Chikara Kokoro

Good job, you've actually thought this story out. Be sure to keep everyone on the OB updated with the progress of this comic because I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I say that I want to be able to read it when it starts. The only helpful hint I can think of for the moment is to run a spelling and grammar check in Microsoft Word (or a similar application) on your script. Obviously, people don't always speak with proper grammar, but you should make sure that you don't make any silly errors like spelling a simple word wrong. It's just painful, at least to me, to read an otherwise good comic with bad spelling, so usually I don't. Oh, you also might want to do the same thing for your posts. Just copy and paste whatever you want to post in Word and run a spelling/grammar check before you post it.

Last year I tried to create a NaNoWriMo novel. During the third week- with over 30,000 words written- I decided that my novel was boring, and I stopped. I would suggest getting friends to write along with you if at all possible. It seems like having someone to talk to about what you go through while noveling, not to mention a little friendly competition, would be a great motivator. As for this year, NaNoWriMo seems like an imposibility in terms of free time, but that didn't stop me from trying last year.

A description of what the character looks like would be helpful. Also, many people will not be willing to draw a picture of your character unless they know exactly how you?re going to use it.

I?m really glad that you?re taking advice and changing the names; that?s much more than most people would be willing to do. At the moment I don?t have any huge critiques of the story. It seems cliché to me (mostly because of the alternate universe), but I?m coming to terms with the fact that there?s not really anything new under the sun. It would be nice if you could clarify how the main character gets dragged into the alternate universe and whether or not it?s possible to go back and forth between worlds. Things are never as simple as good and evil. Try to flesh out both the dragons and the phoenixes so that they both have reasons for their actions. That way the reader can decide for themselves who was in the wrong. It?s fine if the characters voice their opinions and say that one side is evil, but showing the opinions of both sides would help out the story quite a bit. Why does the girl have to be saved? I?m just being feminist, but the whole damsel in distress thing bothers me. If nothing else, make sure that she has a strong personality. This is the twenty-first century, and women have learned how to take care of themselves. Consider her feelings realistically; don?t just let her wait around for someone to save her. Overall this shows promise. Keep on working at it, and over time it could develop into something quite interesting.

There are many programs out there that can help in the making of manga. These can vary from things you have to pay for (Photoshop, Manga Studio), or things you can get for free (the GIMP, Inkscape). Which program you choose is mainly a personal choice since you can use screentones with all of them in some fashion or another. It would be helpful if you could give more information in what you?re expecting this computer program to be able to do. Also keep in mind that a computer program can?t make up for raw talent and practice. Hand drawn manga can be just as good as, if not better than, manga made with assistance of computer programs.

[[URL=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v281/Pomato/aceofspades.jpg]click[/URL]] Well, it's done.

Since the deadline was on the 16th I didn't believe that it would have been an issue. I do understand your reasoning, though, and I hope that the other three will show up, although it is unlikely.

I've been involved with band and school in general all week (I just got back from rehearsal). Sorry, but my real life comes before my online one. I PMed the other members of my team informing them that after Tuesday I would be unable to do any serious graphics work until Saturday. I was hoping that that would be acceptable. Sakurasuka has sent me her part of the piece, so I would like to continue on with my part, if that's okay.

I think that animals like foxes, cats, dogs and wolves are used entirely too much in manga. This story concept doesn't seem like it will be different from things I've alreay read. At the very least you should choose animals that haven't been used one-hundred times. Honestly, I believe that it's better to first come up with a character's personality, then their appearance, and then find a plot for them to fit in. Any other order usually makes the characters seem undeveloped (at least when I write).

I think the word that Katsura was saying was 'sumimasen.' It has several different meanings ("Sorry", "Thank You" and "Excuse Me"), but this article ([URL=http://www.alientimes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.ABitOfJapaneseSumimasen]click![/URL]) can probably explain how the word is used better than I can.

Do you use a computer program like Photoshop, Open Canvas, or the GIMP? If so, which one? The ways to resize a picture vary depending on what program you use, I believe.

I'm also very new at this, but I want to try. This sounds interesting, so count me in.

