---
title: 'HOW TO CREATE A MANGA/COMIC  [Complete Process] | DrawlikeaSir'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=ChsJPFvjMk8'
video_id: 'ChsJPFvjMk8'
date: 2026-06-22
duration_sec: 0
---

# HOW TO CREATE A MANGA/COMIC  [Complete Process] | DrawlikeaSir

> Source: [HOW TO CREATE A MANGA/COMIC  (Complete Process) | DrawlikeaSir](https://youtube.com/watch?v=ChsJPFvjMk8)

## Summary

This video provides a comprehensive, step-by-step roadmap for creating and self-publishing a manga without a publisher, based on the creator's experience with seven volumes. It covers the entire process from story and world-building to character design, page creation, and final PDF export.

### Key Points

- **Seven self-published volumes** [[0:07]] — The creator has published seven manga volumes all by himself, without a publisher.
- **Step 1: Story and timeline** [[1:31]] — Write a basic timeline of events, including history before the main story (e.g., One Piece). Use tools like a drag-and-drop story planner.
- **Character sheets (Araki method)** [[3:19]] — Use Hirohiko Araki's character questionnaire to define personality before visual design, linking it in the description.
- **Needle drop method** [[5:36]] — Pick the exact starting point of chapter one from your timeline—the most interesting event to hook readers (e.g., Attack on Titan).
- **Character design principles** [[7:46]] — Unique silhouettes, outfits matching abilities/personality, and using text-based sheets as inspiration.
- **Style reference analysis** [[10:34]] — Collect manga pages you like, identify common elements (e.g., screen tones, detailed backgrounds), and fuse them into your own style.
- **Test page before full manga** [[11:54]] — Draw one finished manga page to check if you can handle all elements (characters, angles, location).
- **Storyboarding first** [[12:34]] — Always make a storyboard before drawing final pages to plan panel flow and page layout.
- **Manga page zones** [[13:23]] — Outer 3-5 mm will be cut off; left page has a binding margin; safe zone in the middle. Use manuscript paper with these markings.
- **Inking with nibs** [[15:36]] — Professional mangaka use pen nibs and ink (not liners) for crisp, erasable lines. Steep learning curve but rewarding.
- **Screen tones (digital tip)** [[16:28]] — Instead of expensive traditional tone foil, scan pages, adjust contrast, and shade digitally (e.g., MS Paint).
- **Text formatting in speech bubbles** [[17:50]] — Use the Anime Ace font, leave equal space on all sides, and shape text to match the bubble shape.
- **PDF layout for print** [[18:47]] — Use layout software (e.g., Adobe InDesign) to assemble pages, add text, export PDF. Include a cover illustration with title font.

### Conclusion

The entire process from idea to publishable PDF can take months, but by following these five structured steps—story, design, production, layout, and publishing—you can successfully create and self-publish your own manga.

