How to Draw Manga: 20 Badass Books

by Anna Sok
Published: December 16, 2020
Updated: December 15, 2023

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. That means if you buy something, we might get a small commission at no extra cost to you (read disclosure)

Manga, despite being originally from Japan, is currently wildly and widely famous in every possible corner of the world.

In Japan “manga” refers to both animation and comics, however, outside Japan only graphic novels or comics are called manga. Japanese animation is referred to as “anime”.

Manga is popular among all age groups, and this medium includes works in almost every possible genre: from high school romance and sports to erotica. There’s something for everyone and every taste, huge ongoing series, and short projects, the manga market is incredibly large not only in Japan.

A lot of artists have found their way into art from their childhood or teenage fascination with manga and further attempts to draw it. The best part, you can learn it at any age, even if you’ve never drawn before!

It seems to be easy at first glance since the characters are mostly simplified and their body proportions are exaggerated. But if you want to learn to create something, not just trace and copy, you’ll need to gain some knowledge in the process.

We’ve put together a list of books on drawing manga and designing manga characters, which includes useful books for people of different age groups and skill levels.

The 20 books below aren’t sorted by anything in particular, so make sure to check out the whole list before picking your favorites! ^_^

1. The Master Guide to Drawing Anime

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The Master Guide to Drawing Anime: How to Draw Original Characters from Simple Templates – A How to Draw Anime / Manga Books Series (Volume 1)

Hart, Christopher (Author)

The Master Guide to Drawing Anime: How to Draw Original Characters from Simple Templates by Christopher Hart.

Creating original characters is a fun process, and it will bring even more fun and satisfaction than drawing fan art. The skills of creating your own characters are vital, especially if you want to make a career in art.

This 144-page book is a fun and easy guide on creating original manga (anime) characters based on simple templates. It’s not perfect, but it would be a great way to start and build confidence.

So, this book is a great choice for beginner artists or those who can draw, but have never worked with manga before. It’ll give basic knowledge on:

manga characters’ proportions,
the common and popular character types,
and how to show their personalities through design.

2. The Master Guide to Drawing Anime: Amazing Girls

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The Master Guide to Drawing Anime: Amazing Girls: How to Draw Essential Character Types from Simple Templates – A How to Draw Anime / Manga Books Series (Volume 2)

Hart, Christopher (Author)

The Master Guide to Drawing Anime: Amazing Girls: How to Draw Essential Character Types from Simple Templates by Christopher Hart.

This book is the second volume and a direct continuation of the previous one on the list. However, it can be bought and used on its own if you’d like.

It’s based on the same principle of teaching how to create original characters and the scenes that include them based on templates. Yet, this one is centered around the popular types of female manga and anime characters: schoolgirls, fantasy witches, warrior ladies, and others. Women in manga can be cute, or they can be really badass and strong – you can draw whichever you prefer more.

The 144-page book would give you information about the:

body proportions,
personality types,
the choice of characters’ outfits, etc.
It would be amazing for those who are just entering the world of drawing manga!

3. The Master Guide to Drawing Anime: Tips & Tricks

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The Master Guide to Drawing Anime: Tips & Tricks: Over 100 Essential Techniques to Sharpen Your Skills – A How to Draw Anime / Manga Books Series (Volume 3)

Hart, Christopher (Author)

The Master Guide to Drawing Anime: Tips & Tricks: Over 100 Essential Techniques to Sharpen Your Skills by Christopher Hart.

This manga drawing guide is the third volume of the series mentioned above, however, this time it would be useful for more skilled manga artists as well. It contains 144 pages of tips, techniques and useful information about how to polish your skills and make your manga even better.

The book features really useful tutorials. Drawing hands and feet have always been tricky, but the book has got you covered! It also gives information about the composition of your manga scenes, positioning the characters, and drawing their facial expressions.

Overall, this manga drawing guide can be purchased separately, without the first two in the series. Both beginners and more skilled artists will enjoy it and learn new things.

4. Manga Art for Beginners

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Manga Art for Beginners: How to Create Your Own Manga Drawings

Davidson, Danica (Author)

Manga Art for Beginners: How to Create Your Own Manga Drawings by Danica Davidson.

This book is a useful guide for those who want to start drawing manga. It features 220 pages of lessons and illustrations meant to show you how the good stuff is drawn and how you can do it as well.

It contains information on such topics as how to make manga comics, how to create people and animals, how the popular character types are made. It would also teach you what the most common manga genres are and how to create the manga scenes according to those genres. It can help you create an entire graphic novel from scratch and also give you some useful ideas for it.

The book is great for kids, teenagers, and adults. It will help them boost their confidence and get more practice in drawing manga.

