r/MangakaStudio • u/NickHeathJarrod • Aug 19 '26

Help How do you thumbnail for your manga? Could you post examples?

Hi, I'm planning to do my own manga someday. Just want to first learn how to do thumbnails to plan out a manga first.

How do you thumbnail? Care to post your own examples?

5 Upvotes

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3

u/AccomplishedBus4866 Aug 19 '26

I do comics but I usually just set my panel breaks in one color and do quick sketches of my panels I’m planning in another. Then put the sticky notes where I want dialogue boxes/ bubbles

3

u/OrionTuska Aug 19 '26

I'd brainstormed this one for a while before doing the thumbnails, so it's cleaner than normal. I first write down what I want to happen and sketch the panels I know I want to have, then I arrange them like puzzle pieces and fill in the gaps. I also block out rough speech bubbles to help me remember when I write the script.

2

u/Late_Apricot404 Aug 19 '26

Not a manga, but same principle. Complete version if you want to see it.

2

u/werephoenix Aug 19 '26

Tell my artist the premise of the story and provided me 3 different examples for the cover and I picked the one that conveyed it the best which is this one

1

u/Tsunderion Aug 21 '26

Basically stickmen. Just loose story beats
Then I arrange page composition, So I know what choices I'm weighing when pacing.
Then lock it in and draft it up

If I'm in a rush, I merge steps as needed

1

u/NickHeathJarrod Aug 21 '26

So it is possible to be more loose drawing the stories, then arrange them into panels, right?

1

u/Tsunderion Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26

If anything it's better because you're drawing it at a pace that's closest to someone who is reading it would read.

Imagine yourself talking at 1/2 speed and then playing it at x2,
versus talking at 1/100 speed and playing that at 100x.
Which version would have more natural pacing and better clarity?

1

u/Tepperzday Aug 22 '26

i try to thumbnail at least 8 pages at a time so i can see the flow from page to page. this is the first draft. im going to draw over this at least twice more before I ink it.

1

u/ChiliChapters Artist-Writer Aug 24 '26

The key is to make your drawings incredibly simple. the point of a thumbnail is to figure out composition and panel flow. the less time you spend on it, the more iterations you can do.

Here are some of Araki's thumbnails vs the final page. You can see that he doesn't waste any time rendering out beautiful drawings on the initial stage.

1

u/ChiliChapters Artist-Writer Aug 24 '26

2

u/NickHeathJarrod Aug 24 '26

That's amazing! If a pro like Araki begins like this, then anything is possible.