A studio service
A manga cover that sells at thumbnail size.
A manga volume is bought at the size of a postage stamp, in a grid of two hundred other covers. The character has to read, the title band has to sit where the eye lands, and volume two has to look like it belongs next to volume one. We design manga covers for self-published creators and small presses: original character art, a title system, spine and back built to print spec, and a series template you can keep using.
Sample work
Sample work.
A cover and the interior it belongs to, drawn from one character sheet — the point of the sample is that the boy on the cover is the boy on the page.
Manga volume cover
Ink line, flat vermilion and cream, one character reading as a silhouette, and a clean band left for the title. Designed at the size a store grid shows it.
Manga interior page, right to left
Five panels with diagonal borders in right-to-left order, screentone rain, solid black shadows, two empty balloons. The same boy as the cover, drawn from the same sheet.
Studio demonstration pieces made to show the work — not client commissions. Original characters; the title band is left empty on purpose.
N° 01What makes a manga cover
Ink line, flat colour, and a lot of empty space.
Manga covers are not painted book covers. The convention is confident ink line art with flat or lightly shaded colour, one or two characters in a pose that reads as a silhouette, and generous clean space where the title, author name and volume number sit. Crowded, painterly covers look like Western trade paperbacks, and readers who browse manga notice.
Everything on the page is designed at the size a buyer first sees it: the store grid. Then it is built to the trim, spine and bleed of the format you are printing, so the wrap comes back from the printer with the spine type centred and nothing important lost to the fold.
01
Character art from your model sheet
Cover art drawn from the character reference your interior uses, so the person on the cover is the person in the book. If there is no model sheet yet, that is the first thing we build.
02
Title band and hierarchy
A title placement and type system that leaves room for the volume number and your name, reads at thumbnail, and repeats identically across the series.
03
Colour that stays flat
Cel-style fills, a single accent colour and solid blacks, in the tradition of the format, prepared in CMYK so the vermilion on screen is the vermilion on paper.
04
Spine, back and flaps
Full wrap built to your page count and paper stock: spine width calculated, back-cover blurb space and barcode zone reserved, flaps if the format has them.
05
Series system
A template with the colour slots, title block and volume-number position fixed, so every later volume is a new illustration dropped into a known frame.
06
Store assets
Front-cover crops for the listing, a square social crop and a banner crop, delivered with the print files.
N° 02Formats
Tankobon, digest, trade, or digital-first.
The small tankobon trim most readers expect, the slightly larger digest, a standard trade size, or a digital-first release that only needs a front cover and a square crop: the art is the same, the build is different. We design once and build to the format you are actually printing, with the specification sheet included so a reprint at a different size is a rebuild, not a redesign.
Investment
Named engagements. Quoted per project.
From a single front cover to a series system. The number of characters, the format you are printing and whether a model sheet already exists set the scope, so each engagement is quoted per project.
Front cover
Quoted per projectsingle volume
One volume, one front cover, print or digital.
- Concept sketches (two directions)
- Finished cover illustration
- Title band and type system
- Front-cover file to spec
- Listing, square and banner crops
- Volumes
- 1
- Characters on cover
- up to 2
- Concept directions
- 2, you pick 1
- Revision rounds
- 2 on the sketch, 1 on the finish
- Delivery
- 10 business days from brief
Not included
- Spine, back cover or flaps (Full wrap)
- Interior pages or lettering
- Character model sheet if none exists (Character design)
- Printing costs
- Licensed or franchise characters
Full wrap
Quoted per projectprint-ready
Front, spine and back built to your trim and page count, ready to upload.
- Everything in Front cover
- Spine width calculated to page count and stock
- Back cover with blurb and barcode zones
- Flaps if the format has them
- KDP or printer-spec PDF with specification sheet
- One proof-review pass
- Volumes
- 1
- Characters on cover
- up to 3
- Concept directions
- 2, you pick 1
- Revision rounds
- 2 on the sketch, 1 on the finish, 1 on the wrap
- Trim sizes built
- 1 (a second is quoted)
- Delivery
- 15 business days from brief
Not included
- Interior pages or lettering
- Back-cover blurb writing (you supply the text)
- Character model sheet if none exists
- Printing costs or proof copies
- Licensed or franchise characters
Series system
Quoted per projectvolume 1 + template
The first volume's wrap plus a locked template for every volume after it.
- Everything in Full wrap for volume 1
- Series template with fixed title block and colour slots
- Volume-number and spine-numbering system
- Colour palette per volume planned
- Per-volume covers thereafter at a set rate
- Volumes in this engagement
- 1 (later volumes quoted per volume)
- Template revisions
- 1 round
- Palette plan
- up to 12 volumes
- Delivery
- 20 business days from brief
Not included
- Later volumes' illustrations (quoted per volume)
- Interior pages or lettering
- Printing costs
- Marketing or launch campaigns
- Licensed or franchise characters
Quoted per project. Printing is paid to the printer or deducted per copy on KDP; the only cost here is the design work. A model sheet, if you do not have one, is quoted with it under Character design.
How every package works
- One engagement covers one title. A second series is a second engagement.
- The caps on each card are the scope. More characters, more concept directions, another trim size or more revision rounds are quoted before we do them.
- Revision rounds are counted at the stage they happen: a change to the pose after the finish is a new finish, not a revision.
- You supply the blurb, your name as it should appear, and the ISBN or barcode if you have one. We place them; we do not write the blurb.
- Delivery times run from an approved brief and the character reference, not from payment.
- You own the finished cover art and the template for your title. We keep the right to show the work as a sample unless you ask us not to.
- We do not draw licensed or franchise characters, fan art, or anything the site's content rules exclude.
- Nothing here promises sales or rankings. A cover gets the click; the book has to earn the rest.
- Anything not written on the card is not in the package. Ask before you buy; the answer is the same afterwards.
Questions
The answers we give most often.
- Do you draw in a specific manga style?
- We draw original characters in the conventions of the format: ink line, flat colour, strong silhouettes, clean space for the title. We do not imitate a named artist or franchise, and we will not draw licensed characters. If you have an interior artist already, we match their character sheet so the cover and the book agree.
- Can you design the cover before the interior is finished?
- Yes, as long as the character reference exists. Most self-publishers want the cover early for pre-orders and social posts, and the front-cover crops are delivered first for exactly that. The full wrap waits for the final page count, because the spine width depends on it.
- What do you need from me?
- The character model sheet or interior pages, the title and your name as they should appear, the trim size and page count if you know them, the blurb, and a sentence about the tone of the story. If you are not sure about trim, we decide it with you before sketches.
- Does the cover come with a title font?
- It comes with a title treatment: a typeface choice, size, placement and any custom lettering shape, delivered as part of the layered file. Where the treatment uses a licensed font, we tell you which one and what the licence covers.
- Will the same cover work for print and Kindle?
- The front cover does, with different crops. The wrap is print-only. We deliver both from one build, so the Kindle edition and the paperback show the same face on the listing.
- Can you also prepare the interior for print?
- Yes, that is the manga self-publishing service. Many creators take the wrap and the interior preparation together so the spine width, page count and trim are calculated once by the same people.
Next step
Get a cover that holds its own in the grid.
Send us the character reference, the title and the format you are printing. We'll reply within two business days with two directions we'd sketch and a per-project quote.