Rulers to Help You Create Anime and Draw Manga

By Rick Feathers

Rulers are a simple tool we are all familiar with from the first day of school. It has always been among the accessories with pencils and paper. A ruler is more than an instrument to draw straight lines. It is also a great tool to draw manga in proper proportions.

Remember that a ruler is a measuring device and that is exactly what we are going to use it for in drawing anime. This eye opening tip will help you improve on your abilities and skill level of drawing anime.

This technique is called the grid system. First I want you to find a picture you want to draw of your favorite manga character but I want to caution you that we will be putting straight line on it. So if you do not want to damage it make a copy of it.

Second, with a sharp pencil I want you to draw a perfect square around it and the units need to be units that can be equally divided. For example: If the drawing is 4 inches to the edge of your drawing then draw a 4 inch box around it. If you are using the metric system or another form of measurement just be sure they are in equal units.

Third, create a grid within the square by dividing it in half, quarters and then eights. The previous example of a 4 inch square should now be all half inch squares as your grid.

Now comes the time to start drawing your manga by creating a grid on your sketch pad or other media you are using. For instance, create an 8 inch square with a 1 inch grid to enlarge your drawing twice as big or larger to 16 inches. The key here is to keep the increments of both grids equal and divided the same.

The last step is easy you just begin to draw what you see in one of the small grid square to the larger appropriate grid square. You are actually taking a bunch of little drawings and creating a bigger drawing.

Use the ruler to locate and position the lines exactly where they should be by measuring it but remember to increase the unit to match your larger grid.

This way of drawing is sort of mechanical but your proportions to the original drawing will be correct. As you get more comfortable with this technique you will notice an improvement in your manga drawing skill because your focus is on line detail and proportions.