While there are many courses and tutorials online, learning from a book is still one of the best ways to greatly improve your skills. Below I have selected top Manga Drawing books.
- The Master Guide to Drawing Anime: How to Draw Original Characters from Simple Templates (2015)
- Mastering Manga with Mark Crilley: 30 drawing lessons from the creator of Akiko (2012)
- The Manga Fashion Bible: The Go-To Guide for Drawing Stylish Outfits and Characters (2016)
- The Master Guide to Drawing Anime: Amazing Girls: How to Draw Essential Character Types from Simple Templates (2017)
- The Complete Guide to Drawing Action Manga: A Step-by-Step Artist’s Handbook (2019)
- The Master Guide to Drawing Anime: Tips & Tricks: Over 100 Essential Techniques to Sharpen Your Skills (2018)
- How o Draw Manga: The Ultimate Guide for Drawing Female Manga Characters (2019)
- Draw Manga Faces for Expressive Characters: Learn to Draw More Than 900 Faces (2015)
- Kids Draw Big Book of Everything Manga (2009)
- How to Draw Manga: Basics and Beyond! (2019)
- Pop Manga Drawing: 30 Step-by-Step Lessons for Pencil Drawing in the Pop Surrealism Style (2019)
- Manga for the Beginner: Everything you Need to Start Drawing Anime and Manga Step by Step. Part 1 (Anime and Manga Drawing Step by Step) (2019)
- Pop Manga: How to Draw the Coolest, Cutest Characters, Animals, Mascots, and More (2013)
- Manga Crash Course: Drawing Manga Characters and Scenes from Start to Finish (2015)
- Manga for the Beginner: Everything you Need to Start Drawing Right Away! (Christopher Hart’s Manga for the Beginner) (2008)
The Master Guide to Drawing Anime: How to Draw Original Characters from Simple Templates (2015)
Nothing brings anime artists more satisfaction than creating original characters to use in a comic strip or graphic novel. Bestselling how-to-draw author Christopher Hart helps them reach this goal by providing insight into the six most popular anime types: schoolgirls, schoolboys, preteens, vengeful bad guys, humorous personalities, and fantasy figures.
Mastering Manga with Mark Crilley: 30 drawing lessons from the creator of Akiko (2012)
There’s more to manga than big, shiny eyes and funky hair. In these action-packed pages, graphic novelist shows you step-by-step how to achieve an authentic manga style—from drawing faces and figures to laying out awesome, high-drama spreads. You’ll learn how a few basic lines will help you place facial features in their proper locations and simple tricks for getting body proportions right.
The Manga Fashion Bible: The Go-To Guide for Drawing Stylish Outfits and Characters (2016)
Bestselling author Christopher Hart goes “manga chic” with this guide to drawing the edgy fashions found in the popular Japanese genre. Packed with tutorials, his stylish drawing bible offers many enticing projects for aspiring artists, from creating classic outfits worn by popular manga characters to depicting the newest trends emerging from Tokyo.
The Master Guide to Drawing Anime: Amazing Girls: How to Draw Essential Character Types from Simple Templates (2017)
Learn all the ins and outs of drawing stunning manga heroines, schoolgirls, and fantasy characters! In his follow-up to the bestselling Master Guide to Drawing Anime, Christopher Hart focuses on some of the popular, dynamic, and beautiful females who populate the world of anime. Basic templates make it easy to draw the head, hairstyles, clothing, body proportions, and more, while tutorials help you create full-blown scenes that will take your art to the next level.
The Complete Guide to Drawing Action Manga: A Step-by-Step Artist’s Handbook (2019)
The comprehensive introduction first shows the reader the physical anatomy of male vs. female figures and gives important tips on proportions, perspective and small but often-overlooked details such as the relative differences between male and female hands, fingers and feet.
The Master Guide to Drawing Anime: Tips & Tricks: Over 100 Essential Techniques to Sharpen Your Skills (2018)
This is the guide that all anime and manga artists—of any level—need! Chris Hart delves deep into the specifics of drawing anime characters and scenes and explores every aspect of anime forms. He reveals his secrets for composing a complete picture, and discusses rarely covered topics.
