How Not To Draw Manga

Ok, ok, I am a bad person who didn’t write anything. Yeah yeah.

A couple of weeks ago was Amecon! The UK usually has several small anime cons, and one big one every year. Amecon was the big one! It was good (for me) in terms of sales, so I am happy. I managed to sell out of my new comic! (At least, sell all that I took to the event.)

There were a lot more small press people there this year too, which was cool to see. Our table was right next to the guys from Makenai, and almost-opposite-diagonal-a-bit to Saphire. We also tracked down half of Creative Freedom and the guys from Two Sides Wide. We also met the people at Studio Shoebox, who are completely new it seems, and don’t have a website I can link to. ^^; Yosh! Let’s UK comicking!

The only bad thing about Amecon was that I caught the cold of DOOM there, and didn’t get much done the week after. Accursed otaku diseases!

Anyway… I finished my comic in time for Amecon. Here is a sneak preview! It’s not on the site yet. You’ll be able to buy it from Sweatdrop soon! I also managed to finish off a secret comic project, which should be available from Sweatdrop at London Expo. ^_^

The other day I bought myself a diary! Not for ‘angst angst, what I ate for lunch’, as that’s what LJ is for. Rather, to keep track of how much I’m drawing.

It may sound stupid, but drawing all the time means I forget how fast time passes. It took about four or five days before I was used to it being August. Because of this it’s difficult to get a grasp on whether I’m doing lots of work, or hardly any. So now I’m going to start writing down what I’ve done each day, even if I was a lazy, lazy moo!

Actually, I got kinda carried away. I didn’t just buy a diary: I bought a cute diary! And mini coloured fineliners to write in it. Also, the diary has a year planner (for writing when conventions and meetings are happening), space for notes, elastic strap to hold it shut aaaand a plastic zip-up pocket in the back (which is where the aforementioned fineliners go). Oh yeah, it’s so cute! XD

So at least I can write that I did nothing with some style. ^^;

Oh, I thought installing this thing would be easy. I thought ‘hey, I can just use that nifty easy install thing on my site to get it set up in a minute!’ So, so very wrong! So I ended up having to create everything manually… then the ‘five minute install’ took about half an hour. I could have been drawing manga!!!

Anyway, this is a blog about drawing manga. If you’re wondering what that post is down there, it’s something I put up on the Tokyopop site. But I thought a proper blog would be taken a little more seriously than the MySpace-esque thing Tokyopop have going on. (I’ll probably post in both, in a cheeky Ctrl+c, Ctrl+v fashion.) Also, I don’t want to bug the people on my LJ list with my comicking crap. At least this way if you’re on LJ you can opt in with an RSS feed rather than me doing a survey of who-wants-to-be-in-which-group. ^_^

I still have to make this thing look pretty. I will find a way!!!

It’s good to spend time on your manga, right? To work hard getting all the details correct, drawing believable backgrounds (with correct perspective and all that)… So why do I always find myself drawing comics super-speed at the last minute!?!

Sometimes it’s fun to push yourself. I currently have to finish a 26 page half-size comic (that is, landscape A6 instead of portrait A5) to go to print on the 28th. Not too bad, as I’ve already completed all the pencil stages of the comic. A bit worse because I have lots of socialising to do.

I don’t begrudge the socialising, it’ll just make the comicking hurt more! ^_~ The need to finish off the comic is the reason I don’t have an avatar here yet, a proper intro post, or anything else… Why am I posting here again, and not drawing?

My current records for finishing a comic are: 8 days for 21 pages, and 9 days for 19 half-size pages. XD Most of the early issues of Fantastic Cat were each drawn in about 2 weeks.

So, if you ask me to go to dinner and I mumble something about needing to ink a dozen pages before midnight, I’m probably speed-comicking. Please excuse my temporary hermit-like existance. XD

(Later, I’ll do a proper intro post. I’m not sure if it’s totally needed… but might be useful to have a disclaimer)