I'm making character designs for my manga (if my art style is manga anymore, I?m not sure ^^), and I've run into an unexpected problem. That problem is how to draw pink highlights. My idea for Leo, who is basically a frat boy, is that he should have pink highlights. I thought this would be a cute and original touch until I realized that I didn't know how to even begin to draw highlights. I'm pretty bad with hair in general, actually. So I was wondering if any of you had pointers on how to draw in highlights on the computer. If you can't tell me that, at least how to make the bottom of his hair pink and still have it look natural. Heres the link to the design (with color palette) just in case it can help: [url]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v281/Pomato/leo.jpg[/url] P.S. Any critique of the overall design would be appreciated, but I already know about most, if not all, of the anatomy issues. Please don?t tell me about them XD

Could you possibly give more description of the main characters and what the story is about? As of right now I don't like it, but maybe you can change my mind (especially with spaces between sentences; those make me happy).

Okay, before I start, I must say that saying ?doesn?t that suck? at the end of a description isn?t at all helpful. The only purpose of it is to gain sympathy of others, and it?s annoying and pointless, in my opinion. It?s also one of biggest my pet peeves. A lot of the wording in your description makes me question some parts of the plot (?apartment building owned by supposedly a youthful-looking wolf demon girl? and ?around the age of 20, exact? are two examples), but I don?t want to give you a lesson in writing/grammar. Still, you should consider learning how to be more precise with your words before you try to write a manga. I?m led to wonder what the demons actually add to this plot. Is there any reason that you can?t just have normal humans who can use magic? That seems like a much more interesting, not to mention more relateable, set of characters to me. The names of the three brothers are quite original, and I think that?s great. But the wolf-demon?s name seems to be Japanese. I think that in order to justify that you should have at least three reasons why you gave her a Japanese name :p Your characters are wonderfully real. Their personalities seem like they belong to people that I would be able to meet (and maybe even like). Stay true to the characters because they seem to be the guiding force of this manga, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Egypt and Romania are both very interesting places, and they are both places that are not Japan. This is another one of my pet peeves, but I don?t understand why you would want to set the story in Japan like every other manga that?s already out there. Many other countries are beautiful and have fascinating cultures. Why would you limit yourself by putting your story in a place that has been read about by manga fans almost all of the time? There?s nothing wrong with using a different country. Take a risk! All around I think that if you got rid of the demons and removed any trace of Japan this story would be very readable. I know I would at least give it a chance. Have you made any sketches of the characters or any rough drafts of the script yet? I?m not sure that you really gave a clear idea of what the story is really about, and I?d like to hear more about that.

They're all good things to have in a story (not so much having the characters concerned, but the rest are). Still, you need to make sure that any plot twists or deaths are spread out across the story and don't happen too often because then the shock value is taken away from the event. Characters dying in hand to hand combat isn't very interesting to me, but a beloved character dying in the middle of the rush of a large battle is.

Your art style is cute. It reminds me of CLAMP, but somehow it seems unpolished and beginner in overall quality. Most of the time the characters change in size in proportion to one another. You should focus on drawing backgrounds also. The tree trunks on the first page are far too wide, and there isn't enough structure on the top of the trees. The panels are interesting and have clear and crisp lines. The phone is well done, and I know from experience how hard it is to draw a hoodie. The character designs are cute, but they are also very generic. I wouldn't instantly recognize them if I saw them in a piece fan art, for example. Try to give one of them a distinctive hairstyle, or change the eyes so that the character's personality shines through (I'm not sure if you can do that in your style, but a general guideline is to make the eyes larger the more innocent the character is). Find character designs you like, and figure out why you like them. That should give you a good starting point to figure out what details to put into your own character designs. Text is also well done. You have very good penmanship. It's easy to read and the sound effects are interesting. The word balloons are sketchy, so you might want to ink this with inking pens (Sakura Micron is a good starter brand) if you publish it in any way (online or in print). This is a cute story, by the way. ^-^

Your links aren't working for me, but that just might be my computer. I'll check later. Are you sure that you want the Japanese font translated into hiragana? Sorry, but It seems strange to me. That's mostly because, to the best of my knowledge, katakana is what's used for translation of foreign words. I only have a katakana font, but I can probably find hiragana if that's what you really want.