## Transcript

Five steps. That's all you need from
having an idea for a manga to actually
having a finished manga in your hands.
This year, I'm publishing my seventh
manga volume, and I've published them
all without a publisher, all by myself.
And I will show you exactly how this
process works.
Hi, I heard you like road maps. So, I've
made a whole road map just for making
your own manga. We start at making your
own story all the way to creating a PDF
that you could print and publish. I will
guide you through every single step.
Just beware, this road map can take
several months to fulfill. A manga is
not something that you can do in a week
or two if it's longer than a couple of
pages. But now, let's grab every art
supply that you have. Leave a like cuz
god damn, this video was a ton of work.
My name is Marcel and I'll teach you how
to make manga
like a ser.
[Music]
So you have an idea. Let's make this
idea into an actual story. First, before
you create any manga pages, any story
boards, you need to set your story.
Now, here's what you do. You write down
in basic terms what happens in your
story. You make a kind of a timeline
what happens when. So, flesh out your
story bit by bit. You can already refer
to characters or things in your story.
But be careful. Beginner mistake
incoming. Don't just write the timeline
like you would write a manga. This
happens at the beginning, this happens
at chapter 2, this happens at chapter 3,
etc. You should not only include what
happens while the story is ongoing, but
also what happened before. Think about
One Piece for example.
The timeline isn't starting where the
main character begins his journey, but
it starts much earlier. It needs to
include what happens before. When was
Roger executed? When did Shanks get the
goonomi? When did he arrive at Fooia
Village where Luffy lives? And so on.
You need to really plan every important
event that happens in your world, even
before the main characters even existed.
That's how stories like One Piece or
Attack on Titan feel alive. Also, not
sponsored, but when we were making my
new manga, we had to plan a lot of the
stuff. So, my story writer and I were
using a tool for that where you can just
drag and drop stuff in your story. I can
highly recommend using a tool like this.
Okay, so you have the history of your
world. Now, let's fill it. Like,
obviously, you would need to focus on
your characters as well. And I'm not
talking about character design per se.
I'm talking about personality and
everything else. This here is something
really valuable. It's a character sheet
designed by the legend himself, Hihiko
Araki of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Fame.
This questionnaire is what he fills out
before he designs a character visually.
From their names all the way to their
habits, favorite phrases, and so on.
It's important to design a character's
personality first, so you can base your
character design around that. I've
linked it down in the info box in case
you want to download it and fill it out
yourself. So, fill out a character sheet
like this for every character in your
story. And while writing your
characters, you might already get some
cool ideas how they could look like. So,
what's also really important is to use
references while making this. Go to
Google images or Pinterest and collect
some of them already.
Now, this is a much better guideline for
designing a character than that. But you
are not done yet. What also always makes
for really cool world building in
fictional stories are items, tools,
flora, and fauna. Maybe your world has
special animals in it. Or maybe they use
some special items or tools in your
world. Maybe your world has some special
plants that have special effects and so
on. Write all of that down. All of these
things get their own little mini
character sheet. If you have a
collection of characters and
worldbuilding elements, you can now
check your timeline if everything makes
sense, if you need to include something
or need to change names in case you have
some placeholders left over. And also, I
know some people like to make characters
first and then write the story. That's
also totally valid. You can also do it
the other way around. And now we come to
the most crucial step.
[Music]
Now that you have all the characters and
all the events in your timeline and
every important item ready, this is
where the magic happens. But before,
make sure you're making this timeline in
detail. Now, flesh everything out, make
sure everything works out and the
history of your world makes sense. What
you're doing now, if your wealth
building is ready and your story is
finished, is you pick out where your
manga actually starts. I call this the
needle drop method because you're now
pinpointing where exactly chapter one
takes place. Again, think about stories
like Jiu-Jitsu Kaisen. A lot of things
happen in the story. Gojo and ghetto
were friends, then they were not friends
anymore. Gojo gets students. Yugji eats
a finger. Yugji gets trained by Gojo.
They fight in a tournament and so on.
And now a Magaka's job is to pick where
chapter one would start. And they
decided this is a good place to start
chapter 1. Everything else, what
happened before, we can explain later in
flashbacks. And now it's up to you to
decide this in your own story. Your
timeline is finished and you should
decide which event in your manga is the
most interesting to hook your reader in
chapter 1. My favorite example of this
is Attack on Titan. Starting the story
where Titans tear down the walls was the
perfect needle drop and an insane thing
to happen in chapter 1. And if you've
read the series, you know that a lot of
things happened before. lots of points
where you could have started chapter
one, but dropping the needle right here
was the most genius thing you could have
done. So now, if you have dropped your
needle in your timeline, let's go.
That's where you write the first
chapters of your manga. You do not need
to write the whole story from the get-
go, but just enough so you can make the
first manga pages out of this. Don't
worry, this can take weeks, sometimes
