Chikara Kokoro

Well, I try to make manga. That's the best I can say right now because I don't know what you're trying to get out of this thread. I mean, do you want information on how to create manga, or do you just want to meet other people who create manga? Knowing that would help people give you more in depth responses, I think.

[I][B]Edit:[/B][/I] You already answered my previous question in the sign-ups. Sorry about that. ^^; I do have another question, though. I'm pretty sure that you didn't mention anything about weapons, so what are the restrictions on the kinds of weapons the players can use (if any)?

A good uniform would be a good visual symbol, but you have to design a unique one. Uniforms, especially for the antagonists, can be used to provide an instant rush of fear when the reader sees them. Look online for different kinds of uniforms and make sure that you're both sticking to tradition and using something different from what people usually see.

The GIMP is just a good free alternative to the more expensive programs like Photoshop. Also, I use GIMP so even if I did pay for it I wouldn't be able to use Photoshop. You can use the full spectrum of color on the GIMP, so PM me if you want some help with how that works. I have to admit that the blur tool is pretty bad, but you can use the Gaussian blur creatively and get about the same result. It's also worth mentioning that, like on Photoshop, you can do screen tones very easily on the GIMP ([URL=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v281/Pomato/antitone.gif]click here[/URL]), but [URL=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v281/Pomato/skunkarcanum.png]word balloons[/URL] usually come out strange.

Right now I'm on a mission to design the ugliest ball gown known to mankind (or at least a close second). I've done a basic design and I'd like opinions on how to make it look worse than it already does. The design was just a quick doodle, so I'd appreciate it if the proportions or the lack of a face, folds and hands weren?t critiqued. In case anyone wants to know, most of the design is based on fashions of the late 16th century. The main thing that bothers me about the design is the middle part of the skirt. I want some kind of pattern there, but I don't really like how it came out. Any suggestions for that would be really appreciated. [URL=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v281/Pomato/ickydresseww.jpg]Click here to see it[/URL] Thanks in advance for helping ^-^

I came across this site a while ago, and it seems very reasonable. They ask for about 20% of the total profit, but you're able to set the price yourself (and keep the remaining 80% of the profits). The site also allows you to design your own cover, which I think is very nice. The only issue I have is that it seems that the only thing that has a reasonable price in terms of comic publishing is the perfect bound black and white. On the bright side, that's how most manga is publised anyways, but I think that anyone who wants to publish a color manga would be better off avoiding this site.

Your name choice and your choice of location have to be my favorite things in this idea. The last name Delacroix is just so good for demonic irony. I don?t read all that many comics, that?s true, but I have never read anything set in Louisiana, which is a shame since it?s so pretty and marshy. The main thing that irks me is that a cult in Louisiana would be Egyptian. Why? As far as I know, most of the population in Louisiana is centered around some variation of French culture. Maybe you could change it to a scary French voodoo cult? Although, it would be kind of scary try to portray voodoo in a manga. I guess that depends on how superstitious of a person you are. To be perfectly honest, the rest of the plot summary confuses me, so for now that?s about all I can give you in terms of a critique. I?m sorry, but I hope it can help.

Are you planning on finishing this? It would be nice if you could, in addition to finishing your summary, add more detail onto what you think the characters are like. I find it very frustrating to see somebody describe a character as 'the girl.' There is more than one kind of girl in the world, so you need to specify what her personality is. The same thing goes for 'the hero.' I'll wait until you finish the story before I review the rest of it, but I do have to commend you for not having samurai or ninja in this story. Good job!

[quote name='Raiyuu][FONT=Trebuchet MS]One thing I would absolutely advise you against is using an online name generator, no offence to Chi. I've done it before and the character somehow stops feeling like they're [b]yours,[/b'] knowhadimean? Character names should come from the author, not from some hastily-thrown-together Javascript app.[/FONT][/quote] The random name generator doesn't just throw random syllables together; it chooses a name from Behind the Name?s database of names based on the languages that you select for it to look through. It tends to speed up the process of finding names quite nicely. Perhaps my brain is inferior to those of others, but I personally cannot come up with original names off of the top of my head. I tend to think of a feeling or a theme that I think my character represents and look for whatever name I can find with that meaning. In 8th grade I just stole whatever names I happened to be reading/learning about in my English and math classes and used them for my stories (I'm actually still using many of them for my current manga project; I've grown quite attached XD). Finding names, for me, is mostly about the feelings your characters represent. I would suggest never choosing a name before you create a character because it can lead to very two-dimensional characters. And that makes for very frustrated readers (or at least a very frustrated me).

