Manga making with the tutorials already

[Liam]

I admit it, I may break the rules with this thread. I'll probably post right after myself, but since it's basically being broken down into chapters, Most of thise will be seperate posts, and if they're back to back. Sorry. I hope that's forgivable.

I suppose I'll start with creating a character. I'm not a writer, so I usually try to tell the story with how the character looks.

Step 1, inspiration:
Alright. Last night I was chatting with a freind who plans to cosplay Naruto characters, SO I'm sitting there doodling cyborg parts on an unrelated tangent. Well I decide that maybe something Naruto-ish would be fun. So I set out to create some sort of ninja character.

Step 2, Jotting:
This is the general brainstorming part. like writing, most people see this as a point to write down a jot list. For me this breaks down into brainstorming and doodling. Since life is a satire, I decide to make fun of things in most everything I do. I decide on a name and a genral idea with a few gags! We'll call him "Iimo! The hard rock ninja!"
(So I can have him whine "I'M NOT EMO!" all the time) Then I take a few of the naruto elements and parody them. Forehead protector, check. Jacket/shirt with Big collar, check. Looks young, check. Rocking out to the Fighting Dreamer theme song? I'm already doing it baby.

[i] I appologize for the crap-titude of this part here, all I had on hand was a ball point pen and some printer paper. I had to take a photo cause I just moved and the scanner is still packed away somewhere[/i]
Step 3, The face.
The face is the first thing people look at when they meet you. Your face is probably the most defining point. So here's my quick face jot sheet as I tried to make a few planned elements work.
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v16/Dalai_liam/Iimo/headshot1.jpg[/IMG]
My first idea was to give the guy the classic emo haircut, it says alot about a guy to have a fairly unkept appearance. I've decided that Iimo's just a bit lazy, and can only really focus on one thing for short periods of time. Life's hard with ADD. At first I thought maybe long hair would be cool and I'd try to do something distinguishing with that, I didn't like how that worked out. With the shorter hair, Putting the forehead protector on his head wasn't working out, amde him look very Sakura-chan. :( I later decided that taking it off and moving it somewhere was the safest option. I went with the neck, because A) it protects him from vampires. B) it's not so mainstream. Everyone wears a forehead protector on their forehead. Would he do that? No. as far as facial expressions go, I like to try to set my characters apart with them. I know in alot of older anime, the only way you could tell characters apart was by hair and color :p. Anywho. I decided small round eyes would be good. It's an uncommon trait that rarely gets used, so I decided that would be a nice starting point for distinguishing Iimo. He's not too particularly happy ever, because well he IS Emo, so I set his face with either neutral or sad expressions most of the time. I also decided to add a little line under his eye, to show that he's got some bags, and didn't get much sleep last night. He was probbaly writing about bands that suck on myspace all night. (Note: Check out the Hidden village of ROCK forehead protector) *Throws up the horns* I decided the top right one worked best.

[i] again... sorry for the craptitude[/i]
Step 4, Garb:
By garb, I mean clothes. Clothes say alot about a person, almost as much as the face. [IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v16/Dalai_liam/Iimo/clothes.jpg[/IMG] At this point, I decided that I'd have to drop the Emo-ness a bit. You can't dress Emo and Ninja at the same time. It just doesn't work. So I went with a metal/goth look at first. A scuba shirt was easily workable. Give him some baggy shorts a few little accessories, and your done!... aside from the fact that I forgot the manditory BIG JACKET! For inspiration here, I looked at real clothing (It's usually a good place to start) So I went to my closet, and pulled out this Black Nautica winter jacket I'd had for a while. It's Big, waterproof, and warm. Function meets fasion. I decided the jacket would be a big part of displaying the personality, because it's versitile. With the hood up, it says things like "I want to be alone", "I don't want to be noticed", or even "It's raining". With it down it's more along the lines of "I can be approached", "I'm paying attention to you", or "This is what I'm nnormally like". Lastly I decided I could leave the thing half way done up for more fun loving or angry moods.

Next up : Accessories. I'm kind of torn between giving him a guitar, an Axe, or a more traditional japaneese Biwa. I'll add weapoons too because they tella bit about capabilities.

[Liam]

Aha! I've finished up some accessories which spawn ALL kinds of new ideas.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v16/Dalai_liam/Iimo/strings.jpg[/IMG]
Since I couldn't decide on one type of stringed instrument, I figgured I'd allow him to play them all. In a string-section-no-justsu fasion, kind of like Kage-Bushin. This is the ultimate in wailing and rocking out.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v16/Dalai_liam/Iimo/tessen.jpg[/IMG]
As for a weapon, I decided that the Hidden village of ROCK! is pretty artsy and performance based. I decided to go with Fans since traditionally they are performance based in the asias. To make them combat worthy, I decided to go with the tessen. A tessen is a metal war fan used by fuedal genrals to dirrect troops. I figgured if we polished them up real nice we could use them to reflect light, blind opponents and signal to team-mates :) I decided to modernize the design a bit and give it more of a switchblade look though.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v16/Dalai_liam/Iimo/squid.jpg[/IMG]
And lastly but not least I decided all good ninjas have a summoning technique. So we present Limaru, the squid. :) There was no bishonen planned so I figgured, Bishi+tenticles=teh win! Limaru used to be a star of the smash hit TV dramady "Sex in the Squidy" but when the show went belly up, some of his investments went belly up and he was forced to go to work at the department of summons. I figgure every mission he can appear atleast once and give advice about "This one eppisode..." that probably won't really be relevant at all. But hey.... I hear he's number 1 with the ladies!

I guess next up is to flesh out a cast of supporting characters. Squads come in 3 so I decided to add a Drummer and singer, one of which must be a girl according to naruto law. I decided that a sexy but robustly strong girl drummer would be nice roll reversal, and we could give the singer role to a fairly androgenous guy.

[Kei]

[color=darkblue][size=1]While I know that you have every good intention and are apparently aware of the rules, I don't know about this. I understand what you're trying to do, and it's actually a really good idea, but if I bend the rules here, it doesn't set a good example.

However, I will say that posts have a 10,000 character limit, and the only exception we make for the double-posting rule is if someone goes over that limit, but is still trying to make a point or writing a literary work (which is why chapter-based stories in Anthology are treated slightly leniently.)

Try and work with that.[/color][/size]