5. Drawing Chibi Supercute Characters

Drawing Chibi Supercute Characters Easy for Beginners & Kids (Manga / Anime): Learn How to Draw Cute Chibis in Animal Onesies with their Kawaii Pets (Drawing for Kids)

Goldstein, Rachel A (Author)

Drawing Chibi Supercute Characters by Rachel A Goldstein.

Chibi characters are dearly loved not only by kids but also by adults. So yes, this book would be amazing for teaching kids how to draw, but grownup beginner artists shouldn’t hesitate to buy it if that’s their interest. Chibi (or kawaii) characters are intentionally cute, small, with large exaggerated heads and eyes – what’s not to like about them?

The book focuses on teaching the reader how to draw chibis in animal onesies. How cute is that?

It’ll be a great start in drawing because it’ll help you draw, even if you hadn’t much practice before. It offers clear instructions and examples of how to create chibi characters and what they can look like.

6. Mastering Manga with Mark Crilley

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Mastering Manga with Mark Crilley: 30 drawing lessons from the creator of Akiko

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Mastering Manga with Mark Crilley: 30 drawing lessons from the creator of Akiko by Mark Crilley.

The author of this book is a professional graphic novelist, the creator of Akiko (and several other) manga series and a YouTube guru. Learning from a professional would provide you with important insight and real-life tricks.

This 128-page guide would teach you how to draw figures and faces for a diverse range of characters and show you the gallery of examples to get your inspiration from. It also features tutorials on how to create realistic settings for your manga stories, as well as graphic novel layouts and backgrounds.

The book would be helpful for both beginners and advanced artists. It may be too complicated for small kids, but teens and adults would welcome it with open arms.

7. Draw Manga Faces for Expressive Characters

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Draw Manga Faces for Expressive Characters: Learn to Draw More Than 900 Faces

Aya, Hosoi (Author)

Draw Manga Faces for Expressive Characters by Hosoi Aya.

Emotions may be hard to grasp and capture on paper or digital art sheets. This book is meant to help you understand the world of manga character emotions and the helpful tips on capturing them realistically.

The 176-page guide would explain the basic manga character types to you, as well as teach you how to draw faces from babies to adults correctly and believably. But most importantly, it concentrates on the emotions: positive, negative, all of them. It contains over 900 illustrations as emotion examples, and with the help of the information and the examples, you’ll be able to draw certain facial expressions.

This book would be very helpful for teenage and adult manga artists. It’s suitable for both beginners and more experienced ones.

8. The Complete Guide to Drawing Action Manga

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The Complete Guide to Drawing Action Manga: A Step-by-Step Artist's Handbook

shoco (Author)

The Complete Guide to Drawing Action Manga: A Step-by-Step Artist’s Handbook by Shoco and Makoto Sawa.

This book is created by famous Japanese manga artists, and will, therefore, provide you with lots of really useful information from experienced professionals. It’s structured into several lessons, and each of them is dedicated to one aspect of action manga. It also points out the details that may often be overlooked by artists, but are noticeable in the finished work.

Each pose presented in the book is illustrated with a sketch and annotated by the authors. The end of each chapter provides some space for tracing and practicing the skills you’ve learned. The 144-page book would be suitable for both teens and adults, as well as for beginners and more advanced manga artists who need more practice.

9. The Manga Fashion Bible

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The Manga Fashion Bible: The Go-To Guide for Drawing Stylish Outfits and Characters

Hart, Christopher (Author)

The Manga Fashion Bible: The Go-To Guide for Drawing Stylish Outfits and Characters by Christopher Hart.

Characters’ outfits are usually a huge part of their appeal. They can make the audience think a certain way about the character before it even does anything. You know how they say: dress for success!

This 144-page book is a useful guide on how to choose and draw outfits for your characters. From vintage clothing to the most modern trends – you can ace it all. The book is good for both beginners and amateurs, kids and adults alike.

It also contains information on how to draw figures themselves, as well as the eyes and hairstyles. The author gives you knowledge about color theory, drawing folds and creases, creating fabric patterns – all things that may seem too complicated if you’re new to this.

10. How to Draw Pokemon

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How to Draw Pokemon: Learn to Draw Your Favorite Pokemon Go Characters! By Joseph Stevenson.

Did you know that Pokemon is, actually, an anime? Therefore, drawing Pokemon characters surely counts as drawing anime/ manga.

This 46-page book would be great for kids who love Pokemon. It’ll teach them how to draw their favorite characters by building them from simple shapes and adding details. A great lesson on how geometric figures work and what anatomy drawing and making sketches actually is.

But no matter if the child would further pursue the drawing path or not, they’ll still have a lot of fun with this Pokemon drawing guide. Some of the characters are more simple, some are a little trickier to draw, but it’s always fun for kids when it involves something they like.

