I wanted to do some more research on doing shoujo-style manga since it's a genre that I've not really delved into much. Most of the manga I read is shounen/anything geared towards the guys. There are few shoujo manga out there that I like reading, like Sailor Moon, for instance. I'd like to attempt to do a shoujo-style story or 1-page practice comic, but I fear that my art looks too shounen-ish. Most of my inking tends to have varying line widths unlike how Shoujo manga tends to be and there is a lot of toning in pages and details inked in. How can I get a more 'delicate,' and 'girly' look to my manga pages? I wanted to look at the type of pens to use and just experiment. Is there a type of super-thin pen that will give that shoujo-style look? I want to invest in the non-dippable pens that doesn't require nibs, if possible. So far, I use microns to do the shounen-style manga I do, since I can do varying line widths and such.

Anyone have any suggestions on pens that don't require nibs that can be used to get the desired results of shoujo-stylee manga? And are there any tips on drawing Shoujo manga appropriately that I should keep in mind? I'm really trying to avoid the how-to-draw books. I don't want to learn how to draw like someone else. I just want to learn the concepts and techniques to keep in mind when drawing shoujo (ie: don't vary your line widths, etc).

Thanks :D

I don't think changing the size of your pen will really make a difference as much as the way you draw it.

Honestly, I'd be more interested seeing a shoujo comic that breaks the mold.

But, I think the best thing to do would be to make sure all the characters are "cute", like big glassy eyes, round shapes, less angles and spikey corners.

Well I've noticed that you can tell which manga is shoujo because the lines are drawn delicately and look girlish, so that was what I wanted to try and accomplish. It's just a new technique that I want to try and get better at so I thought the type of pen might have something to do with it.

Shoujo's not so much an art style as it is just a genre for comics aimed at girls. It's more that your main character is a female and you go into how she feels about whatever situation she's in rather then a shonen with a boy going 'lol kick sum asses man i'm hungry believ it'.

You could probably take your shonen style you have now and just change the screentones, shoujo's tend to have heavy use of them. Your lines can be very varied(think x/1999) as long as you know what to do with the tones. But Daiconv is right it's more about the cute factor.