Girl to Grrrl Manga: How to Draw the Hottest Shoujo Manga [Paperback]

Colleen Doran (Author)

Book Description

How to Draw the Hottest Shoujo Manga

From the creative mind of superstar comic artist Colleen Doran, Girl to Grrrl Manga is your invitation to the drama, high romance and dreamlike settings of shoujo manga!

Page after page of step-by-step instruction lets you get right to it as you learn the simple tricks to drawing different shoujo looks. Beautiful, glamorous girls in funky costumes. Gorgeous guys with smoldering, direct gazes and tortured storylines. Dazzling characters with supermodel-lean builds, voluminous hair and those enormous, liquid eyes that swim with emotion.

Inside, you'll learn to draw faces and figures from different perspectives and to various dramatic effects. Discover the secrets to drawing hands, tearful eyes, fantastic costumes, and other fun and expressive facets of shoujo art. You'll see how the smallest details, like extra-long eyelashes or a highlight on the lips, can make the biggest difference!

So you want to draw like CLAMP (Cardcaptor Sakura and CLAMP School Detectives), or Mineo Maya (Patalliro), or Fuyumi Soryo (Mars) ... or (best of all) uniquely like YOU?! With Girl to Grrrl Manga, you'll learn to recognize and replicate authentic shoujo styles—classic, contemporary, retro, children's, aesthetic, modern, illustrative—on your way to achieving your own, fabulous, one-of-a-kind style.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Colleen Doran is the top female creator working in American comics today, ranked in the top ten in every major category on 2004's Comic Buyer's Guide fan awards poll. She has worked with Marvel, CD, and ImageShe, among others.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Impact (October 4, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1581808097
• ISBN-13: 978-1581808094
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,044,981 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book - it's worth the $$!, June 7, 2007

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Girl to Grrrl Manga: How to Draw the Hottest Shoujo Manga (Paperback)

This is a truly wonderful book about how to draw not just shoujo, but all, manga. It gives great guidelines for all styles, not just manga! It also has helpful techniques to get you started on manga. THe only bad thing is it doesn't give great instructions for inking. But if you want a beginning manga book, get it!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Girl to Grrrl Manga: for girls and boys interested in LEARNING the craft, July 21, 2008

By 

Roberto Alves ""Omnia mutantur, nos et mu... (Funchal, Madeira - PORTUGAL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Girl to Grrrl Manga: How to Draw the Hottest Shoujo Manga (Paperback)

Choosing the right "how-to" book is not easy. Some of them are so advanced that many beginners feel lost, not knowing when to start. Others are very theoretical and academic, with not so much practice and examples, and that may discourage someone who is beginning. And there are those that are just too basic that end up being not really useful.
In my opinion, this book is just right for many different aspiring artists: from those beginners that are ready to give their first steps into manga drawing but are not sure how to begin, to those more advanced artists who will benefit of the useful tips about the craft given by someone with proven experience using the tips, advice and technique that is shown in the book. This book covers A LOT, going from basics to the finished product.
So, for those interested in learning (or improving) their manga drawing abilities, I would definitely recommend this book, that gives solid and sound advice, and has really useful information to develop and improve our craft.
In addition to this book, I recommend getting also the "Manga Pro Superstar workshop", also by Colleen Doran - that gives additional (and very useful information) to those interested in improving their art and storytelling abilities.
Absolutely recommended!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Substance and Style, January 17, 2010

By 

A. Harris (Citizen of the World) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Girl to Grrrl Manga: How to Draw the Hottest Shoujo Manga (Paperback)

Most how-to books tell you how to do things in the style of the person writing the book. This one goes into detail over the different subsets of manga, and how to achieve each look. Anyone that thinks it all looks alike is mistaken! The author knows her history and her art genres :-)

There's a lot of good solid advice in here, not just a bunch of tricks and shortcuts. You can create those yourself later, once you get the basics down. And that's what this is, a book of the basics. Each one of them can take up its own book, but this is a good overall base-covering primer on manga. And not just for advanced or professional artists. If your just starting out and want to start out right, you need reference books you are going to want to use and refer to over and over. I keep finding new things I didn't catch the last time I read it through. I'm glad I bought this (and the companion Manga Pro Superstar)