Learning to draw manga is exciting, but beginners often make the same mistakes that slow down their progress. If you’ve ever felt stuck, frustrated, or unsure why your drawings don’t look like you imagined, you’re not alone. The good news is that most manga mistakes are easy to fix once you know what to look for.
Here are the seven most common beginner mistakes — and simple ways to overcome each one.
1. Focusing Only on Details Instead of Structure
Many beginners jump straight into drawing eyes, hair, or clothing without understanding the underlying head and body structure. This leads to characters that look flat or unbalanced.
Fix: Start every drawing with basic shapes — circles, ovals, cylinders, and simple guidelines. Mastering proportions makes your final art look far more professional.
2. Ignoring Anatomy and Proportions
Even stylized manga characters follow real anatomy principles. Without basic anatomy knowledge, characters end up with stiff poses or limbs that don’t look natural.
Fix: Use reference photos and pose websites. Practice drawing simple mannequins before adding manga features.
3. Using Only One Angle for Every Drawing
A lot of beginners always draw faces from the front because it feels “safe.” But learning angles is essential if you want your characters to look dynamic.
Fix: Practice heads from multiple angles: 3/4 view, profile, upshots, downshots. Start with spheres and guidelines to simplify the process.
4. Overcomplicating Hair and Clothes
New artists tend to draw every single hair strand or too many folds in clothes. This makes the drawing look messy instead of stylish.
Fix: Simplify everything. Draw hair in large shapes first, then add only essential details. Same for clothes — think in terms of big folds, not dozens of tiny ones.
5. Relying on Random YouTube Tutorials With No Learning Path
YouTube is amazing, but jumping between hundreds of unrelated tutorials creates confusion. You learn tricks, not fundamentals, and progress becomes slow.
Fix: Follow a structured learning path. If you want something affordable and beginner-friendly, you can check out step-by-step online courses for manga and digital drawing. A clear roadmap helps you avoid the chaos of random tutorials and actually improve faster.
6. Avoiding Hands, Feet, and Difficult Poses
Beginners often hide hands behind pockets or draw characters standing straight with no movement. But avoiding difficult things only slows your improvement.
Fix: Practice hands, feet, and dynamic poses separately. Break them into simple shapes — it’s much easier than you think.
7. Forgetting About Storytelling
Manga isn’t just drawing characters — it’s telling a story. Beginners often focus only on isolated drawings instead of scenes, emotions, and interactions.
Fix: Think of your drawings as moments in a story. What is the character feeling? What happened before this scene? What will happen next?
Final Thoughts
Everyone makes these mistakes at the beginning. The important thing is recognizing them and practicing smarter. Start with simple shapes, study proportions, explore new angles, and use structured learning resources to guide your progress.
If you avoid these seven beginner traps, your manga drawing will improve much faster than you expect — sometimes in just a few weeks.