😱 Beginner Mangaka Misconception that's KILLING your Art Progress

after speaking with thousands of aspiring anime and manga artists we've noticed that there's a common misconception prevalent among beginners this misconception is stunting your growth slowing down your progress and creating more foundational problems down the line maybe it's going to be the reason for your own downfall as an artist if you want to avoid years of frustration and insecurities then make sure to stick around in this video will'll share what this misconception is and what you need to do to finally see your art improve faster if you're excited then please make sure to like subscribe and turn on notifications this is the channel to be if you're a beginner mangaka aspiring to put your first story down on paper over the last 2 years we've partnered with pro-japanese mangakas and helped over 200 artists feel more confident creating their own original illustration and designing their own original characters from this experience we've put together a free basic manga character design training to help you develop your own OC the link is in the description feel free to check it out but before all of that let's get back to this dangerous misconception that's crippling so many beginner artists have you ever thought copying is basically cheating I get a draw purely from my own imagination that's how I become a real artist artist if you believe this then I hate to break it to you you've Fallen victim to a horrible misconception why does this assumption even exist when I was younger my older cousin had a friend who was an amazing artist he was basically my art hero he drew a really cool original ink illustration for me and I thought he was # goals his line art was perfect his anime art style was unique his character was original my 10-year-old brain was like so this is how an expert draws they can create original characters from their imagination and they can draw without making a single mistake I set the bar so high it was actually super unrealistic I didn't know that my art hero actually had mountains of sketches and art studies at home I didn't see his process only the result I found out a few years later later how much he worked so hard to actually improve with the age of social media I'm sure you've had a similar encounter being exposed to stunning artworks on your feed you feel the pressure to be just as perfect everybody seem so creative so naturally talented and all the well-known artists have standout original Works airo Oda who made one piece koyoharu goog who made Demon Slayer hirohiko araki who made JoJo with that kind of exposure it's so easy to fall into the narrative copying equals bad original equals good everything has to be straight from my imagination and it has to be perfect the truth is that this misconception does more harm than good even though we think copying stunts or creativity it's actually the other way around not doing it will leave us feeling more limited and frustrated the sooner we snap out of this misconception the sooner we can finally develop better drawing habits and actually experience more growth as mentioned earlier we've partnered with Pro mangaka's Na yazawa and Rena saaya want to know what they say about copying it's totally fine they even encourage it especially when you're a beginner in fact even Pros cheat a lot just check out some of these scenes and leave a comment if you think this is wrong at the end of the day art is an imitation of life and as what yazawa Sensei says everything starts with copying as long as you don't plagiarize and sell copied art then copying is a great way to study from experts it's a crucial step in developing your own art style and technique if we skip this process then we'd end up with poor drawing foundations and a very limited visual Library drawing from imagination is actually way too hard for beginners let's say you're a beginner and you have this image in your head but when you try to draw it it comes out looking totally different from what you imagined and it feels super frustrating right the reason for this is probably because you've never drawn enough of whatever you were trying to imagine if I ask you to draw a head shot right now I'm confident you can do it without looking at anything but if I ask you to draw a sword fight between two characters then this is probably going to be a lot harder you see you've probably done head shot a million times already it's as if it's programmed into your brain into your muscle memory these head shot have become a part of your visual Library your visual library is your memory of visual references all the anime the manga the movies pictures real life objects that you've seen are all basically stored here when I ask you to draw your favorite anime character then you tap into your visual library to be able to recreate them without a reference if you've drawn your favorite character multiple times it becomes easier but if you haven't then you'll notice your drawing might look weird and inaccurate when I mentioned drawing a sword fight earlier maybe had a very fuzzy vision of what this might look but it's hard to picture out the details like the pose or the angle or even the design of the swords it's because you haven't trained your visual Library enough those expert artists that you see who can draw from imagination they're not pulling those drawings out of nowhere they're basing it off of a very rich visual Library they've drawn the same thing thousands of times they've drawn multiple objects in different angles or lighting or situations it's already etched into their visual memory and how do they get there by copying and referencing you see by observing studying and drawing real life objects people and environments you can develop an i for capturing proportions Anatomy basic shapes details and all these visual information that will help you draw more accurately the next time around just so we're clear copying and referencing are not the same when we say copying you're basically trying to create an exact duplicate of the original Source when we say referencing you're taking inspiration from an image or multiple images and using them as your guide to create your own AR artwork as beginners we start off with copying but we want to eventually get better at referencing here's how we do it with our students we start off by tracing over real life images to get the shapes the lines and the proportions correctly when they start feeling more comfortable we take out the references we did this for different kinds of subjects angles poses body parts as our students got used to this they were able to draw better and faster they also became really good at translating details from reference photos and incorporating this into their own illustrations before they started working with us they shared that they felt lost and frustrated because they couldn't put their ideas on paper but with the help of references they found a better sense of direction and they were able to bring more of their creativity and Imagination to life just look at this artwork from our student Maria she was able to use different references for the pose the outfit design design and the hairstyle I mean looking at this would you really call it cheating she's basically created an original artwork by using different reference photos again if you have an opinion on this let us know in the comments one of the hardest things to get over is the guilty feeling you get when you copy or reference one of our students even shared there are still times when I feel guilty referencing other people's art and photos I might get a copyright charge if my work comes out looking too simp we understand the fear but if you credit the original source and not use it to monetize then you should be good and let's be completely honest here if you're a beginner you probably still have ways to go before your art even attracts that kind of attention your main goal right now is to improve your visual library and your eye for detail and again the best way to do that is to copy and reference in case you get any haters that criticize you let me tell you something something they're probably also beginners that don't really know what they're doing so are you going to listen to a couple of fellow amateurs or are you going to listen to Pro mangakas who've had decades worth of experience if you want to learn more tips on how to create your own original manga character then please make sure to check out the link in the description if you want to break more misconceptions here's the number one mistake that beginner manga has made [Music]

Channel: Learn to Draw Manga

Views: 77,714

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Id: t_Way74O3MM

Length: 9min 32sec (572 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 09 2023