Article

Drawing Instead of Reading Manga

June 20, 2012

Did I ever tell you guys I was an artist? I can’t remember. I know I’ve admitted to doing the graphic design for the blog on several occasions, and I often piddle in creating new layouts for the featured art that flashes in the big rectangle up above. I’ve been drawing since I was a kid, and took art as an elective all throughout school. However, I was discouraged from pursuing it beyond just a hobby.

When I fell in love with anime about ten years ago, the first thing I started doing was drawing it freehand off of the television screen. I’d put the DVD on pause and draw my favorite characters. It was fun and good practice. I decided I really liked the simplistic line art and cell shading.

Top Right is from D N Angel, Others are His and Hers Circumstances

So I next tried to draw my own characters, and write a web comic. Of course, that was about the time my son was 20 months old, and I was staying home as caregiver full time. I had a few spurts of time to draw, but not enough to dedicate a weekly post for a web comic. I got two full character designs and two full strips. Turns out my humor is too corny, and I wasn’t satisfied with the art. That was when I started blogging about manga instead.

The webcomic is teaching based. On the left is a character design, on the right is the original strip.

But I’ve never given up my love of drawing manga. I recently opened up a set of copic markers that have been sitting on my art table for three years. I know…it’s soo sad. The markers were bought when I was staying home with my son, but I went back to work shortly after and they were neglected. With the career struggles I’ve had lately, I find myself going back to my root love of art.

I’ve felt unmotivated to write about any of the manga I’ve been reading lately, and I realized it’s because I’ve been spending more of my free time coloring. I like to sketch and watercolor, and the copic markers provide some great control for a loose medium like watercolors. They blend fantastically! I’ve found a new medium that I really enjoy playing with, and I really want to improve my skills.

Fan Art of Chizu and Ryu from Kimi ni Todoke

One of my first attempts with the copics. I added a digital background.

One of the first attempts with copics. Added a digital background.

Edit: After Charles’s comment I realized that the first two images don’t really give an accurate picture of my skills. They were just to show an example of what I was talking about. If you’re interested, you can view some of my completed and more recent pieces on deviantart at ElleSensei.

2 Comments

It looks like you’ve quickly gotten the hang of those markers – the bottom two drawing are wonderful!

TWWK Jun 21, 2012
- Thanks, Charles! Every little bit of encouragement helps. 🙂
  
  Laura Jun 21, 2012