Learn to draw manga and anime for beginners with these 20 How to draw manga books. They are perfect for those who want to learn how to draw anime and manga faces, action manga, fashion manga and all other varieties. — *Don’t forget to save this list to your Pinterest board!* 🙂

11. Pop Manga

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Pop Manga: How to Draw the Coolest, Cutest Characters, Animals, Mascots, and More

draw drawings characters animals mascots Camilla

Pop Manga: How to Draw the Coolest, Cutest Characters, Animals, Mascots, and More by Camilla d’Errico and Stephen W. Martin.

This is the drawing guide created by a famous manga artist and a professional screenwriter. Not only it contains information on every aspect of drawing manga, but it also offers an inside look on character design creation and tips for making your own comics. The book won’t be suitable for small kids, but teenagers and adults would surely find it educational and helpful.

The 192-page instructional guide would help beginners and more advanced artists with everything they want and need to know. How to draw manga body shapes, create action scenes, making animals, mascots, and chibi characters. You’ll learn how to capture the characters’ emotions, how to design their hair and clothes, how to draw hands in many different positions, and lots of other useful things.

12. How To Draw Manga

How To Draw Manga: Illustrating Battles

Used Book in Good Condition

How To Draw Manga: Illustrating Battles by Hikaru Hayashi.

Action scenes and battle scenes are a very common thing in manga and anime. The battle can erupt in the middle of a plot about the school life and turn it into epic science fiction or fantasy story – that’s just how it rolls. So, knowing how to draw battles is essential for every manga artist, no matter what genre they prefer working in.

This book offers detailed instructions on how to capture battle scenes in the manga. Fighting, punches, kicks, blows, throws, all sorts of things. To draw the things from your imagination, you’ll need to know how the characters need to be positioned and how to express this via drawing.

The drawing guide has 128 pages and would be best for more experienced artists. It doesn’t have a lot of basic info and concentrates only around the battle scenes.

13. Shojo Wonder Manga Art School

Shojo Wonder Manga Art School: Create Your Own Cool Characters and Costumes with Markers by Supittha Bunyapen.

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Shojo Wonder Manga Art School: Create Your Own Cool Characters and Costumes with Markers

Bunyapen, Supittha (Author)

Shojo manga, according to the specifications of the genre, revolves around young ladies and their emotions. Therefore, you’ll have to go all out with the characters’ outfits, their fantastic hairstyles, and the overall colors of the manga. And markers would be perfect for this due to their capabilities as an art medium.

In this 144-page guide, the author will show you how to portray various shojo characters, their figures, outfits, emotions, and attitudes. You’ll also learn how to create dynamic poses and build the mood of the scene with lighting and color. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a book about marker art, if it didn’t contain the information on marker techniques and properties.

The book is suitable for teenagers and adults, and it will have some useful information for advanced artists, as well as for beginners.

14. Manga Crash Course

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Manga Crash Course: Drawing Manga Characters and Scenes from Start to Finish

Petrovic, Mina (Author)

Manga Crash Course by Mina Petrovic.

This book is written by a YouTube artist, who is a professional manga artist and fashion designer. She offers you a crash course in drawing all sorts of manga characters, even the most unusual ones, from start to finish, and creating completed dynamic scenes with them.

Drawing limbs, facial expressions, designing outfits for your characters, turning them into chibis – with this book you’ll be able to do all of that. It’s a 128-page guide that has over 130 lessons for anatomy, poses, emotions, and outfits. It will guide you through the creation of your characters.

The book is a good choice for beginner artists, from teenagers to adults. It’ll offer you a lot of basic information and manga character drawing techniques.

15. Manga for the Beginner

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Manga for the Beginner: Everything you Need to Start Drawing Right Away! (Christopher Hart's Manga for the Beginner)

Hart, Christopher (Author)

Manga for the Beginner: Everything you Need to Start Drawing Right Away! by Christopher Hart.

As you can guess from the title, this drawing guide is created for beginner manga artists. Therefore, you can buy it even if you have never drawn before, and it won’t be complicated for you. It’s equally good for kids, teens, and grownups.

By the end of this 192-page guide, you’ll be ready to draw entire story sequences with the manga characters you’ve created and designed yourself. The book contains step-by-step lessons on how to create a manga character from scratch. You’ll learn how to draw eyes, heads, body shapes, outfits, and more.

What comes next is creating dynamic scenes, the interaction between the characters and building the environment. The guide will also explain what are the most common manga character types.

16. Beginner’s Guide to Creating Manga Art

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Beginner's Guide to Creating Manga Art: Learn to Draw, Color and Design Characters

Cummings, Steven (Author)

Beginner’s Guide to Creating Manga Art: Learn to Draw, Color and Design Characters by Steven Cummings, Gonzalo Ordoñez.

This guide was created by two professional comic and manga artists, and it’s a comprehensive and practical guide to what manga is. It dives into its very core, exploring the aspects of manga style, and gives you the knowledge that you’ll apply in your drawing.