even months. You definitely have to take
your time here. Especially if you're a
beginner, you should start with a very
short story for starters. So maybe just
take your world and timeline and limit
it to a short time span for your very
first manga experiment.
Congratulations,
you're done with the first step of
making your own manga. All right, now
that we have the story step completely
finished, let's get visual with the most
fun part.
Okay. What makes character design good
and what makes it bad? Well, the best
character designs are unique, meaning
you see the silhouette and you know what
character you're looking at. Also, their
outfits should definitely match their
abilities, backgrounds, or powers. And
also, their basic look, like hairstyles
should match their personality,
obviously. And that is why we've made
those textonly character sheets before.
If you struggle to make a character look
unique, maybe use this as an
inspiration. Maybe your character is
into art and fashion and likes to draw,
then maybe they should have stylish
clothing and hairstyles, popping colors,
and some sort of sketchbook with them in
order to show this. If you want to have
a stepbystep on how to make a good
character design, I have made a tutorial
about this topic showing how I've made
my character designs. Definitely check
that one out if you struggle in this
step. TLDDR: If you look at a character
and they look like they could be a
protagonist of some random isekai anime,
you failed.
Okay, this really is the same thing
again just for everything else in your
story. Make references and designs for
the tools your character use, the
animals, plants, everything. because you
don't want to be in the middle of
drawing your manga and being like,
"Wait, how does this thing look like
from the other side? I've even made 3D
models for my manga for certain weapons
just so that I can check all the angles
when drawing them. Same thing goes for
places and environments. If you don't
plan out everything ahead, it is going
to bite you in your ass when you're
drawing a manga and suddenly you forget
how many walls there are in your
fictional Attack on Titan City or where
exactly the Titan forest is located.
Make as much visual references so you
can stay consistent. Also, make a world
map so you can map out the journey your
characters take and then you're good. I
know it's a lot, but there's a reason
why pro mangaka have folders upon
folders of notes. Because if they work
for years on these stories, they can't
get anything wrong here. Believe me,
I've been there. It's very important.
Okay, now one last thing before we can
draw our manga. I promise. And again,
it's something that can really help you
out later on.
So um
how will your manga even look like? Like
this or like that or like this or like
that or manga pages can look completely
different depending on their styles and
you need to decide for the exact style
that you're going for ideally before you
start making your manga. So, here's what
I did when I made my new manga. I
collected some different manga pages
first, and then I analyzed what they all
had in common. They all had a lot of
grayscale shading, aka screen tones.
Don't worry if you don't know what that
is. We're going to tackle that later on.
They all had really detailed
backgrounds. Check. I also need to watch
that. Also, the backgrounds were
realistic, but the characters still
stayed very stylized and anime looking.
Not like Vagabond, for example, where
even the characters were drawn with more
realistic proportions in their face. So,
anyway, I tried to fuse all of these
things that I like about other manga and
tried making my own manga like this.
Now, I like to think this worked out
pretty well. What do you think? By the
way, if you want to learn more about my
manga, I explained the plot and I've
even made a whole animated trailer for
it. I've linked the video at the top.
Just give it a watch. Anyway, that's
what you should do before you make a
manga. Pick some style references and
then you're good to go.
Okay, steps one and two were a lot of
preparation. This is where you start
producing your manga. Here's one last
challenge to test if you are really
ready to start. Maybe just try drawing a
manga page before you actually tackle
this big project. A page with some
characters from your story, different
angles, maybe a location in your story
just to check if you could really nail a
finished manga page. If you struggle
here, I've made videos about basically
everything now, from how to draw a
character in perspective, faces, how to
invent your own art style, backgrounds,
and so on. But if you really feel ready,
then let's go.
Okay, I'll keep this part a bit shorter
because I literally made videos about
all of these steps. In case you didn't
know, mangaka don't go directly from a
story to a finished manga page. They
make a storyboard before that. Always.
You need to plan out which pages start
out right and which pages start out
left, how the panels in these pages are
flowing, and so on. If you do not plan
this out before, you will regret it a
lot. So, yeah, go ahead and draw a
storyboard of your manga pages first.
Maybe sketch out your first chapter like
this. If you have never made a
storyboard before, I did make a tutorial
on that where you can see how I turn a
story into a story board. But if you
already know how story boards work, then
you know what to do. So, let's move on
to the main part.
Ah, yes. Drawing the actual manga page.
Just a quick heads up, I don't care if
you draw this digitally or traditionally
with pen and paper. The same things
apply for both, namely the different
zones. Here's a quick explanation what
this means. The outer zones of the manga
page will be cut off. That's like 3 to 5
mm. If you want to see exactly how that
looks like, here's a PDF from my manga
that has these marks. That's where it
gets cut off while printing. Then you
have these borders. That's depending on
if you're drawing a left or right manga
page. For example, if you're drawing a
left manga page, then don't put anything
important here because in your finished
