What Pens Do Manga Artists Use? Choosing Professional Tools

Manga can require as many or as few materials as you want to use. There’s a huge list of materials required to make Grade-A professional manga, afterall!

With that being said, you’ll almost always need some pens and paper! So, what kinds of pens and markers do manga artists use to give their comics that classic, manga look? Let’s explore!

Manga artists use dip pens to ink their manga comics. G-pens are the most popular dip pens used by manga artists because of their ability to create varying line thicknesses. Artists will draw the initial lines of their manga with a mechanical pencil, and then trace over them with a G-Pen to make them darker.

You can draw manga with just a mechanical pencil and a G-pen. Take a look at any of your favorite manga panels / manga characters and you’ll be able to see what I mean when I talk about line thickness.

Take a look at Sōma Yukihira’s nose above. The bottom of his nose is much thicker than the top. The lines on his head wrap also vary in thickness depending on how close they are to the camera, and how the material is flowing.

These effects are created by the artist applying different pressures while drawing with their G-Pen. You won’t really be able to get this same effect when drawing with a regular fine-point pen. They still have their place in manga creation, but if you really want to make traditional manga, you’re going to want a G Pen and some Ink.

Best G Nibs For Manga

You have a few options for your G Nibs. Personally, if you’re a beginner, I’d recommend just getting something simple and all-in-one, like the DELETER three pack. This comes with three different nibs (including a G Nib, of course.) It also comes with a holder.

Alternatively, you could buy premium nibs and nib holders separately. This will be more expensive, but you’ll get a longer lasting and overall higher quality product. Tachikawa is a really well-known brand for hobbyists and self-published artists, and I love their products, but there’s nothing wrong with saving money and getting some DELETER supplies, especially if you’re just starting.

Keep in mind, you’re going to need some black ink as well! Any pen ink from a hobby store will work, if you want a recommendation then you can’t go wrong with Kuretake cartoonist / manga ink! This ink is a little easier to work with in my experience and just more malleable when putting it on a page, but again any ink will do! DELETER has some decent ink for half the price, too!

G Nib

As mentioned above, G Nibs are usually used to create the lines for manga. Typically the artist will draw a page with a mechanical pencil, then go over the lines with a G Nib dip pen.

This same exact process was later adopted by digital art! If you watch someone create a digital manga / anime / comic book / whatever painting, they’ll typically roughly sketch the drawing, create a new layer and make cleaner, darker lines. Sometimes they’ll even create a new layer on top of that for even cleaner lines!

Take a look at Naruto below:

Specifically, look at his cheek, how the line gets much thicker right under his nose! Lines like this are where G Pens and dip pens in general really excel.

However, they can’t be used for everything. Dark, black hair for example! Which brings me to the next pen.

Brush Pen

Brush Pens are exactly what they sound like, pens that are brushes. These are really good for filling in large, black areas. A great example of when to use a brush pen is Goku’s hair!

Take a look at Goku’s shoes, hair, undershirt, wrist bands, etc. You’re going to want to use a Brush Pen pretty much anywhere that requires filling in large areas of black. Dark backgrounds at night are another great use-case!

Brush pens can be a little harder to find, but a permanent marker is a great alternative. If you can find something like Kuretake’s brush pen set, then I highly recommend it.

Brush pens aren’t just great for filling in large areas, they’re also incredibly satisfying to work with! Just make sure you’re using thick enough paper that can handle the extra ink.

Fine Point Pen

Fine point pens are also pretty important for manga, because sometimes you need to draw lines with one single thickness. One major example of when you’d want to do this is when drawing the lines for your panels.

Panel lines are usually one solid thickness, and fine-point pens are perfect! Of course, you’ll also need a ruler for this, but any old ruler and pen will do. I like Sharpie pens myself, but literally any fine-point pen will do as long as its lines are dark enough to be seen.

When drawing manga, white out and white ink are typically used to erase any unwanted pencil or pen markings that end up outside of a manga panel. This is common when drawing a close up of a character’s head or face. Part of the head will end up outside of the panel and need to be erased with white ink.

Take a look at Saitama below. His arm, cape, etc are all flowing off the panel. What likely happened is that the artist drew all of Saitama and then retracted anything outside of the panel with white ink or white out!

The artist may have even drawn Saitama’s entire head, and then the cape, only to use white ink on the cape in order to erase any overlapping of Saitama’s head! So, white out is a very powerful tool in any manga artist’s arsenal.

If you’re drawing a close up of a character’s face in a manga panel, you have two options. Number one is to stop the face at the edge of the panel. Option number two is to draw the entire character’s head, and then erase whatever falls outside of the panel.

Believe it or not, option number two is usually much easier. Muscle memory takes over and it only feels natural to just finish the entire shape that you’re drawing and erase it afterwards. This usually feels much more natural and leads to a better, more consistent drawing.

The process of inking manga is:

• Plan manga panels out with a mechanical pencil and ruler
• Draw the entire manga page with a mechanical pencil
• Use Dip Pens and black ink to draw over the mechanical pencil lines for the final inking
• Use White Out or white ink to draw highlights and erase any lines that fell out of the manga panels

There you have it! There aren’t too many steps to the process, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t take a while. The main things to keep in mind here are your panel planning and your inking. Ink your panels with a fine point pen, ink your characters with a G Nib, and Ink hair and large, dark areas with a brush pen!

Also make sure you’re using paper that can withstand all that ink, otherwise you’re going to be in for a very messy day and could potentially ruin all of your hard work.

How Long Does It Take To Ink Manga

It takes roughly 2 - 6 hours to ink a manga page, depending on the detail of the drawings. Completing an entire manga page and inking it will take anywhere from 8 - 16 hours total, and much of that time will be spent inking the manga. This is why professional artists have assistants ink smaller details.

Manga like One Piece is going to be a lot easier to ink than something like Ghost in the Shell, which is much more detailed most of the time. Many published artists will have assistance ink things like clothes and small details that don’t matter as much, while the artist themselves will worry about the important bits like the face and hair.

Inking is a very long and tedious process, but also one of the most satisfying. Watching a rough draft turn into something professional and clean is one of the most rewarding things an artist can experience, which is why I recommend all manga artists, no matter how new, to try to ink at least one of their finished drawings.

It may take you an entire day to ink your manga the first time you try, and if you’re like me, it may turn out sloppy and you’ll feel like you ruined the drawing. But, as you practice you’ll get better and better until one day you have your own assistant inking the hair for you!