Manga/Anime Digital Gallery Feature

Welcome to Digital Manga/Anime! This is an article that will be highlighting each section of the digital art subcategory within Manga/Anime with a little about each category and then some wonderful features for you to enjoy! 

Firstly, what is “digital art”? It is artwork created via the use of digital media such as on a computer with a tablet or mouse. There are 6 digital art subcategories within the Manga/Anime gallery:

So, what is the ‘Drawings’ category all about? Digital drawings are, basically, drawings that have been done with digital media (i.e., on a computer). The variety within the category is huge, simply because there are so many ways to draw and/or colour digitally and it is the most popular of the digital subcategories, with ‘paintings’ not far behind. 

These two categories can be quite similar in many places, but what sets ‘Drawings’ apart from ‘Paintings’ is the techniques used to create the finished piece. Drawings typically start from some form of lineart that is then shaded or coloured in (though of course not all are done this way!) whereas paintings are often free from linearts but, again, not always. The biggest difference is that paintings are done to mimic the techniques used in traditional paintings (such as watercolours, for example) whereas drawings are more similar to the traditional pencil drawings and marker art. Naturally, the end results may look similar and so there may be some crossover within the two galleries depending on how the artists personally feel about where their work belongs. 

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Digital paintings are typically piece that been created using digital media such as computer and tablet and have been painted to mimic traditional painting media such as watercolour and oils, or have used mostly an airbrushing technique to complete the work. 

The paintings gallery is the second most popular within the digital manga and anime galleries, not far behind the drawings category. Similar to the ‘drawings’ gallery, digital M/A paintings has a wide variety of styles and techniques, many of which mimic the traditional techniques associated with painting and airbrushing. This gallery is also where you will find a large amount of anime/realism crossover and semi-realistic paintings with an obvious anime/manga influence. 

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Oekaki (お絵描き) is essentially the term to describe the act of ‘doodling’. There are various ‘oekaki boards’, which are applets where people can draw into an online drawing application. Typically they contain a set palette and a selection of screentones, though some may differ from this. Only artwork done in these applets can be classified as oekaki. The most popular oekaki boards are OekakiBBS, PaintBBS, and Shi-Painter, though there are many other oekaki boards out there that are available to use and many people have made their own. Similar to an oekaki board is PaintChat, where more than one person can draw onto the canvas at the same time. 

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There are two subcategories with the digital manga gallery. They are "Pages & Panels" and "Strips". Pages and Panels is, as it sounds, for single manga pages or panels from an original manga page whereas Strips is for manga comic strips.

Pages and Panels

Strips

The official Manga/Anime definition: "Manga and anime created in vector, which is based in paths and points that are infinitely scalable without pixelation. Scalable raster effects (also known as live effects) are welcome, as long as they are created in a vector-based program. Common vector-based programs: Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Inkscape, Flash (stationary art only) Other: Adobe Photoshop if created using vector tools such as shape tools and the pen tool."

For more information about vector art, check out Vector Art Project Educate RoundUp

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The official Manga/Anime gallery definition; "3D manga and anime art created using programs like Poser or Maya."

The 3D gallery definition "3D digital art created through the use of cartesian coordinates (X,Y,Z) on a 2D digital canvas."

That's all for now, make sure that you stay tuned for the traditional art feature later on!