The book has 240 pages of useful information, tips, and tricks from several perspectives. It’ll guide you through the process of designing your characters from the concept to full-color drawings.

The tutorials featured in this guide cover every topic from basic manga characters’ anatomy to teaching you how to color with a variety of traditional and digital tools and techniques. It’s great for teenagers and adults, and it’ll give useful information and tips even to artists with some experience.

17. Draw Manga

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Draw Manga: Step-by-Steps, Character Construction, and Projects from the Masters (IMM Lifestyle Books) 140 Photos, 10 Projects, & 13 Tutorials for Eyes, Hair, Clothing, Accessories, Lighting, & Color

English (Publication Language)

Draw Manga: Step-by-Steps, Character Construction, and Projects from the Masters by IMM Lifestyle Books

This 128-page manga drawing course with its step-by-step lessons would be a great choice for a beginner manga artist to start from. It’ll work out even for those who don’t have any drawing skills, because they’ll learn everything on the go, from the easy stuff to more complicated. And learning during practice is one of the most effective ways to learn.

The book teaches not only how to work with traditional manga drawing mediums, but also how to create digital manga art and comics. It’s divided into three sections: first go the basic drawing tutorials, next up is turning ideas and concepts into completed works. The third section is dedicated to art projects made by professionals and the detailed instructions on how to produce things like that.

18. Manga Workshop Characters

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Manga Workshop Characters: How to Draw and Color Faces and Figures

Chan, Sophie (Author)

Manga Workshop Characters: How to Draw and Color Faces and Figures by Sophie Chan.

Another excellent example of drawing guides for beginners of all ages. This book would be suitable for younger kids and people with zero skills due to the teaching style of the instructions. You’ll be constructing faces and entire bodies out of easy shapes and understand the drawing process through going from simple to detailed.

Even if you’ve never drawn before, you’ll be able to learn how to create typical manga characters, how to capture their emotions and style their outfits. The courses in this 128-page book are dedicated to drawing faces, body shapes, facial expressions, and various fantasy characters – all divided into several chapters. You’ll also know how to color them and make the storyline work, tying it all together.

19. Pop Manga Drawing

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Pop Manga Drawing: 30 Step-by-Step Lessons for Pencil Drawing in the Pop Surrealism Style

d'Errico, Camilla (Author)

Pop Manga Drawing by Camilla d’Errico.

The author of this book, a worldwide famous manga artist, has a very distinctive art style, which is known as the pop surrealist style. If you’re a fan of this style, the 160 pages of this drawing guide would contain lots of important information for you. However, it can also be useful for other artists with some experience who want to know more about designing and coloring manga characters.

The book would take you on a journey of exploring this drawing style and making manga with graphite and mechanical pencils, enhancing it later with other mediums. Do you want some useful tips on how to make your art stand out by creating specific elements in a certain way? You’ve got them! This book will teach you how to create masterpieces.

20. The Manga Artist’s Workbook

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The Manga Artist's Workbook: Easy-to-Follow Lessons for Creating Your Own Characters

The Manga Artists By Hart Christopher

The Manga Artist’s Workbook: Easy-to-Follow Lessons for Creating Your Own Characters by Christopher Hart.

This drawing guide combines a tutorial book and a sketchbook for practicing. It’s a really useful thing and interesting format, even though sometimes you have to practice for a little bit more than the space you’re offered allows you to. It would be good for the younger audience with little to no experience in drawing, and it’ll help them develop their manga skills.

The 160 pages of this book are split between the workbook space with exercises and the lessons full of useful tips. It’ll teach you how to draw faces and proportions, the signature manga sparkly eyes, the characters’ clothes, the distinctive hairstyles, and many other things.

As you can see, there’s a huge variety of books dedicated to drawing manga. They’re made for various audiences, from young kids to adults, from beginners to experienced artists. This means – anyone can start drawing manga at any age, and it’s very much possible to succeed at it.

So don’t hesitate to start and enjoy the process. Get yourself a book or few from our list, and dive into the fantastic world of creating manga!

Anna Sok

Anna Sok is an illustrator and a blogger. In 2020, she graduated from OCAD University with a BA in Design / Illustration. In 2017, Anna started a blog for artists, youartartpath.com, which she continues to run today. Anna Sok is an illustrator and a blogger. In 2020, she graduated from OCAD University with a BA in Design / Illustration. In 2017, Anna started a blog for artists, youartartpath.com, which she continues to run today. Anna loves all things creative - drawing, painting, art history, coloring books, digital art, illustration, 3D sculpting, 2D animation, writing, and singing. She doesn't have the time to fit all her hobbies into one month, let alone a single day! Above all, Anna loves trying new things and sharing her knowledge and ideas with others.