10 Female Manga Hairstyles

And to continue the post from yesterday.... girl's hairstyles! There's way more possibility, but I was fairly conservative with my chosen styles.

You can do practically anything! There are so many tuturials on hair out there, so go check them out. I have only a few things to add:

1: To keep a girl with a boy-cut or short hair from looking like a boy, give it more volume, and, if it's not spikey, make it a little 'fluffy' at the ends.

2: Ponytails are a great way to differentiate girl manga characters

3: ... shaved heads are difficult.... :P

                                                             HAVE FUN!

10 Male Manga hairstyles

For a creative exercise I drew 10 different manga guy hairstyles.

I just want too point out two things: The ponytail and the long hair. There are a lot of manga and anime guys with ponytails or long hair( Sephiroth from FF for example). To make these characters more masculine and keep them not looking too girly, there are two things you can do:

1: Make their face structure angular; longer jawlines, flat chins. You can also make their neck a little thicker.
2: Make their ponytail/hair thin, and not so much volume on the top.

My Manga Sketches

Here are some incomplete sketches I've been working on this past week and a little bit earlier for some.  I've been a little busy for posting, but I've been able to draw some manga! :D

 The first and last are still in progress... But these are a few of the things I've been doing lately, random sketches when I'm bored, so that I can open my imagination. <--- and all this when what I really should be doing is finishing my nanowrimo novel so I can use my code... lol.

The difference between a Ballon and a Balloon

The difference between a 'Ballon' and a 'Balloon' is that a balloon has double the Os, double the effort. Make sure all your art is 'Balloon art' not 'Ballon' art.
I don't know how this really applies.... I don't know, I've just been attached to balloons and memes recently...

I challenge you to draw several pictures with a certain object, or a few that match a meme that you relate to. If you want, you can send your finished projects to me at Rachaelltroy@gmail.com so I can post some of your artwork here on my blog. :)

Fashion: You are who you wear

I've gotten quite a few offers, including a gaming company asking me to do concept art for their next game (Which I declined), but the most reoccurring reference to me is to become a fashion designer, and I agree. I love drawing people, but more then half of it's gotta be the clothes.

People don't get to see your inside feelings. People only see what you show, and that's the same for art and the art 'reader.'
If you saw someone wearing shredded jeans, a grease-stained tank top and a huge, moth eaten coat, you wouldn't think they were the owner of a million-dollar establishment.

You wouldn't think this girl lived in Antarctica. You can tell season, personality, and surroundings just from what the characters wear.


For this reason, it's extremely important to focus on what your character is wearing.

It's always a great exercise to draw a few simplistic models and do a few loose sketches of some outfits in your mind and decide what you like best like what I did here.

When you're trying to design your manga characters it may take awhile. Part of the process is too draw them several times, switching out clothes and minor features until you get a face- and an outfit- that fits them.













My favorite manga outfits to design are the kind you'd take to prom- glamorous dresses that everything in my wallet couldn't buy. Not that there is much in there, but still.
Here are a few of my favorites I keep revising.

These are for three separate dances in my manga 'The Academy.' The best places to go for fashion inspiration are prom magazines, clothes magazines, and sites  like pinterest, loaded with reference pictures and information. Always remember too take your characters appearance into account! First appearances matter, whether you're creating a manga or just drawing a character in your head.