Beyond the Panels: My Junior Mangaka Adventure

At Hwa Chong, Sabbatical Week gives students the opportunity to explore interests beyond the regular curriculum, including creative fields they may not have tried before. The Junior Mangaka sabbatical introduced students to the fundamentals of manga drawing, from character features and proportions to expressions, body structure and panel storytelling. In this reflection, Nathaniel shares how an unexpected sabbatical choice became a meaningful experience in creativity, confidence and artistic growth. 

Written by: Nathaniel Jay Thong (3O2, 2026)

For my Term 2 sabbatical, I had missed the original deadline to submit my choices. In Round 2, I placed Junior Mangaka as my first option, as there were not many choices left. Although I had not originally intended to attend this sabbatical, I did not regret choosing it.

On the first day of the sabbatical, we learnt how to draw basic components of a character’s face, such as the eyes, nose, mouth and ears. On the second day, we learnt how to draw different expressions and better understand facial proportions. On the third day, we learnt how to draw hands and the rest of the body. On the fourth and fifth days, we drew an actual manga page with several panels and a storyline.

At first, I thought that I would not have much fun because I was not very good at drawing, and I assumed that the lessons would be too advanced for me to learn anything. However, thanks to the guidance of the skilled mentors in the sabbatical, I managed to improve significantly, even from the first day. I went from copying portraits of my favourite characters to actually being able to draw their faces using proportions. The mentor also patiently taught and explained to me how to draw a hand properly when I did not understand his original demonstration. Furthermore, seeing the other talented students in the sabbatical made me want to improve my own drawing skills too.

I also loved how the sabbatical gave us the freedom to experiment with any characters we wanted, instead of confining us to a fixed set of notes. Throughout the sabbatical, I was able to draw some of my favourite characters from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, One Piece and Assassination Classroom. I am now having a lot of fun drawing other favourites from different series with different art styles.

One of the most rewarding parts of this sabbatical was the final two days, when we got to apply everything we had learnt and create our own short story. I took inspiration from some of my favourite manga panels to depict the moments leading up to a battle. Even when I thought I was done, the mentor still gave me extra feedback. Some of it seemed minor to me, such as adding action lines to fill up an otherwise empty background, but it actually helped make the scene look much better.

I would recommend this sabbatical to other students, regardless of their skill level. With the help of the simple step-by-step lessons and the mentors’ expertise, this experience deepened my understanding and appreciation of the effort mangaka put into creating their own series, or even just a single panel.