‘Beginning Manga’ by Sonia Leong Is Everything an Aspiring Mangaka Needs!

Being a fan of manga and an artist myself, I couldn’t help but go through Beginning Manga by Sonia Leong as quickly as possible!

Manga might come across as easy and simple compared to the rest of the art forms, but it needs practice to be done right. Sonia Leong teaches everything an aspiring mangaka needs to know in her book. I’ve been looking forward to reading it ever since the announcement of its release date. Beginning Manga covers the tools and materials that you’ll need, and goes on to teach drawing and inking basics. You’ll get to learn how to draw different characters ranging from historical to sci-fi. She also covers drawing the interior of buildings, creating environments, and adding special effects.

A manga can’t be complete without knowing the proper layout of the pages to tell a story. Beginning Manga teaches the proper page layouts. It teaches you how to create a manga page from start to finish.

One of the things I really liked about the book was the easy to understand instructions. There are no complex technical terms that’ll confuse you. All of the instructions are simple to read and follow. The book also has practice pages inside. These pages are left blank for the reader to practice what they’ve learned. Though these pages are useful, I didn’t draw anything in them because I didn’t want to ruin the book.

Beginning Manga by Sonia Leong is a must-have for anyone who is interested in learning the manga art style and someday create a manga of their own!

Also check out this fun video that highlights the instructions in the book about adding visual grammar.

Note: I received a review copy of Beginning Manga.

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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