How to Take an Anime Drawing Workshop

The beautiful wide-eyed characters of anime and manga have captured the hearts and minds of people the world over. This form of animation, first popularized in Japan in the first half of the 20th century, has gained acceptance as an animated genre in comic books, films and television shows. More art classes now offer anime drawing. Here's how to take an anime drawing workshop to hone your skills.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Take an online anime drawing tutorial. One of the best online lessons can be found at the How To Draw Manga website (see Resources below). By taking an online lesson, you'll find out if you have a feel for this drawing style before committing to an art school class or workshop.

2. Imitate the styles of your favorite anime artists. If you have a character you admire, try drawing it until you feel ready to tackle other characters. Or try drawing a variety of characters like Perfect Girl Evolution, Twelve Kingdoms or Dramacon. The examples could fill up pages. The more you imitate others, the more likely you are to develop your own anime style eventually.

3. Be yourself. Don't try to copy your instructor's technique, but learn from it. Don't compare your progress with that of other students. Artists progress at different paces in the drawing workshop.

4. Graduate from drawing characters to compiling your own story lines. Learn lettering and shading to compliment your anime drawing.

5. Coordinate an art show featuring work from your classes or submit them to anime markets or publishers like Tokyopop (see Resources below).

Resources

• How to Draw Manga website
• Tokyopop website