MANGA BASICS
Different Body Types
Once you are comfortable using the basic rules of body proportions and foreshortening discussed on pages 12–13, you can draw any adult or young adult body type and pose. You can even choose to exaggerate bodies or tweak specific body parts (see page 15).
You may also want to create younger and older characters or characters that grow up during the course of your story. To depict characters of different ages, fundamental laws of proportion still apply. However, there are some important differences between the bodies of children and adults. Below is a character at different ages, from a baby to an adult woman. Notice how her head is much larger in proportion to her body as a child than as a teen and adult. Also notice that as she ages, her curves, as well as her muscles, become more defined. Males tend to develop muscles and broader shoulders as they age, also.
Baby
At this stage, male and female babies often look similar, especially if you disregard characteristics that define gender, such as clothes. At birth, babies’ heads are much larger in proportion to their bodies. Exaggerating this concept by making the head and eyes very large and the hands and feet very small helps emphasize the young age.
Child
Young children tend to have baby fat, resulting in evenly shaped, rounded torsos, and carry a lot of baby fat and limbs without much definition. Take away things like clothes and hair, and gender can still be hard to distinguish. Like with babies, drawing larger eyes and bigger heads will convey a more childlike age.
Teen
In adolescence, fat disperses, and muscles and bone structure become more prominent. A teenage girl, for example, may have longer legs and a curvy body, but still maintain a slim waist and form, which can help define her youth. Eye size can shrink, which can help define aging and growing up.
Adult
As a fully grown adult, this character’s bone structure, muscles, and “hourglass” shape are well-defined. She stands at her full seven-head height.
A common drawing concept found in anime and manga is the “chibi” form. Chibis are generally smaller, simpler caricatures of characters that are used to illustrate light, comedic situations. The word “chibi” is Japanese for “short person” or “small child.” However, that doesn’t make a younger version of a character a chibi. The three figures below are chibi versions of the characters on page 9. They are portrayed in a simplified and light-hearted fashion. What makes them chibi rather than children is that they appear older than children, but are drawn in a cute, cartoon-like style. Any character can be drawn in chibi style—even the most menacing villains!
Elongated Chibi Not every chibi character has to be short and stout. You can create a variation of the chibi form by drawing big heads with thin, elongated bodies. The most prominent feature of a chibi is the disproportionately large head and eyes, as well as simplified facial features. Study your favorite manga to see how chibis are dealt with and be sure draw in a style that creates a mood appropriate to a comic chibi situation.
Exaggeration Now that you’ve learned the fundamentals of drawing bodies, you can experiment and learn how to bend the rules. Many manga artists employ exaggeration to achieve stronger, more prominent characteristics. One of the male figures at left is extremely muscular with heavily exaggerated facial features. The other character is a heavyweight sumo wrestler. If you removed all the muscle and fat from these two characters, their bodies would be similar in terms of bone structure. However, the muscular character is composed of mostly angular lines, and the sumo wrestler is round virtually all over. Their bodies and facial features make a bold statement about their personalities.