Manga Tokyopop mangas for the 4th contest?

[klinanime1]

I was thinking that it would be so freakin' awesome if an ob-er would win the Tokyopop contest, and perhaps people can post their plots and manga pages under this thread. In this way, we could all view the competition and provide insight on what will work and what won't, and basically have a huge critique-fest. This will greatly improve the odds of having an ob-er win, and when the contest is over we could all discuss what the panel of judges seems to be looking for. The fourth Tokyopop contest is bound to begin soon (June 1-August 15), and there's no better time than the present to get started on your manga. Check out Tokyopop.com. Mechanical guides, entrie forms, etc. aren't up yet, but you can start developing the plot.
Meh... the time periods seem to be getting shorter and shorter...

[eleanor]

[color=firebrick] I actually have no regard for the time periods, because it's just better to take your time and turn in your manga when you're ready. I mean, it'd not like Tokyopop is going to stop holding the contests or anything...lol. *shrugs*

Ok, well, my number one problem is getting my plot ready, so I've made a promise to myself that I won't draw a single thing until I get the whole story layed out page by page. Lately I have begun thinking of a story, and I've decided it to be the beginning of a bigger story I've collaborated in my head. The main character [let's call him Dave for now] lives in the waaay future [haven't decided on a specific date yet, lol] and has a best childhood friend. :) What a great story, eh?
Dave's friend is also not named yet, so I'll call him Andrew. *coughs* But since freshman year at high school they went their seperate ways in which Andrew became an outcast and Dave became popular.

Andrew was freakishly weak when he was born and is only alive because of the advancement of medical technology, so he basically depends on medicine and daily shots to live. He's musically talented with many instruments, but I'm only going to highlight the guitar in the beginning.

*scratches head* Whatever. So anyways, Andrew often goes through random blackouts that last hours in which he falls into a very Alice in Wonderland-esque parallel universe that leans towards the dark side. Andrew is trying to get home when he has one and Dave happens to find him [of course] and this hellish monster that looks like it came from a dark Alice in Wonderland World pops out and tries to kill Andrew. So I guess that's when I'll add the action in. Dave manages to get to his house with Andrew and as soon as he enters he's confronted by a kid that- oh, wait, can you guess?

A. Is Dave's mom
B. Is a dog.
C. Is a person that looks like he came from a dark Alice in Wonderland place. :O

The visitor basically explains everything and we find out that the world Andrew slips into sometimes is real [big shocker there] and he demands that he takes Andrew with him. I guess I'll add in him being a bit of a wise-a** and sits floating in the air and randomly changes outfits and such. ^_^ He's my favorite character out of the bunch. And then the alien slips into Andrew's body and takes Dave with him to the weird planet place. I'll probably show a big page of the different setting and Dave looking at his new outfit and then the alien says something...and it ends. Lol. >_>.

I still need to work on it a lot. *sulks away*[/color]

[oshi]

I entered the last contest. I was disappointed. *sigh*
But now I have all of this experience, and I'm at it again. My partner and I got notice that there was going to be another one way back in April when we were notified that we didn't win, and we've been working on our next one since then. I'm a little hesitant to post my story, but I can give tips.

We've just recently found a really, really good substitute for tones: marker. They use it in Planet Ladder, and it looks really cool. All you need to do is buy a couple of grey-scale markers (those prisma-color ones would probably be best; that's what we have), and you don't have to use nearly as many sticker tones. Cheap as all getout! And it looks better than computer tones. Those don't really look very good; they're very choppy and impossible to etch. I think it takes away from the point of the artwork if it's not done by hand.

As for my plot . . . all I'll say is that it's going really well; I'm actually writing it like a story before we draw it out. The only thing that worries me is that it might turn into one of those on and on and on plotlines that don't seem to have any defining moments . . . and I'm trying my hardest to make that go away. All of my other stories have a huge amount of substance to them; but that's harder to convey through pictures--and I'm not letting TokyoPop have them. ;)

[klinanime1]

Maladjusted- I hope the beginning of your story stands alone well. I entered two contests with beginnings of larger plot arcs, but... it didn't go so well. Since you're still working on it, I won't nit-pick, but I really like the sound of it so I probably wouldn't have anyway. Hope you can squeeze all that into 15-20 pages. It sounds really intriguing.^ -

Anyway, I've finally decided on which short story plot I wish to do from my head. It's about a boy named Kane Igarashi (I usually don't do Japanese names, but I wanted an excuse for everyone to have black hair ^^) who transferred from a private school to a public school. He used to be the star player of his basketball team, but dropped out half way through the season. The boys at his new school would naturally remember his talent, but are disgusted with his lack of talent after an unofficial game. Aki Hidaka is the captain of the public schools basketball team and defends him a lot, and it's really through his viewpoint that we see all this. (He may be defending Kane because of Kane's pretty cousin Sayuri Matsushira, but that's for the reader to determine.) After a game of basketball in phys. ed, everyone is thoroughly confused, as Kane miraculously plays flawlessly. In the end, we find out Kane is almost completely blind from a car accident and taught himself how to play basketball using the court markings. He transferred schools when he got kicked off his team, and was trying to just fit in. (It's also revealed that Sayuri has a crush on Aki, but that's not important)

There tis. Good luck to all those entering the contest, and happy drawing!

