(no subject)
meh. while i'm still up, i might as well get this off my chest.
i am what they call a 'wannabe manga artist.' sure, i don't draw EXACTLY the manga style. (not anymore at least, compared to my old stuff--massive BESM stuff like lian's. and that stuff is painful.) but i like to draw in the comic book style. i like designing things like posters and site/blog layouts. i can't be a 'manga-ka' thing because i don't live in japan and i don't do manga for a living.
so just toss me in as a macabre artist. half the morbid stuff i draw isn't online. when it gets better, i'll post it or something. i don't draw 'manga' anymore. my style has moved beyond that into something IIII think is better. (speaking directly for myself, anyways.)
while i'm on the subject of what was old for me and such, i was possibly the worst kind of artist EVAR. i copied work and called it my own. this childish stage passed after awhile, after the guilt ebbed away at my self consious. that was....*counts* three years ago. pretty sad? i think so.
i bought 4 of those tacky how to draw manga books. that was a long time ago. i was ecstatic when i recieved them in the mail. as i look back on them now, collecting dust under my desk, i feel stupid enough to waste my 20 bucks on each book. (actually, one was ten, but that's beside the point.) because why? (aside from the fact i found the same books in the library) they didn't teach me a damn thing. sure, they say it'll TEACH you how to be a mangaka or whatever, but it doesn't come with a money back guarentee. i didn't learn a damn thing from those books. and i'm not ashamed to admit that copying helped me learn.
they teach you anime anatomy. suuure. what good'll that do you if you don't even know REAL anatomy? Finding this out on my own, i instantly checked out books about the human anatomy and taught myself. i don't have a firm handle on it, but i know what goes where.
those books teach you how to be a cookie cutter mangaka. and that's the worst thing to be. you don't want to be that. you don't want to be like everybody else. you want to STAND OUT. have a style of your own. if you do comics for a living, then hurrah, you're a comic artist. if you go do comics in japan, congrats, you're a mangaka or whatever.
if you want advice from me, just practice. don't waste your money on those stupid overpriced manga books. borrow some library books on anatomy (believe it or not, it's FREE) and learn that way. that way, you can adapt that to your OWN style, not to what is uber popular in japan.
in other news, my cat is such a feirce little warrior that one might mistake me for a cutter with the gashes on my arms.
i'll try to update each weekend with boring pointless sketches and stuff.
~axel