manga, this part of the page probably
won't be visible anymore. So, yeah,
while drawing, don't put any speech
bubbles or important things here. But
that's why you've made a storyboard, so
you won't have to worry about where to
place things anymore. You've already
planned that ahead. And oh yeah, the
part in the middle is the safe zone. It
doesn't matter what page you're drawing,
this part is always safe. Usually, manga
cars have this special manuscript paper
that includes all of these markings. And
that's also what I've used for my
traditional manga pages. I can only
recommend it. And if you want to know
where I got my paper, my ink, my pens,
and so on, they are all linked on my art
supply list. By the way, that's what I
have a website for, so you can check it
out. There's also lots of other
important stuff like paneling, timing,
especially when you're drawing fight
scenes, effects, like sound effects. But
all of this depends on which kind of
manga you're drawing. But if you need
any help, like I said, I have a whole
playlist with all of this stuff in
detail, from paneling to sound effects.
This manga paper is also really
important for the next step because if
you want to ink traditionally with a pen
and nib like pros do, regular printer
paper will probably bleed. Manuscript
paper won't. Now, speaking of inking,
[Music]
again, you probably know the drill. You
sketch out a manga page and then you ink
it. You can totally ink with liners, but
the problem here is that liners fade
when you erase over them. That's why you
see pro manga always use special pen nib
and ink for manga pages. Now, I will
warn you, handling these is not easy.
The learning curve is steep. It is
expensive and tedious, but it's also an
incredible amount of fun. There are
different nibs with special abilities,
and I use them for basically all of my
artworks. Now, again, if you are new and
you want to learn about every detail
when it comes to inking, especially with
pen nibs, again, I've made a video on
how to handle them and how to ink in
general.
Okay, in case you did not know, manga
isn't just shaded gray like it looks at
first glance. These are actually not
just flat gray areas, but they are tiny
dots. And this effect is called screen
tone or toning for short. To me, that's
kind of what makes the difference
between a black and white comic and an
actual manga. At least when it comes to
the finishing touches. However, if
you're a traditional artist, don't do
it. Traditionally, you're doing it with
screen tone foil that you need to stick
onto your paper and then cut into place.
And don't get me wrong, manga pages like
this can look incredible, like the ones
in My Hero Academia. These are drawn
traditionally and also toned
traditionally, but these things are way
too expensive. Instead, just scan in
your manga pages using a scanner and
some free software like MS Paint. If you
need my settings, I showed them on
screen. Then crank up the contrast and
then just shade it digitally. Don't
worry, you can also convert it into
screen tones. Believe me, this way it's
much less of a headache. And I could
also scanner.
>> What app is that? Which software are you
using? Oh. Oh, yeah. Right.
>> So, yeah, you're done producing your
manga pages. Congratulations.
This is taking months to get done, but
it's worth it. Okay, after all this
time, let's make a manga out of these
manga pages.
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
Okay, so obviously you don't add the
text by hand. You add the text digitally
after scanning your manga pages. And
here is a quick crash course on that.
You want to download a font called Anime
Ace. A download link is down in the info
box. You can literally use any free
software to add text, but there are a
couple of things to look out for. First,
leave some space in your speech bubble.
Ideally, your text should have equally
as much space to breathe on each side.
Now, next, I personally like it when
your text has a similar shape to the
bubble itself. So, instead of this look
right here, try formatting it more like
that. It has a nicer shape to it. Again,
that's how pros do it. And I think it's
overall a lot more pleasing to look at.
And now, these are your finished manga
pages with text and all. You could
actually print them like this, but most
printing companies actually want a
full-on PDF. In that case, you need one
more step.
There are special layouting softwares
for making an actual PDF. I'm using
Adobe Inesign for this. It's pretty
self-explanatory. Opening a new document
in your desired size, placing the pages,
and boom, you're done. I actually prefer
placing my text in this layouting
software rather than on the pages
themselves. But this is just a matter of
preference. Placing it in in design is
the more professional workflow though.
And then from here on out, you can
export it as a PDF. And boom, you're
done. Here's your finished PDF ready to
be printed. Oh, and what's still missing
is your cover. And it's as simple as
that. You make your illustration either
digitally or traditionally. You scan it,
you add some font as your title, and
that's it. Your printing files are
ready. Okay. Now, what's next?
Ready
for the final step? Let's publish your
manga. Now that you have a finished PDF,
you could either go to a publisher
because they could print it and sell
your manga in bookstores and online. But
the problem is that they might change
your story or let you redo it from
scratch. Or instead, you could print it
on your own, sell it in your own online
shop, and maybe publish it that way.
There are a lot of things to know about
this. Lots of downsides, lots of
upsides. And if you want to know
everything in detail, again, I've made a
video on how to publish your own book. I
would just copy and paste everything
from that video here. So again, just
watch that video if you want to know the
details. Before you leave and watch that
though, this video absolutely broke me
and it would be nice if you subscribe to
the channel. I'm making a lot more
videos like these very soon. All right,
it was a pleasure helping you guys out.