[eleanor]

[color=firebrick] Yeah, I decided to shorten it down a bit by making the alien visitor person come fight the monster and etc. instead of the two main characters escaping and meeting them at their house...or whatever I said before, lol.

I have encountered some major problems, though. My first page starts out with a landscape picture of a big city, and then goes to erm...Dave, who is running along some old sidewalk. Well, there is my problem number one, lol, I CANNOT DRAW SMALL SCALE! O_o. I need some sort of visual or tutorial on that or something. >_>. [b]Anyways[/b], then I need to show that the alien is hiding in the dark alleyway Dave just ran by, and I can't figure out how to do that either. The picture I'm trying to get is the alien [ok, we're calling him Josh now] turning his head far to the right and looking at the reader. =_=. Er...like, he's poking his head out and looking after Dave running. If anyone has a picture reference...please...*dies of lack of drawing knowing-ness* Well, basically, I need a good way to tell the reader that Josh is secretly following Dave.

I need to change these names.

I also have to tell the reader the background info between Dave and Andrew, without making it stupid and have Dave randomly talk to himself and somehow bring up the topic of Andrew. o_o. It has to be clever, since the stuff after the picture of Josh looking after Dave follows: Dave's cellphone rings, and the reader also finds out that Dave's friends pulled some prank on Andrew and left him...somewhere in the city and that's why Dave's running around. [to find Andrew] As you can see, it's pretty messy and I need some advice badly. [shameless ad for help] Anyways, after that, Dave finds Andrew all beat up and torn but realizes it wasn't his friends who did most of it because they see the monster and they're all: waah, run away. And I also need some references to draw a scary-lookin' monster. Not doing so good on that. So if anyone can help, I'll love them forever. :O

^ The story so far is four pages, so I'm thinking of somehow adding another page to describe the background information in a good way.

klinanime1: Nice story, I think it fit snugly into a 15-20 page manga. ^_^. Now that I've read it all I can picture is some small kid waddling around trying to throw the basketball, lol. Even though that's not very nice...=_=. I think the basketball games will be pretty interesting. [/color]

[klinanime1]

I have a friend who draws 1 panel pictures, rigs up some sort of manga page on her comp and then fits the pictures into the boxes. Don't know if that'll help...

As to the bg information, maybe you can have the cell phone ring and "Dave" grumbling about Andrew's poor health and stuff. I'll hunt around for a reference pic and try to post it later.

[asian_tofu]

That would certainly be a great strategy to win the Tokyopop comp. I'm all for it! :D

Personally, short stories in general aren't my thing (since they always turn out having only partial plots), but I'm trying to work on two pieces that could possibly work. I [I]think[/I] one of them might. Choice A has to do with the somewhat humorous death of the Muffin Man (the one that lived on Drury Lane) and Choice B is this story inspired by Zhou Jie Lun's 'Tornado.' Awesome song. But the plotline's is more cliche than the death of the Muffin Man, so I'm 'toning' it. I'll put it up if I can before I take a trip back to the Kingdom of Piracy (go China!). OK...so scratch the Muffin Man one!

--BLUE

[eleanor]

[color=firebrick] Well, I made a storyboard yesterday night, and it would be impossible for me to fit everything in in twenty pages. I've decided to just make Dave & Andrew current friends to leave out the background information. I'm just making Andrew run away and Dave find him in a cemetary and Andrew being depressed and junk while mourning the death of his father. The regular story proceeds from there. Now I've got to find out how to draw someone rollerblading well, lol. [/color]

[klinanime1]

KazeNoAoi - The story idea sounds... well, like a love story. (Jay chou rocks!) [Ahem.] It would be kinda awesome if you just illustrated the song, but the whole "plot" thing probably wouldn't exist. Interested in hearing more. BTW, I'm sorry, I have no idea what that one song of Jay's is that you were wondering about... sorry, I can't find the cd. ^^. Heh.

maladjusted - I'm glad you were able to catch the length before getting halfway done or something. I'd love to see some of it when you have it done.

