How to make a manga

Making a manga is less about drawing beautiful eyes and more about telling a story the way manga does: right to left, with cinematic panels, expressive faces and black-and-white tones. Here’s the process manga artists use, scaled down so you can finish your first short manga instead of abandoning chapter one.

1. Start with a one-shot

Professional manga often begins as a one-shot (yomikiri) — a complete story in a single chapter, often somewhere between 15 and 45 pages. For a first manga, go even shorter: 4–8 pages with a beginning, a conflict and an ending. Sum it up in one line: who — wants what — what’s in the way. Need a spark? Browse these comic ideas.

Also decide who it’s for. Manga genres are split by audience: shonen (action and friendship), shojo (romance and feelings), seinen (darker, more grown-up). That choice shapes the pacing, the art and the tone — more in manga vs manhwa vs manhua.

2. Design characters you can draw a hundred times

• A clear silhouette. A spiky hairstyle, a long coat, a huge sword — readers should know who it is from the outline alone.
• Few, bold details. Every detail has to be redrawn in every panel. Two or three signature features are enough.
• A character sheet. Front, side and back views, plus a row of expressions — happy, angry, shocked, embarrassed. Keep it next to you while drawing.
• Contrast in the cast. Make the hero and the rival different in height, shape and hair color so they never blur together.

3. Storyboard the “name”

Manga artists call the rough storyboard the name (nēmu): quick thumbnail pages with stick figures, panel shapes and every line of dialogue. It’s where the real work happens — fixing pacing in a thumbnail takes a minute; fixing it on a finished page takes an evening.

While you work on the name, check that each page ends with a reason to turn it and that the big moments land on a large panel rather than a cramped one.

4. Panel flow: right to left

Manga reads right to left, top to bottom. Panels on a row go from the right edge to the left, then you drop to the next row and start on the right again. Speech bubbles inside a panel follow the same rule: the first line sits top right.

• Keep gutters clear so the next panel is never ambiguous — avoid layouts where two panels could be read next.
• Vary panel sizes: wide panels for establishing shots, small ones for quick reactions, a tall one for a dramatic pose.
• Let characters break out of the panel border for impact — but sparingly.

Publishing in English for Western readers? Many creators keep right-to-left to feel authentically manga; others flip to left-to-right. Either works — just be consistent and tell readers on the first page.

5. Pencils, inks and screentones

Once the name is solid, pencil the final pages, then ink them. Traditional manga uses dip pens (the G-pen for bold lines, the finer maru pen for details); digitally, apps like Clip Studio Paint imitate both. Vary line weight: thicker outlines for characters in front, thinner lines for backgrounds.

Screentones are what give manga its look: patterns of dots and lines that create gray shading, textures, skies and moods without color. They used to be adhesive sheets cut with a knife; today they’re digital fills. Start with three tones — a light gray for skin shadows, a mid gray for clothes, a gradient for skies — and add speed lines and effect lines for motion and emotion.

6. Lettering and sound effects

Place dialogue before the art is final so bubbles never cover faces. Keep bubbles short — two or three short lines each. Thought bubbles, shouted lines with spiky edges and narration boxes all have their place. Sound effects are drawn as part of the art, big and dynamic.

The AI route

If you want to see your manga story on the page without drawing it — to test a plot, make a gift or plan your storyboard — AI can do the drawing. In Temfy: AI Comic & Manga Maker for iPhone, you describe the story, add photos of up to four heroes and pick a style: Manga, Dark manga (seinen), Anime, Cozy anime or Chibi are among the 12. AI draws a titled cover and one to six pages of 6 panels with speech bubbles in the language of your story; you can fix a page in plain words or redraw the whole comic in another style. The app draws book-style pages on a 2×3 panel grid. Your first page is free; after that, 15 credits a page. Tips on writing a story AI can follow — in how to make a comic with AI.

In short

• Start with a short one-shot: beginning, conflict, ending.
• Characters with a clear silhouette and a character sheet.
• Do the rough “name” storyboard before any final art.
• Right to left, top to bottom — in panels and in bubbles.
• Ink with varied line weight; shade with a few screentones.