Bringing it all together

Back at Ami's today to start pulling the comic together to send to the printer. 

It's taken a really long time to get to this point with some big gaps in between sessions but after a lot of effort I'm very very close to finishing the comic. On reflection, I think if I were to do this again I would ensure that there were no big gaps in between sessions.

The very big things are done, so just lots of tweaking and bits to add such as some words today. We made some last minute changes and moved things around a bit. We went through page by page in a systematic order to ensure that I had everything covered.

I've felt very tired with this now and I just really wanted to get it finished. I felt really relieved when we had got everything covered and happy. It's now ready to go to a Printer. 

I also have some homework relating to the Silver Arts Award Challenge. Unfortunately, the comic isn't the only part of the challenge. I now have to think about possible routes forward should I want to pursue a career in illustration.

Hyper Japan Review

Yesterday I went to Hyper Japan as another part of my Silver Arts Award. Here's my review.

Hyper Japan is a Japanese Festival with games and loads of shops. Most people who came at least wore cat ears or as in Japan they call them Neko ears but some came fully dressed in anime/manga characters, Japanese school outfits, Nekos, traditional kawaii outfits, lolita dolls and many more amazing things. They mostly sold things there such as kawaii plushies and cosplay items but there were other attractions such as a dancing ring where some people danced to anime music and Japanese pop music, a place you could get yourself drawn as a manga character, and even some Japanese foods that were quite tasty.         

We tried some flavoured crushed ice mountain kind of thing but it was over priced and was pretty bad. It didn't taste of anything much - a bad slushy but in a bowl.

I think overall there was too much shopping and not enough activities going on which made it a bit disappointing. In the video game section that was full of activities there was a stand that was just too loud which made it uncomfortable to be in that zone.

Wouldn't rush back.

Me playing some kind of Anime Game in the Video Game area

Colour Scenes

Another chunk of time has passed in between sessions. This time because we've been away, but it's good that I can pick up this Arts Award Challenge as and when.

Today we were scanning in the scenes that I have illustrated using Ami's printer and we loaded them up one by one onto Photoshop. We used Photoshop to colour them in which was fun because I got to decide the colour of things.

After every scene was finished, we gave them page numbers and named them. Then we ticked them off on the rough scene layout in the scrapbook so we knew where we had got to.

The more I did, the better I got. Things are progressing well.

I got to draw Cats!

A month has gone by since my last session with Ami mainly because I have been busy rehearsing and had my show at Saddler's Wells and also I've been unwell. I have been watching Anime's at home and practising my drawings as I like to spend my time doing this anyway.

It was pretty hard getting back into the flow of things today but we managed to finish the scene work.

I got to draw Cats! One of my favourite things in the whole world. Loads of little Kawaii cats. Definitely my favourite part of the lesson. I also drew side view characters which was quite hard so Ami helped me with getting the face shape right. I got to draw an evil teacher!

Whilst I was busily illustrating out various objects and scenes, Ami was being my assistant and colouring in the scenes on Photoshop. It's a lot of work for one person. I liked having an assistant!

Illustration of Scenes

Really great session at Ami's house. I was doing some of the teaching as Ami said she learned lots about Anime and Manga from me! Just for the record, Anime is film and animated series whereas Manga is the drawing in comics and graphic novels. She said to my mum when she came to collect me that I could easily create a novel in the future based around my characters but I'll just go with getting this comic completed first.

Anyway, back to what I did today. I started drawing the scenes out properly referring back to my sketched notes in my scrapbook. One of the scenes contains two background characters so I didn't want to take up too much time making them look perfect and giving them details so they came out rather derpy. 

I also drew three hands and part of an arm and four doors. 

My favourite part of drawing was the doors because they belonged to the girls so I got to decorate them according to their personalities.

It was hard to get the shape right so I used a ruler for some things but it was really fun. The hands were super difficult. I had to get some help from Ami and I had to mimick the hand movements myself or get Ami to do it so I could try and copy off of it.

At this stage, although the comic is hard work, I do think it's going well. I'm continuously learning new skills and practising existing skills. 

Planning out the Scenes

Another session with Ami today this time to plan out the scenes of the comic.

We needed a plan for this one.

First I divided pages in my scrap book into half giving me two pages of comic book per scrapbook page. Confused much? So am I!

Then I decided on the scenes and comic page layout shapes to make it look as interesting as possible. I started rough sketching out the scenes and objects and backgrounds etc in each of the page layouts I created.

Ami helped me with some of the rough sketches and the dividing of the pages and helped me come up with ideas. It's good to have a mentor to help out.

Other help came from Wiki How to Write a Comic Book

Script Writing

Today's session was all about trying to come up with a script.

I tried to make the scripting for the characters so it would match their personalities. I also tried to make it a bit funny without it being too complicated.

On reflection, the fact that I go to Drama school and already know quite a bit about scripts it made it easier to come up with the scripting for the comic. This was just another way to apply what I already know about scrips. Having a basic storyline also helped.