[eleanor]

[color=firebrick] Lol, I'm not even planning on turning my entry in for this year's contest. I'm going to wait it out until I get an art program I'm after and a tablet. >_>[/color]

[wiccansamurai]

[QUOTE]We've just recently found a really, really good substitute for tones: marker.[/QUOTE]
Wait, how would that work when its in black and white? Not trying to second guess you, I'm just curious. I'll have to go through my Planet Ladder mangas and see if I notice it....

I had a bit of trouble decided on a plot. So I decided to do something I've never seen before. The social life of a high school marching band. The main character, Lana, is just a plain girl who has trouble expressing her emotions.

The thing with band is, everyone thinks we are a bunch of sorta good-natured geeks, so I want to show the "bad" side of band that comes with late nights riding home from football pep band. I'm not telling any more than that. ^_~

[QUOTE]It would be kinda awesome if you just illustrated the song[/QUOTE]
One of my first ideas was gonna be like a music video thing. ^_^

[klinanime1]

I was wondering if it was just me about those markers. The whole point of tone is to provide a grayscale that would still print under black & white conditions.
maladjusted- :: tear ::. Hope you'll enter the next one, or get your art program soon.
wiccansamurai- I'm intrigued beyond sanity, and you're not going to tell anything else? Ah well. I'll just hope you place and figure it out in the RSOM manga.

[goldengriffin]

Heh! Aw the Rising Stars of Manga. I entered it last year. Of course I didn't win, but I think it made me try harder. Well I'm sorry to say I probably wont be entering it this year. I guess I'll just try to submit mine, that way I'll have more time. Of course the process is much harder, but I'll get through it....I hope. For now I'm going to finish my story at hand. Not gonna give it all away, but it's suppose to be a good love story, not to mention alot of fighting, weird and mythical creatures, and a bit of comedy. But still working on it. It's a bit unstable at the moment. And so far all I have is the story line for the first few series and the characters (personalities and roles.) But I'm still gonna have to figure out how exactly they are going to react to certain things so that way this manga will be perfect. And I'll have to find out how to use a pen as well, and get me some manga paper, and-- Well you get the point, I just need more time.
[IMG]http://piratechat.012webpages.com/bakuramoney.bmp[/IMG]

[SilverCyclone]

Im considering entering the next contest. Its a one-shot story thing, right? Well, my new plot is a romance/comedy/action. More comedy and romance though.

Yumi is a popular girl in school. She has friends, she has a secret crush, she's got it all. Until a new kid comes. A techy, if you will. Ichiro is a loser, an outcast. He's a whiz with electronics, but that just pushes him further and further away. And yet he's happy. Yumi begins to learn that having all the friends, stuff, and popularity in the world will amount to nothing in the future, if you dont have someone to love. A techy and a popular. Let the chaos begin.

Im not done, but thats the basic intro. I also have a picture of the two main characters, Ichiro and Yumi, but my scanner is fritzing on me again. Whatcha think folks?

[asian_tofu]

Klinanime1- True, it does sound like a love story, but the whole thing was actually inspired by one lyric in the song. I'm not even sure if I translated it correctly...^^;;
THe plot's about a guy who tries to get rid of this female stalker of his. Hence, it's a comedy. The story idea is a bit cliche, but I suck at short story plots. And I still have to find a way to mail the thing :o
Ok, this is really OT, but how could you lose the Jay CD?! *tsk tsk* I'll admit that he is a brillant musical genius, but I refuse to become obsessed! *covers Jay stickers* There's a new Jay album coming out in China this August...I think. Rumors, rumors.

--BLUE

[oshi]

When you use the markers, you have to scan it in and print it out. Yeah, it's not tones. But it's cheaper in the long run, looks fine, and is a much-needed solution for my Empty-Pocket syndrome. :)

They're easier to control on paper, too. But doing it on a copy of your original might be a good idea; markers won't peel off if you don't like them, obviously.

[klinanime1]

SilverCyclone - Ah, a typical prep/nerd ai plot. You might want to add some things to make it really stand out, but it's a good, solid plot for 15-20 pages. Just beware that some other artists might be doing similar plots for lack of other inspirations.
KazeNoAoi- I suggest an envelope. ^^ Seriously, though, the plot seems... interesting. As I don't really know exactly what's going on, I hold my tongue before passing judgement on it.

Well I just got some bad news for me. Because I only got A's in two of my courses instead of an H grade, my parents aren't letting me draw this summer or the coming school year. :: tear :: This of course means I can't participate in the coming RSOM contest. Maybe they'll cool off by September, and I can then get my drawing privileges back in time for the next?