Simple Eye Opening Tip to Improve Your Manga Drawings

By Rick Feathers

Have you ever work for hours on a manga drawing and you think it looks great only to have a friend look at it for a couple of minutes and point the simplest mistake you overlooked? Pretty embarrassing but they are right.

No matter how much anime we create and manga we draw, it always helps to have a fresh pair of eyes to show us obvious things we missed. Always be opened to receive their critique because the end goal is to improve your manga drawings.

Now there are some of us who do not want people to comment on our drawings. We want to do it all ourselves and I understand that. So here is a valuable tip I am happy to share with you.

The extra pair of eyes you were looking for is your own you just need a new way of looking at your anime sketches. This new way is looking at your drawing in a mirror. Yes, you heard me correctly, a mirror. I recommend you get a mirror you can handle easy, like an eight by ten or a facial mirror with a handle because you want a mirror that you can hold for small periods of time or one that is easily mountable. To start, you can use your dresser or bathroom mirror to see the eye opening difference.

With that said I want you to take your manga drawing which you put a lot of time in and look at it in front of the mirror. You will quickly notice that it’s a new drawing because everything is mirror imaged or looking the other way.

It will be like looking at a new drawing for the first time and you will see things from a new perspective. I believe you will be amazed at what you will see that was missed as you were drawing it.

The reason I suggested the mirror to hold is that you can improve your drawing as you look at it through the mirror while you sketch. This will take some practice but the new insight into your manga sketches will show the results of your efforts.

Also use the mirror in various angles and watch you manga character come to life. So welcome the mirror as a new tool to your creation of anime. I trust that this simple inexpensive tool will become one of you favorites.