While the name 'Battle Buddha' does have very nice alliteration, it?s kind of strange since Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, believed in peaceful ways so that you would not be reincarnated into a grasshopper or something similar in your next life. The ninjas are bothering me also, but this seems more like a fun actiony type comic, so I'm not going to be too picky about that. The artwork is a completely different style than what I usually see, and it would be something that would bring in readers. However, I don't believe that your art style would be useful in a story with serious and/or romantic moments. It would be interesting for you to prove me wrong on that, though ^-^

I probably have links to websites for everything XD For finding names there are two websites that I always go to. [url]http://www.lowchensaustralia.com/names.htm[/url] This site is for pet name, but it has an incredible variety of names separated into countless different categories. You can choose your names from anything from "Names of Famous Mexicans" to my personal favorite "Mafia & Gangsters." [url]http://www.behindthename.com/[/url] Behind the Name is great for when you want to find a unique name from of a specific nationality and you want to know the meaning as well. It has both a [URL=http://surnames.behindthename.com/]separate site for surnames[/URL] and [URL=http://www.behindthename.com/random/]even a random name generator[/URL]

[url]http://www2.gol.com/users/issott/JRHome/Convention/Pronounciation.html[/url] That's a pretty straightforward guide, so hopefully it will help you. It's also worth mentioning that, for the most part, any 'u' at the end of a Japanese word will be silent.

[quote name='Tank!']my biggest issure with starting a book, is I have the story down, plot etc. but when it comes to getting it down on paper. Nothing is every good enough. Then I end up getting frustrated.. leading to nothing getting drawn. Or what has been drawn, ends up earsed or in the trash. :animestun[/quote] That's only an issue if you want to be published because if it's on the internet the quality doesn't matter. It's always neat to see the improvement artists have made over the course of their manga. On top of that you are your own worst critic, and so you should probably just go for it and trust in your own abilities. Of course, your other option is to find an artist other than you for your story, but it can be difficult to find someone you can trust to be completely devoted to the story.

What do you mean by "short animated manga stories"? Do you mean a flash animation movie, or do you mean a manga with animated panels? Either way I won't be able to help you, but it would be better if you could clarify ^-^

I'm not completely sure about what you're trying to say, but if you want the lyrics to Fukai Mori, [URL=http://www.animelyrics.com/anime/inuyasha/fukaimori.htm]just click here[/URL]. It seems like a very sad song based on the lyrics, also kind of melodramatic. Animelyrics.com is a good website for looking up lyrics for both anime and j-pop/j-rock songs. Although, the song lyrics do tend to lose some of their meaning when they're translated.

I can't really see the image all that well because photobucket resized it, but your sketch seems to be pretty clean. The best bet for you would probably be to learn how to ink your drawings. I guess your decision now is whether you ink with pens, ink on the computer, or do both.

In terms of what's most likely to sell, you should definitely get any anime that is shown on Adult Swim. Inuyasha, Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Samurai Champloo, and anything similar to that would probably sell because of their popularity on television. Fruits Basket is a shojo, made for girls, anime that is very popular right now, so that would be a good idea to pick up. Anime movies directed by Hayao Miyazaki, or any other film produced by studio Ghibli, would be a good to have because they are artistically beautiful and generally wonderful. A more recent movie directed by Miyazaki, Spirited Away, won the academy award for best animated film in 2003. Most of them are distributed by Disney, if that makes any difference. I?m definitely not the most avid watcher of anime, but I hope that I helped you somehow.

I live in Texas, so it might come as no surprise that racism is abundant around here. Though it seems that the further away you get from the cities, the closer you get to racist ideals. Especially in the older generation (i.e. the generation of my grandparents), racism is just a subconscious way of life. My grandmother always brings up the race of the person when she's telling a story even if it has no impact on the story ("This large black woman came into the bakery..." things like that). I don?t believe that the people in that generation are able to not think like that because were taught to look down on people who were different from themselves. Recently I went to a taqueria (Mexican restaurant, basically), and I paid for the meal. But for some reason, the man at the register gave the money to my friend, who was speaking to him in Spanish, instead of me. I suppose that there is just more trust in someone who can speak the same language, but it seems strange that he wasn?t even willing to hand me money. Racism will always be there because people inherently need to feel superior. The majority enjoys segregating the minority. That's just the way it is. Things are getting better in terms of acceptance from where I can see it, but that doesn't mean it will ever go away entirely.

