One of my favorite quotes on the subject of art is from David Hockney; "To be a good artist, all you need is your hands, your eyes and your heart." Hands decipher your individual style; even within a genre such as MANGA that is very stylistic and uniform in comparison to the wide variety of styles found in western graphic novels, each individuals hand is noticeable. You need your eyes to see the world around you for inspiration. This is why I consistently push you all to draw from life, copy from manga, etc.
But the heart is the most important. It sounds cliche and students here at Edwards have made good points as to JUST effort can't make success, but I want to use this blog post to show how just a LITTLE more effort can make a big difference.
The above panel is from Lynquan. Keep in mind, this is an illustration, not a manga. Manga involves sequence and storytelling ... there are two active figures with a cross hatched background.
However, there is only ONE shading of cross hatching (two line). What happens when we take the corners and put 3 line cross hatching?My thoughts: It centers the figures while also giving a larger tonal range. The larger tonal range from the new cross hatching makes a more dynamic illustration.
Isis has put a lot of effort in this class and she has been doing great! In this case, lots of effort is here. My only critic is that when doing perspective drawings, TRUST THE GRID. The buildings are in perfect perspective. The truck is fantastic and truly makes the illusion of going back in space. However, observe the bricks. They are not in perspective.
The blue lines are iconic brick lines that follow the grid. Great job! Interesting/dark subject matter. I wonder what the story of this tied up girl is ...
The first panel of Erik's new manga. GREAT! He is following the Will Eisner story structure ... the first panel is the introduction, the setting ... a car on the highway. ALSO: FANTASTIC perspective and FANTASTIC tonal shading. Great manga!
Here is the second panel in the manga Erik is currently working on. An interesting beginning story! I am already intrigued? Stealing an egg? Keep going here :-) ...
My comment is about composition. Notice the top half of the composition. It is empty! The text below is cramped and hard to read.
Look what occurs when we consider COMPOSITION. By enlarging the text and placing it on the top half, we get clearer text and a more visually pleasing panel.
Deshaun made his "WHAT IF" manga in three panels. The pure black in the middle panel is a nice design decision; it centralizes that panel; it makes a funny joke that if me, Mr. Turnbull, became a manga artist, I'd becoming a demanding rich jerk with a butler. Deshaun gets the facial expressions PERFECTLY. However, he needs to consider composition and also draw more iconically.
Notice what occurs in the last panel with a little iconic drawing. Just a simple money bag with a dollar sign on it makes a HUGE difference. Also - I am FLOATING in SPACE in the first panel! What is the environment? It makes a big difference ...
TODAY: Assignment 1: For people wanting to work on figurative drawing, we are going to do a MANGA photo shoot where we will dress up in samurai clothing, pose, and then draw ourselves.
Assignment 2: For people WANTING to finish their comics from Monday, or from the "What If" assignment, this is your chance!
Assignment 3: Do a panel using PERSPECTIVE, CROSS HATCHING and A CONSIDERING COMPOSITION (AKA - the PANEL FILLED! NO EMPTY SPACE!).
