How to Draw Fighting Anime and Manga

How to Design Fight Poses

(Brainstorming, Daydreaming)

• Daydream of fighting. Use your Movement and Motion Imagination
• Study and Analyze movement and stillness of fighting poses on DVD and streaming video online, as well as manga, comics, and production artwork from more established productio
• Pick a Pose or some poses: (i.e. fist punch, leg and foot kick, leap, air leap, sword swipe, strike, gun, block
•  Think in terms of filmmaking: Think like a choreographer-cinematographer
•  Give your poses depth, 3-Dimensions, (shadow, shading, lighting, exaggeration, foreshortening, weight)
•  Capture motion and speed (speed lines, blurring effects, impact effects, streaking effects
•  Think like a Japanese animator, storyboard artist, or manga-ka
•  Don't Draw Small Frames. Draw Big Frames. Draw Cells and Storyboards At Full Screen-Page Proportions and Ratio
• Don't think that just because no one attempts to draw it that it's not worth drawing. Martial Arts Fighting has been drawn for decades or more in Japanese comics and animation, well, ever since Toei did Dragonball Z anyway. Don't get discouraged if your fighting choreography on the page in pencil or pen isn't perfect or looks crude initially. Just remember in terms of America you're one of the first or second generation of Americans to attempt drawing martial arts style action on the page, in America, as opposed to Japan or Hong-Kong. 
• Don't just draw TINY THUMBNAILS WITH NO FORESHORTENING of LIMBS/BODIES for sketches. Even if you lack confidence to draw fighting, draw it anyway (if it's what you really want to draw), Draw all your poses and compositions on as large a scale as possible, both literally and figuratively. Draw in 3-Dimensional Hong-Kong choreography and anime mode, not arcade 16-bit Arcade Fighting Game Mode, where every character is flat and the same size (that's actually how I started off, until I realized how flat it looked in reality.