Ever wondered what a manga might look like before it’s completed? This post gives you a behind-the-scenes look at the sketch version of my original manga-style story, The Sinful Child, featuring a small collection of art sketches from the remastered edition.

The remastered version is still in development and has not been published yet, but the previous version of the story is already available on the website for readers who want to explore the original journey behind this new direction.

These sketch version pages showcase the creative process behind manga-style comics, from refining character designs and expressions to testing panel layouts and visual storytelling choices.

Art Sketches of The Sinful Child Remastered Version

I usually split my page into 3 horizontal panels, then adapt the rest of the page based on the story I wrote in Google Docs to fit all panels.

As this is a visual format, you don’t want to write too much text, as this might keep the reader’s attention away from the drawing that should be expressive enough to explain what you want to say with words.

As you can see from this page, I originally split it into 3 horizontal panels as mentioned above. Then, I added another horizontal panel (for a total of 4).

Don’t worry, the page isn’t that empty; I just haven’t added the text I usually write in Google Docs at first to make sure I don’t forget the dialogue.

The 1st panel (in the top left corner) is only text and will not carry out any illustration. Probably some effect you can choose on Clip Studio Paint (which is the software I use to create my drawings and stories).

From time to time, I like drawing large characters to space out the story and make the reading more enjoyable. As said before, it’s a manga, a visual book format; therefore, I like it when I’m not flooded with a ton of text that prevents me from being 100% into the story, even though I really like it.

I reserve this treatment for text formats (short and long-form novels) that have a single purpose: to immerse the reader in a world that lets them have full control over the world they’re discovering.

When I work on a manga, I try my best to display no more than 5 panels per page. As you can imagine, the fewer panels you create, the faster you work. Also, it helps make your illustrations bigger, too, which forces me to add more text to the page (without making the reading insufferable).