How to Give an Anime Drawing Workshop

I put together an anime drawing workshop to present at three libraries this summer. This is an easy one hour workshop for ages 10 and older. You don't need to be a manga artist to be able to put this on. It's fun, easy, and lets kids make pretty anime pictures right from the start

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Printouts of anime character templates. I use Manga Studio Power Templates
• Tracing paper
• Pencils
• Erasers
• Copies of manga graphic novels appropriate for all ages.

1. 
    
   Copyright Content Paradise

   Print out copies of a face from Manga Studio Power Templates volume 2. You can also create your own template to use. You want to give the kids a blank anime character that they can trace their own ideas on. See the example picture.

2. Bring the printouts to your Manga workshop. Hand them out with tracing paper, pencils, and erasers. Have the participants put the tracing paper over the template.

3. Demonstrate different ways they can draw anime hair on the tracing paper above the template. You should have all-ages manga available for the participants to flip through for manga character hair ideas. Do hair first since it's going to block other elements on the face.

4. Demonstrate drawing an anime ear. Ears are not terribly unique from manga to manga. For this part they should just trace the template exactly.

5. Demonstrate different ways they can draw anime eyes. Show them how different anime eyes can be by comparing Naruto eyes to Fruit Basket or Bleach manga eyes. Use use whatever sample manga you have. Make sure the participants draw their anime eyes over the template eyes and have them be at least as big as in their guide.

6. 
    
   A finished example.

   Demonstrate the anime nose, mouth, and chin. Then have the participants finish up with the neck and shoulders. Now they should have a pretty good looking anime character head and shoulders. If there's time do an anime figure template.

Tips & Warnings

• Let the participants draw their character how they want. They can even draw their favorite manga or anime character.
• If a projector is available I like to take my laptop and present the workshop with computer slides. It helps to have a tablet PC for this.
• Don't let very young kids participate in the workshop. This is an activity for kids, teens, and young adults who are fans of anime and manga.

Resources

• Here's the Template I used. You don't need Manga Studio to use it. It's just a gallery of jpeg files.