Right from the start I have to warn you that I am biased against manga stories involving neko. Unless there is a good and interesting reason for there being neko, I am probably not going to like it. Just because the author happens to think neko are cute isn?t a good reason in my opinion. Still, there is definitely a market for people who adore neko, so my not liking neko won?t affect you too much. First off, please separate the words Chi Tenji. It?s more aesthetically pleasing if they?re separated since they?re two separate words. I kind of understand where you?re trying to come from with Nami's emotions after her parents are killed, but it seems like that would be a strange reaction to have. Try to imagine yourself in Nami?s shoes. If your family was killed by demons- or, for a more realistic example, thieves- how would you feel? Granted, your main character probably doesn?t have your exact same personality, but your feelings are a good guideline for how your characters might feel. I am against choosing Japanese names for American manga without reason to start with, but it seems like everyone and their mother is using the name Taki. Nami is the name of a main character in One Piece, but it?s not as much of a common problem as using Taki is. It?s a good idea to show the good sides of demons; it?s almost always an interesting thing to have in a story. But demons are used a lot in manga stories. And very frequently those demons will have a soft side. I don?t see why those neko have to be demonic. It might be a good idea to just have them be an evil tribe of neko. The story in general needs a lot of work, and I don?t see anything all that creative in there. But only time can tell if you?ll be able to bring a new side to a story that has been told several times before.

I would suggest trying out the GIMP before you spend any money on a computer program for coloring your images. You can get it for free at GIMP.org ([url]http://www.gimp.org/[/url]). It's slightly less user friendly than the programs you would pay for, but once you figure it out it does a good job (if you do download it, feel free to PM me with any questions about it). How good your images look is more about how much practice you've had with the program than which program you use. For keeping sketches clean using things other than the computer I would suggest buying (or making) a light box and tracing your sketches on another piece of paper. Learning how to use inking pens wouldn't be a bad idea either. A couple of good, although somewhat basic, tutorials for the process of cleaning sketches can be found at deviantart ([URL=http://www.deviantart.com/view/29754760/]click[/URL] and [URL=http://www.deviantart.com/view/30315977/]click[/URL]!). For future reference, tutorials on almost everything can be found on deviantart if you?re willing to look hard enough.

I am so impressed that you have actually started this comic/manga. The artwork, as I said before, is very good, and the part with the dog honestly made me laugh. The flow of the pages and the panels are smooth in spite of how rectangular most of them are. Even though the characters (so far) are all the same color and gender, I can easily distinguish them with their facial structure and personality. Great job with the dialogeue too, very realistic. As of right now I can't think of anything bad about this other than the blocky paneling, which is mainly a stylistic thing anyways. I have to say that it is very hard to trust webcomics because the artists tend to let the webcomic die once they get bored. Now that I've found that I've liked this, be sure that you don't stop posting it before the end, okay? ^-^ Your layout isn?t exactly completely creative, but it is beautiful and effective. Also, who hosts your website? I've been looking around both free and paid sites, and I haven't come up with much that I'm really happy with.

New to the world of manga creating, huh? First thing I would suggest doing is to learn. This includes reading LOTS of manga (no complaints so far, I hope), drawing almost every chance you get, and studying the way people talk. The last part might sound strange, but it's the most overlooked- and in my opinion, the most important- factor of a manga. Especially in the world of comics, the personality of a character is portrayed through the way they speak (i.e. how they show their personality through their speech), and a manga seems very off if the dialogue is unrealistic. I can think of many instances when this happens in online manga, but because I don't want to insult people I'll just give you an example of a TV show. On Cartoon Network there is a program called Code Lyoko. Just watch one episode of it- it may be difficult, but there is an important lesson to be learned- and you will soon realize one thing about the dialogue. Nobody talks like that. If the show had a good plot, which it doesn't in my opinion, it would be completely killed by the unrealistic speech. With reading manga you should learn to observe different things. Why you like a certain style of art, or a particular scene of a story, or a specific character are good things to notice. With learning your own tastes you can find what you would like to do in your own manga. Just be sure that you don?t wind up copying your favorite manga. Once you have researched the good and the bad sides of manga (learn to appreciate both so you can be similar to one and completely avoid the other), you have to come up with a story and characters. Figure the personalities of your characters out before you figure out their appearance, it will make things much easier later on. After that you can do designs of everything, storyboard your scenes, and make the manga. I'm really just condensing a long, and sometimes painful, process, but I'd be more than happy to answer some more specific questions.

I decided to try a few new techniques on these, so I'm sorry if they look strange ^^; If you do choose one of mine, let me know and I'll be more than happy to make a matching avatar. [IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v281/Pomato/chrnobanner1.png[/IMG] [IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v281/Pomato/chrnobanner.png[/IMG]

I also watch anime pretty much whenever I can. Although, I tend to only watch Studio Ghibi movies at night. Somehow I never get tired of them.

Nice to see you've developed this idea. It would be nice to see what the characters look just for reference. I'm kind of curious of what your image of this world is. As for not being able to tell whether or not a story is a parody anymore, I've been there. You should probably just keep some elements of a parody throughout the manga, but for the most part just go with the story that you have and enjoy it. Genre classifications don't matter that much (I could be wrong, though).