), we have seen how to build the body, how to move it, how to draw the face, the clothes and the accessories. In this last part, we are going to color our manga girl, and for that, we must first understand the shadows.

Drawing the outline

There is an infinite number of drawing techniques, but the one used in illustration, to change paper and not keep the draft which is often dirty, is to transfer the drawing with a light table on a clean and quality sheet. In the manga drawing, we will make a fine outline with a pen and ink. Here we used a muji 0.38 pen.

Drawing the shadows

To understand where the shadows are going to be, you need to imagine where the light source is. Now imagine that this sun, or lamp, is throwing water and imagine that your character is getting wet from the light. Well, wherever it gets wet, the color will be light, and wherever it stays dry because the water couldn't reach those places, the color will be darker.

The Color

Once you understand where the shadows will come from, you can start applying the color. Always start with the lightest color and apply it everywhere except where there are whites.

Never forget to test youre color before to put it on youre final drawing.

Then choose a darker color and apply it where there are shadows.

Here we used watercolor but you can use alcohol markers if you want a cleaner look with less streaks. It is also possible to make less traces by working more with watercolor, using more water and smoothing well.

In manga drawings, shadows are often very sharp, placed under the clothes, under the eyebrows, under the chin, under the nose and slightly on the side of the body and face opposite the sun.

But if you want, you can soften those sharp shadows a bit by passing a color between the two tones.

Play with the shades of color, from light to dark to add volume. For example here, in the hair, there are three shades of yellow so that the lightest yellow is where the sun brightens the hair with its light.

Digital coloring

The drawings you see were most often made with a graphic tablet and colored digitally. It is almost impossible to get such a smooth result so quickly by hand. If you want to try, you can start by downloading a drawing program or simply scan your drawing and download a program like Photoshop then fill in the areas with the paint pot tool, then add the shadow with the brush tool.

And that's it, it's already the end of "How to draw a manga girl". I hope you liked all this, I hope you made up a great manga girl!

If you still want to look at other articles: how to draw manga eyes, how to draw the mouth, how to draw a nose, how to draw manga hair, how to draw feet, how to draw hands.

To improve your drawing techniques, nothing is better than to practice regularly and even better, to be accompanied by a professional. If you wish to take drawing classes, don't hesitate to sign up for the manga drawing classes to learn how to draw your favorite characters and perfect your drawing techniques in Lausanne, Morges, Montreux, Bienne and Delémont. And to deepen your knowledge even more, you can take part in the comic/manga drawing vacation camps that take place throughout French-speaking Switzerland during the school vacations!