Category: Art

Only Flora

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The Dreaming Vol3: I’ve finished pencilling chapter 16 (2 our of 6) of vol3, and has started inking chapter 15. This is going to the be last volume of “The Dreaming”, so I’m beginning to work out the details of my next work. But first, I gotta post up a Chapter 8 preview of “The Dreaming” vol2 first, which is coming out in November.

 

Supanova 2006: I’ll be there, selling copies of “The Dreaming” vol1, for about AUD$12. I’ll be at booth Y of the artist’s alley, and TOKYOPOP Australia has also printed a series of bookmarks for “The Dreaming” to be given away for free! Keep your eyes peeled. I’ll be sharing a table with Poshua, who’s selling a copy of “Generation 2006” ($12), an Australian manga anthology. This anthology contains my manga “The Two Dollar Deal” in it, so that’s probably your sole chance to buy it in print (for now).

 

Project “One2Eight” (aka 1 TWO 8): This is a new project I’ve created, and I’ve yet to put up a proper information page for it. The project consists of a series of short stories, each self-contained and complete, with a strict limit on the number of pages allowed. The challenge is to tell 8 stories, consisting of a 1-page story, a 2-page story, a 3-page story, and so on, to an 8-page story.

Both “The Two Dollar Deal” (8-pages) and “Message To You” (4-pages) is part of this series, and now you get to see “Only Flora” (5-pages), which is actually a prequel to another story (part of the “Boy Meets Girl in 10 Pages or Less” series). I did this story a fair while ago, and it was basically just an excuse to experiment at drawing without using ANY rulers (save for the panel lines). What the heck.

 

Only Flora - Page 1————————————

 

Only Flora - Page 2

 

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Only Flora - Page 3

 

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Only Flora - Page 4

 

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Only Flora - Page 5

 

The inspiration for this project came from a quote of Hagio Moto, who said that if you can tell a single, complete story in 8-pages then, you’ll never have any trouble telling a story of ANY length. Hagio Moto is right on that, but I want to go a step further, to see whether you can a single, complete story with a story arc in less than 8-pages (what a “story arc” will need a better definition). And I’ve proven that it’s doable. You can tell a 1-page story, but you can’t have a narrative arc in only 1-page of manga. Another aim of this project is to find the watershed point at which a story can begin to have a story arc, which is to say that it actually has a beginning, a middle and an end.

 

Narrative Watershed: I’ve found this point to be at 4-pages. 4-pages is the least number of pages you can have in telling a single, self-contained story with a story arc. It was originally 5-pages, with “Only Flora”, but I decided “Message To You” could qualify. At first it didn’t because it had no text in it, but I changed my mind when I realised you can tell a far longer story without text (Gon, anybody?). So why wouldn’t it qualify?

 

The Waking: Book 2 is done!!

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The Dreaming (Book2): Is finished. YAY!!! All 181 pages of it, plus a 3-page mini-manga at the end. Jesus, whatta heckuva month. It’s going to be out on November 22, and while I made the deadline, it was no fun experience since there was a major muck-up with my schedule. It turns out that the schedule laid out in my TOKYOPOP contract was wrong. In my contract, it said that everything was due on October 6th, but actually the due date was August 22nd. I found out after mid-July, and while having 6 weeks shaved off your schedule will kill most people, luckily I was a month ahead of schedule. That was what saved me, really – being 1 month ahead of schedule meaning that I had to work extra hard to fill in those 2 other weeks, but otherwise I made it. Now that it’s over, I can get back to bulletin-boarding and essay-writing, which I have really missed. I also got a new editor – Paul. Unfortunately, my former editor Carol is too busy to handle “The Dreaming” now. It’s a bit sad, but she was a good editor and I hope she’s coping well with her new workload.

I’ll be updating my site in the next few days, but first, some divider art. I wish I had more time to spend on these dividers, but given the circumstances, it wasn’t really possible.

 

Chapter 11 - "The Dreaming" vol2

 

Chapter 12 - "The Dreaming" vol2

 

Chapter 13 - "The Dreaming" vol2

 

Chapter 14 - "The Dreaming" vol2

 

Yu Yu Hakusho Anime: I often “watch” YouTube while working, and I have rediscovered a much beloved golden oldie on it. Yes, people, the Yu Yu Hakusho anime – which along with DragonBall Z, is one of the grand-daddys of the shonen-fighting genre. Created by Togashi Yoshihiro, otherwise known as He Who Has God-like Powers Over Shonen Jump Editors, it ran in Shonen Jump from 1991-1994, and the anime was made around that time. If DragonBall Z provided the endless fight scenes, Yu Yu Hakusho provided the characterisations (and the best-looking special attack moves EVER). Anime like Naruto owe a great deal to Yu Yu Hakusho (and unlike Naruto, YYH has no filler episodes). If you liked Naruto, you’ll probably like YYH (If you didn’t then… well.)

