Advanced Manga Art Camp (Ages 10-16)

Do you often find yourself doodling characters in different positions, but always alone on a page, willing to move further? Are you a fan of comic art and animation, and would like to try your hand at it? Or, maybe, you draw comic books, and would like professional advice? We have a camp for you! It's dedicated to visual storytelling. Bring your sketchbooks or drawing tablets, instruction will be provided for both digital and traditional media!

Detailed Schedule:

Day 1: Introduction

Introduction to drawing people. We will go over proportions, structure, and tips for drawing gestures and dynamic poses. The focus will be to create a character or a group of characters each student will use to base their own story around.

At this point, students will also brainstorm the plot of their stories that they want to create a comic about. Anything between episodic comics and a continuous story is acceptable. Today is mostly a day for illustrations and brainstorming.

Day 2: Sketching and planning!

Composition, Panelling (camera angles), and perspective. Today, we will make the first page of a comic, just to give it a try! We will be doing “choose your own adventure”, where the comic ends on a choice and the second page is decided by a class vote (comics are passed around and tallied for votes). At this point, just illustrations are also fine.

Day 3: Backgrounds and color/value

After creating characters and a story, it’s important not to neglect the environment! Color and tone are important storytelling tools. In addition to backgrounds, colors, and lighting tips, we will go over non-standard panelling and tips for colors in visual storytelling.

Today, we begin drafting the pages for our comics! They will be done on 8x11” sheets of paper, folded halfway for a book-format. Today, the goal is to get the entire comic sketched out (or two pages complete).

Day 4: Continue the story!

Start with warm-up sketches and gestures using reference -- which can be turned into design projects.

Monster and fantasy creature designs! The we will go over tips for feathers, scales, fur, etc.

Continue working on the comic! The goal is to get another two pages done. Hopefully, the story should be complete now, but if not, there is still another day to finish it.

Day 5: Final touches!

Today, we finish the book completely. Create a cover for the little booklet and put on the finishing touches!

The rest of the day is free-draw. Students are encouraged to create fanart of each others’ work or create crossover short comics.

Topic is ‘alternate universe’! What would the character look like but in a different era or world? Or a fantasy race mashup? Draw it out!