Manga-Style Comic Creation from Scratch
A course by AkimaroGraphic Designer and Illustrator
A course by Akimaro, Graphic Designer and Illustrator
Come up with a story based on your own personal experience and create a comic ready to share on social media using storytelling techniques and vignettes
When creating a comic, artistic talent and technique are almost no use at all without a story to tell. Few know this better than graphic designer and illustrator Adriana De la Torre, known on social media as Akimaro. In this online course, she teaches you to put together a comic strip sequence to tell the story of a personal experience.
Throughout the course, learn to create your own manga-style comic from scratch. Discover how to think in vignettes and organize your story in a narrative sequence, and practice drawing techniques to represent the human form while also giving your illustrations movement.
If you'd like to learn more about this style, take a look at Akimaro's first online course Digital Illustration with Manga Influence. Get ready to create unforgettable artworks full of emotion and color!
What will you learn in this online course?
12 lessons & 22 downloads
Influences
7 minutes, 8 seconds
The project
3 minutes, 15 seconds
Think in vignettes
7 minutes, 28 seconds
From thumbnail to sketch
5 minutes, 31 seconds
Polish the comic
11 minutes, 36 seconds
Scan and digitize
8 minutes, 35 seconds
What's included in this course?
Begin the course by getting to know your teacher, Akimaro. She talks about the importance of expression in the comic genre and shares her main influences.
Dive right into the world of the comic, studying its styles and capacity for complex emotional storytelling. Start learning to think in comic strip panels to convey everyday anecdotes step-by-step to then illustrate them. Next, get some invaluable advice to improve visual composition.
Now it's time to grab your pencil and get sketching! Recap the rough proportions of the human figure and learn to draw the basic shapes that make up a body. Akimaro teaches you to achieve dynamism in your drawings by practicing various poses. Then create your first thumbnails and produce the final version of your sketch.
Polish your comic strip to create a more professional feel, before wrapping things up learning to digitize your illustration to add color and the finishing touches in Photoshop. Akimaro gives you some parting tips for sharing your work on social media to get your stories out into the world.
What is this course's project?
Create a sequence of four comic-style vignettes expressing a moment in your day or a personal experience, accompanied by a short text.
Projects by course students
Who is this online course for?
Anyone wanting to immerse themself in the world of graphic narratives.
Requirements and materials
No prior knowledge is necessary to take this course.
As for materials, all you need is a pencil, some felt-tips, and paper. If you prefer, you can also use a graphics tablet.
Reviews
- 9 months ago
sou um grande fã da professora! já é o segundo curso que faço dela, gosto muito da maneira que ensina e o video é bem editado deixando atrativo e divertido, a gente fica com vontade de assistir
- 11 months ago
Muy buena informacion y recursos
- 1 year ago
Me gusta mucho el curso, me ayuda mucho a darme ideas cuando tengo bloqueos creativos y lo explica muy bien
- 1 year ago
Está muy bien explicado el curso, la profesora es clara y dinámica. Da buenas bases para comenzar a crear cómics. Aun no le termino pero hasta el momento me gusta todo.
- 2 years ago
Curso bem estruturado, com conteúdo bem desenrolado. Recomendo.
Recently, she has worked with publishers like Penguin Random House to create illustrations for a teenage demographic. She loves to experiment and combines her experience in graphic design with her interest in modern Japanese culture.
Content
- U1
Introduction
- About Me
- Influences
- U2
Tell something!
- The project
- Stories and comics
- Think in vignettes
- Components and composition
- U3
Start drawing
- Basic anatomy
- Body language
- From thumbnail to sketch
- U4
Final details
- Polish the comic
- Scan and digitize
- Creative Techniques and Publishing
- FP
Final project
- Manga-Style Comic Creation from Scratch
What to expect from a Domestika course
Learn at your own pace
Enjoy learning from home without a set schedule and with an easy-to-follow method. You set your own pace.
Learn from the best professionals
Learn valuable methods and techniques explained by top experts in the creative sector.
Meet expert teachers
Each expert teaches what they do best, with clear guidelines, true passion, and professional insight in every lesson.
Certificates
PLUSIf you're a Plus member, get a custom certificate signed by your teacher for every course. Share it on your portfolio, social media, or wherever you like.
Get front-row seats
Videos of the highest quality, so you don't miss a single detail. With unlimited access, you can watch them as many times as you need to perfect your technique.
Share knowledge and ideas
Ask questions, request feedback, or offer solutions. Share your learning experience with other students in the community who are as passionate about creativity as you are.
Connect with a global creative community
The community is home to millions of people from around the world who are curious and passionate about exploring and expressing their creativity.
Watch professionally produced courses
Domestika curates its teacher roster and produces every course in-house to ensure a high-quality online learning experience.
FAQs
You’ll learn how to tell stories visually, create characters, structure panels, use manga and webtoon techniques, self-publish comics, and master digital tools to illustrate, ink, and color your own comics.
The course is intermediate level, perfect for those with basic drawing or visual storytelling skills who want to deepen their knowledge of comic creation and digital techniques.
You’ll need a graphics tablet or computer, editing software like Photoshop or similar, internet access, and some visual references. The course also recommends tools for sketching and digitizing illustrations.
Yes, the course covers the main stylistic, narrative, and format differences between manga, webtoon, and European comics, so you can choose and blend elements to fit your project.
You’ll learn techniques and platforms for self-publishing, from digitizing and layout to online distribution and entering contests to boost your visibility as a creator.
Yes, the course teaches how to create distinctive characters, work on human and facial proportions, and express emotions and personality using visual resources and manga techniques.
You’ll learn to use storyboards, narrative pyramids, cliffhangers, and methods like Yonkoma to condense and organize stories visually in panels and frames.