Drawing Manga :: Part 4: 360° Jeans, Line Art Tutorial, & Links

There's been a lot of manga posts I just keep in the draft stage, which as part of my new year I am determined to put a stop to. So I'm going to try to shoot out all the posts I've been meaning to post but haven't. This is but one of those many posts, and I hope is super handy for any artists out there.

:: 360° View of Jeans ::

I don't really wear Diesel jeans all that much, but I stumbled across this site while researching "emo", and not only is it a good use of Flash, but I think it is also a handy reference tool for anyone who has to draw their characters in jeans (or any type of pant for that matter.) It enables you to pick a type of jean and view that from different angles, freeing up the poses available in which you can draw your character.

The site is here. You wait until the jean Cubiverse opens up, revealing all the models caged in their cubes. Look for a jean that matches the type of jean your character wears, and click on it; that specific cube will pop to the forefront. At the bottom left of the cube is a little button that says "View 360°". Click on that, and you can now move the mouse around and see this jean from all sides. Now you can draw with gusto, having a handy reference for where to correctly positon potential seam lines, wrinkles, and pockets. Sadly, you cannot view the jeans from all angles or sizes, but it is still a great help.

If you have a Mac, there are two ways to screenshot the jeans for future reference. My favorite is apple-shift-4, because you can precisely select what you want screenshot. Pressing those three keys simultaneously turns your curser into a crosshair; you then hold down the mouse and drag, selecting what you want to screenshot. When you release the mouse, you will hear a click, and voila! you have created a precise screenshot of, say, one of the pairs of jeans on your screen. The screenshot is saved as a png file on your desktop, called "Picture 1". (If you accidentally hit these three keys but don't want to screenshot, just click the mouse again without holding down and the curser will go away.)

The second way is like the standard way of making a screenshot in Windows: press apple-shift-3 simultaneously, and a screenshot of the whole screen is saved on your desktop. (For Windows users: pres the "Print Screen" key at the top of your keyboard, open up the Paint program in your accessories somewhere, and press paste. You can now save your screen shot.)


:: Line Art Tutorial ::

A useful tutoerial on the importance of good line art in manga and what to look for was done by Amy Reeder Hadley. You can find it here.

:: Links ::

Here are some useful links to just about every subject for drawing manga at Telophase's LiveJournal. Found through Amy's resource page.