[quote name='Ninja C']I've started my own manga as well, but i haven't worked on it for a wail. Should i keep working on the one that i started, or start up a new one[/quote] Maybe you should start a new thread with some pages from your old manga and an idea of the storyline and/or characters. That way we can all give you a good opinion on the manga that you've been working on. Still, you should never continue working on a project if it no longer interests you.

[QUOTE=GTK] [spoiler]But what was up with the undead monkey? Not that he wasn't great, but why is he still undead even though they've returned the gold? Though, while we're at it, why is Barbossa still alive? O_O not that I'm complaining. I did a lot of squeeing at him *heart*[/spoiler] [/QUOTE] Watch the credits at the end of the first PotC movie. [spoiler]The monkey stole another piece of gold, so he started a whole new curse or something like that. Barbossa still being around probably has something to do with the whole "end of the world" thing. Although, who would go to the end of the world for Barbossa?[/spoiler] Did anyone else stay until after the credits of the second one? [spoiler]The dog was so cute!! I hope the cannibals don't eat him...[/spoiler] I was very surprised at the reappearance of [spoiler]Norrington. I didn't recognize him until about a minute after he showed up. He became quite the interesting character in this movie. He might not be anywhere near Jack or Will in terms of looks, but taking off the wig and adding facial hair didn't exactly hurt him....[/spoiler] This movie seems to just be a way to connect the plot of the first movie to the third. I'm very optimistic that the third movie will actually have more than just cool actiony stuff in it (not that I'm complaining).

I'm pretty sure that they did this before, but they played less popular anime and were forced to shut it down (that's my theory anyways). Does anyone else remember this? I know it was where I first saw Record of Lodoss War, but I don't remember what else was shown on it (there might have been old episodes of DBZ). The show selection has some things that I've been meaning to watch for a while now, so this will be a good (i.e. legal) alternative to how I would probably have watched them. Good find, Dbzman, this should be fun to watch.

Then I'd suggest that you just go for it! At this point in time you really don't have that much to lose, right? Writing for comics would be a great job, but I would suggest having a backup plan in case that doesn't work out. For me, it's hard to think of creating comics/manga as anything more than a hobby. The comic publisher that I've heard the best things about is Dark Horse Comics ([URL=http://www.darkhorse.com/company/submissions.php]here's a link to their submission policies[/URL]). It would be wise to also look for smaller publishers, but the only companies I know of are Tokyopop, Dark Horse, VIZ, DC, Marvel and Image ^^;

[quote name='Doublehex']While we are on the topic of storytelling in comic form (since manga is really just comics that are read from right to left), after reading the Neon Genesis Evangelion manga, I have become somewhat interested in becoming a story writer for comic companies. However, I don't know if they will accept just pure storytellers...as in, does a 'storyteller' need to have excellent drawing skills as well?[/quote] Comic companies do accept writers on their own. In order to get accepted into a comic company as a writer you would have to submit a synopsis of the story and the script for the first chapter (or something of a shorter length, you would have to check the guidelines on different companies). Something that I must question is whether or not you can actually write to begin with. Writing a comic, even if it is less appreciated by the general public, is not easy. As a writer you would have to come up with realistic dialogue that portrays the personalities of the characters, as well as creating an original story that others would enjoy reading. I just wanted to clarify that writing is by no means the easier path in the world of comic creating. It's fine if you've been writing creatively for quite some time, but I hope that you aren't assuming that writing for comics is easier to pick up than drawing.

I gave it a shot. I couldn't do the exact same style in terms of coloring and lines, so it seems a bit off. Sorry ^^; [url]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v281/Pomato/gits.jpg[/url]

It's kind of funny, and it's definitely cute (whether or not it?s meant to be XD). The last panel made me smile. There is one thing that really irks me about it. The sky is not, and never will be, teal. That always bothers me when sprite comic artists do that. It just makes it seem like they feel that copying and pasting takes so much effort that they don't have enough energy to put in a real background (sorry, that's one of my pet peeves).