How o Draw Manga: The Ultimate Guide for Drawing Female Manga Characters (2019)
This book shows the techniques for drawing charming feminine characters and fully explains a woman’s range of poses and the expression of the bodyline. Also, clothes, accessories, make-up, and various other materials and how they rest on the body are thoroughly explained.
Draw Manga Faces for Expressive Characters: Learn to Draw More Than 900 Faces (2015)
Learn to draw the most expressive manga faces ever!Sure, drawing faces is one of the most challenging aspects of manga. But Draw Manga Faces for Expressive Characters is here to help!
Kids Draw Big Book of Everything Manga (2009)
• Bumper book of 256 manga-packed pages • Learn to draw manga, step by step • One gigantic celebration of manga mania Kids are drawn to manga like magnets, and Christopher Hart’s manga books are among the hottest sellers of all books, with more than 2.5 million copies in print. Now Watson-Guptill has gathered Hart’s four best-selling Kids Draw books and combined them into one giant manga book.
How to Draw Manga: Basics and Beyond! (2019)
You want to draw manga, and Manga University will show you how. You’ll get VERY good at this.
Pop Manga Drawing: 30 Step-by-Step Lessons for Pencil Drawing in the Pop Surrealism Style (2019)
With wildly popular appearances at Comic Cons and her paintings displayed in art galleries around the world, Camilla d’Errico has established herself as a go-to resource for manga-influenced art.
Manga for the Beginner: Everything you Need to Start Drawing Anime and Manga Step by Step. Part 1 (Anime and Manga Drawing Step by Step) (2019)
With Manga for the Beginner, anyone who can hold a pencil can start drawing great manga characters right now. Using his signature step-by-step style, I show you how to draw the basic manga head and body, eyes, bodies and more.
Pop Manga: How to Draw the Coolest, Cutest Characters, Animals, Mascots, and More (2013)
From comics to video games to contemporary fine art, the beautiful, wide-eyed-girl look of shoujo manga has infiltrated pop culture, and no artist’s work today better exemplifies this trend than Camilla d’Errico’s.
Manga Crash Course: Drawing Manga Characters and Scenes from Start to Finish (2015)
Everything you need to start drawing manga!In the jam-packed pages of Manga Crash Course, popular YouTube artist Mina "Mistiqarts" Petrovic shares with you all the techniques you need to create not just manga figures and faces, but full characters and scenes.
Manga for the Beginner: Everything you Need to Start Drawing Right Away! (Christopher Hart’s Manga for the Beginner) (2008)
Got manga? Christopher Hart’s got manga, and he wants to share it with all his millions of readers—especially the beginners. With Manga for the Beginner, anyone who can hold a pencil can start drawing great manga characters right away. Using his signature step-by-step style, Hart shows how to draw the basic manga head and body, eyes, bodies, fashion, and more.
Best Manga Drawing Books Reviewed & Ranked
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Library Genesis and download some manga drawing books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
The Art of Drawing Manga: A Guide to Learning the Art of Drawing Manga—Step by Easy Step
Author(s): Talia Horsburgh
ID: 3305795, Publisher: Walter Foster Publishing, Year: 2022, Size: 22 Mb, Format: epub
Draw Amazing Manga Characters: A Drawing Exercise Book for Beginners
Author(s): Akariko, Izumi, Ojyou, Onodo To-ya, Karasuba Ame
ID: 3309023, Publisher: Tuttle Publishing, Year: 2022, Size: 27 Mb, Format: cbz
Design Your Own Anime and Manga Characters: Step-by-Step Lessons for Creating and Drawing Unique Characters - Learn Anatomy, Poses, Expressions, Costumes, and More
Author(s): TB Choi
ID: 3364200, Publisher: Rockport Publishers, Year: 2022, Size: 15 Mb, Format: epub
Please note that this booklist is not absolute. Some books are absolutely record-breakers according to The Wall Street Journal, others are composed by unknown authors. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant books you could recommend? Drop a comment if you have any feedback on the list.