Why the sudden mention of such an ancient anime? Well, apart from the fact that the English Funimation Dub of YYH is SUPERB, YYH also has some of the best character designs EVER. It’s main four-man unit, consisting of Yuusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama and Hiei, is one of the most memorable fighting teams around. Precisely WHY is pretty easy to pin down – Togashi is a good character designer, and he’s inspiring me to write a detailed essay on character designs. Truth is – you may not have watched YYH, but chances are, you’ll recognise the characters, because they’ve got sharply drawn designs. I first started watching YYH BECAUSE I kept seeing posters of it everywhere, couldn’t get it out of my mind, and after resisting it for a few years, gave up and started watching it. And woah, I was surprised at how good it was.

Unfortunately, the show DOES drag at times. If you started watching YYH but didn’t finish watching all 112 episodes, then you’ll probably have missed the best parts of it. One of the best things about it is the way the story arcs end. It has NO filler episodes, good villains, and great character moments. The first arc in the show descends into endless fight scenes, but the second half of YYH is the REAL reason for watching the show, because it has a real interesting spin on the usual shonen-fighting formula. The story also takes a surprising turn near the end. Unfortunately, you’ll have to watch the first half to know who everyone is and what they’re all doing.

The Dreaming: Conflux

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YouTube.com has done wonders for my life. I have GOT to stop watching the “Naruto” anime there – it’s SO addictive, and they’ve got all the episodes (as well as gazillions of music videos dedicated to Sasuke). I’ve read the manga and I’ve resisted all efforts to be sucked into watching the anime thus far, until YouTube came along anyway. Now anyone who’s ever wondered what the fuss was about “Naruto” can now see for themselves, though I was surprised by the Japanese voice-acting for some of the characters. Naruto was always really annoying in the manga, but his voice actor made him sound completely… loveable!! And then there was Sasuke’s voice, which was bizarrely… deep for a 13-year old. Naruto’s meant to be older than Sasuke, so it was very peculiar. You can’t complain about the quality of the voice-acting though; just the casting. All Naruto would-be fans, I suggest you catch “Naruto” before the copyright holders catch YouTube. They’ve got the entire set of “Dragonball Z” and “Bleach” episodes online as well!

 

OzComic 24 hour challenge: This is exactly what it says. It’s the Australian 24 hour comics challenge!! It’s on the Queen’s Birthday weekend, and I’m giving away an original piece of art for it (as a prize). This is the first time I’ve given away an original piece of art, and it’s this one:

 

Valkyrie Girl - lines

Which is the original inks for the illustration you see below (scroll down, folks).

 

Conflux: It’s Conflux this weekend, Australia’s largest Sci-fi (and other things) convention. It’s going to be on at Canberra, and I’ve wrangled myself onto a few panels there. Those who are going will already know, but I’ll post up what for and when:

Time and Panels:

  • 10am Saturday – Dark Fantasy Atmosphere and Mood
  • 3.15pm Sunday – Comics Philosophy and Spirituality
  • 4pm Sunday – Manga style drawing workshop
  • 10am Monday – Anime and feminism

 

The Dreaming: I’ve finished Chapter 11 – three more chapters to go!! I posted some more samples up on my site, though none from chapter 11, because that’s a pivotal chapter.

 

Illustrations: I’m currently doing some illustrations for a company, and this is the first one. It doesn’t quite have a name, except that I was asked to do an “Anime Girl”, and so this is my half-naked Valkyrie anime girl with big-eyes. Poshua, when she saw this picture, she couldn’t believe I was doing something so fan-servicy, and while I agreed with her, I just saw it as an opportunity to practice rendering skin tones.

 

Valkyrie Girl

 

I like complex renders of anatomy, and now I can finally understand why some superhero artists draw impossibly-proportioned characters in their pin-ups and sequential art. Rendering the human body by carefully showing the contours of the muscles and bones is fun. However, it’s NOT quite the sort of thing alot of women artists like to do. Alot of women prefer lighter, pastel colours and all… but I’ve always had more masculine tastes anyway, so perhaps that isn’t so unexpected. What I should make clear, however, is that I dislike impossibly-proportioned male and female characters as much as the next woman. I see alot of good muscle-rendering by illustrators, but haven’t seen an awful lot that I find appealing, and it wasn’t until that I saw Kim Hyung-Tae’s art that I even remotely wanted to emulate such a thing. But then, Kim’s guys look like girls and his girls look like porn stars. That I didn’t want to emulate.

I wanted her to look athletic, but not muscular, which meant I had to tone down the way I rendered her skin a bit. Originally, she had turned like out a muscular super-heroine, which I (and most women) found very unappealing. Oddly enough, men never seem to find muscular cartoon women particularly unappealing. Probably because they see nice rendering and think “nice rendering!”. Poshua and I had a discussion about how men tend to be more fixated on “technically good art” than women are, which makes alot of sense. Just compare a well-rendered men’s manga, which has infinitely more detail than the best-rendered women’s manga. That has nothing on the quality of the manga itself, but it does give some small indication of what readers tend to fixate on. But anyway, I decided there must be some middle-ground out there where a woman can look athletic without looking like a man, and that was what I attempted with her.

Overall, I think this picture’s okay. The only part I really liked was probably the tattoo on her thigh, but it’s my first real illustration job, so perhaps I’m asking too much of myself. I certainly hope I improve as I do more though illustrations though (I need it!).