From Dragon Ball Z and Slayers to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, explore how anime hair, magic effects, and dynamic manga poses bring characters to life.

Finishing your manga is only part of the job.

If you’re submitting to a manga contest or digital platform, the export process can create an entirely new set of problems: oversized PDFs, unreadable dialogue, moiré, damaged hatching, grayscale conversion, and upload limits.

I ran into all of those while submitting Futari Inari Taihen!!.

Mr. Adventure has always been designed like an exaggerated JRPG hero.

Huge pauldrons, oversized armor, a massive sword, bright heroic colors, and enormous blonde spikes all help sell the idea that he belongs in a fantasy RPG. His design pulls from the same visual language as classic role-playing game protagonists, especially characters like Cloud Strife.

For Game Over Level 8, I wanted to strip most of that away.

 Clothes should grow with your characters! See how Kyoko’s Level 8 redesign uses 1980s Japanese fashion, oversized clothing, color, and silhouette to reflect her changing character arc in Game Over.

 Redesigning my Tsundere! See how Tiffany’s Level 8 redesign uses 1980s fashion, tsundere character design, bold color, and artistic growth to update a classic Game Over character.

 How do you make a Yandere not look like a Yandere you’ve already seen before without losing that Yandere appeal? See how Yana’s Level 8 redesign uses 1980s fashion, bold color, exaggerated silhouettes, and anime yandere tropes to build a memorable manga character.

Ever wonder why soft digital gradients turn into splotchy mud when printed? Discover the vital difference between greyscale and monochrome in manga, plus how to use Beta (solid black fills) to build high-contrast drama without turning your page into a muddy blob.

Ever wonder why manga art suddenly looks flat mid-series? Discover why artists use screentone, the truth about deadlines, and how to spot real detail.

Every masked character makes you want to know what's underneath. Kurotsuki made sure you'd never find out. Meet the main character of OFFstream.

Kind of.

But… I also lied to you. Everything you see here doesn’t actually exist.

Ever watch something that just revolutionizes how you think about something? That’s me and Final Fantasy.

Everyone has been asking on Twitch how I make a background image of Kyoto for my manga look more detailed than the photo itself. It’s all in the contrast and asking the right questions!

Ever wondered what your favorite dating sim would look like as a manga? I think about how adaptations constantly. For example, what do you keep from the original to make it special without also making it feel clunky and like you’re trying to force the original into being something it isn’t?

Compulsion is a real thing. I heard Drop Dead by Olivia Rodrigo and I had no choice but to make this cursed image of Haru and Kurotsuki.

After over 28 hours, I finally had my first finished piece of Haru and Avery. It was worth the revisions.

Success doesn’t have to mean winning. For artists and creators, it might be about momentum, joy, and creating things you love. Here’s how I’m redefining success: on my own terms and with a little inspiration from Japan.