Stacey's Crush & Violinist Abel Manga on Smackjeeves! :)

Happy Saturday Everyone!

Today I wanted to show you something cool. As I mentioned somewhere towards the end of last year, I found out the shortlist of Manga Jiman 2014 and sadly I was not part of it. However I would like to show you both of the entries that I entered. Also to celebrate I thought that it would be great to show you a drawing Stacey and Abel dressed in historical clothes.:

Simply click on this link to see Stacey's Crush Manga

Click here to see Violinist Abel(aka Amethyst) Manga

I hope you like them both.

Fan Art Friday: Stacey and Abel (aka Amethyst)

Happy Fan Art Friday! Today I'll be showing you two drawings. Both of these drawings are of my own creation. The look quite different to how they looked like before. They are also both christmas themed.

Both of these drawings are of Stacey and Amethyst. They are from the two comics that I entered for this years manga jiman. This week I got the shortlist and I was not part of it. Amethyst was changed to Abel for the manga. In these two drawings they are receiving presents from each other.

There will be more fan art next week. Tomorrow I will show drawings that were made for two clients and on there will be another drawing of these two either on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Thanks for visiting and please write a comment! Happy Christmas!

Manga Jiman 2014 (Part 2): Violinist Amethyst

Happy October Everyone! I hope you'll all have a brilliant month. Today I'll be posting some sketches of the second Manga Jiman Entry that I'll be working on after the first one.

This story will be about a twelve year old boy called Amethyst, who has a keen interest in playing the violin. The reason as to why I decided to make a comic about a violinist is because at the age of twelve I began playing the violin. I played for much of the school year but stopped when I reached year 11. The reason....well the violin that I used to play did not belong to me but it belonged to the school. Do miss playing this instrument. I felt that I need to pay homage to this wonderful instrument as well as my old violin teachers Miss Hockridge and Anda. It's also dedicated to anyone who is playing an instrument to the best of their ability and having great enjoyment. There will be several reasons as to why he plays this instrument but the main reason will be revealed in the comic. Here are the sketches of Amethyst:

In case, if you are wondering Amethyst has appeared in another story click here to see. He may look slightly different as to how he originally looked but I felt that it would be interesting to put him in comic form. Here are two other sketches of him playing the violin. The first drawing makes the character look a lot older. However the next drawing looks nice:

Another character that will be introduced will be his violin teacher. She is a huge help for him. Here are the first and final sketches of this character:

Although I did say in my last post that I'll be entering both. I've now decided that when I've finished both entries I will pick either this one or the other to enter into the competition. Both of them are very significant as they represent the fact that I began being a steward and began playing the violin during this month several years ago.

There will be Fan Art Friday this Friday. Please look forward to it.

Manga Jiman 2014 (Part 1): Stacey's Crush

Greetings everyone! Today, I'll be showing you my latest project that I'm working on other than my web-comic. This is post will be about the comic that I'll be entering for this year's Manga Jiman Competition. It is held by the Japanese Embassy in London. This year's theme is "Once in a lifetime meeting" or "Once in a life-time encounter". In Japanese it is "一期一会" .  On the day I found out about this year's theme I got started on working on the story. Surprisingly, I wrote two stories based on this theme and hopefully if I have time to complete them in comic form I might enter them for the competition. 

The first comic is about a girl in her late twenties called Stacey and her ordeals during her job. The story is based on something that I went through sometime last year during the month of July. I have been hoping to write this story since last year. Some part of it is real and the rest is is fiction. When I began the initial sketches of Stacey, I thought of what she could wear in the comic as well as her hairstyle. The chosen hairstyle is based on the 80's musician Bette Midler. I really liked her hair style in this video and I thought I'd pay hommage to her by using it. :):

This next page is of Stacey's facial expressions.:

The next character designs are based on her friend Leanne. I decided to go for the fouth character sketch because. I yearned for something simple. The clothes that she is wearing will be what she and Stacey will be wear in the comic:

Here are the facial expressions of Leanne. The middle facial expresssion was the one I found very appealing:

The final character to this story is of Stacey's Crush. Unfortunatley he doesn't have a name. I chose to leave him anonymous. This is because I felt that only this is necessary since the comic will be only way of how he would be visualised. These are the sketches of how he is visualised. For hairstyles depicted in this drawing I looked at current hairstyles for men of this year.:

For the facial expressions, I decided to make him a older. So far it look pretty good. I'm quite impressed with the chibi character on the bottom right.:

Currently, I've finished the comic in pencil and in ink. I will be working on adding screen-tones from today and the rest of the week. There will be another post about the second Manga Jiman entry that I'll be entering too. For anyone who is living in the UK, you can also enter this competition too. Have a look at the website by clicking here. Give it a go! Thank you for visiting my blog and please leave a comment. :)

Dark and Light Story 3: Letcia's Heartbreak

Hello everyone, sometime last year I mentioned that there will be another Dark and Light Story. This one is based on the Manga Jiman comic entry that I entered last year. I got the results last week and unfortunately I was not part of the shortlist. As a result of this, the comic entry will be part of a web-comic that I'll be showing sometime this year. The Dark and light Story that I'll be showing here is the first part of the story. It reveals Leticia and Cain are celebrating their One Year anniversary of being a couple.  I'll be tacking this first part again and there will be slight changes when I create the web-comic.

In case you would like to see the initial sketches for the comic entry that I entered last year click here. Here it is:

Since this is the third Dark and Light Story that I created and you would like to see the previous two Dark and Light Stories, click here for the first and here for the second.
I'll be be creating another Dark and Light Story sometime this year.
Thank you for visiting my blog and please leave a comment.

Three Year Anniversary in Job and Initial Sketches for Manga Jiman Competition 2013

Hello Everyone! Today marks three years since I have been working as an Event Steward. To celebrate I created this digital drawing. This sketch was created during the second to last week of September, then edited on Photoshop:

Along side this drawing there was going to be a short silent story about one of the experiences that I had while in this job. But I couldn't do it since I have my Manga Jiman competition entry complete. So I felt that it would be better to show you the initial skteches for each of the characters that will be in the comic:

Here are the first initial sketches of the main character Laeticia:

* This is the chosen character design for the main protagonist Laeticia. Here are the facial expressions of this sketch:

The next main protagonist was the senior doctor Derek. This character I felt was very very difficult to do, the facial features were OK, but what I felt that was difficult was to find a suitable hairstyle for him. I did a couple while standing at the bus stop on the way home from church, the remainder of these sketches took place while I was at my lunch break at work and also during the train ride home. 

In total I made about twelve sketches, here it is:

From the sixth character design I created facial expression for each of them:

* The chosen character and facial design indicated here was at first going to be the chosen image. It was heavily influenced after I watched this cologne advertisement, while waiting for some music videos to appear. I was mesmerised on how this guy looked and  I felt he looked quite sleek. When I completing the sketches I decided to say 'No' because I felt the hairstyle was commonly used. I was left gutted decided to choose the last character design.

**After completing each character and facial expression, this chosen image which will be how Derek will be depicted I felt was the right one.

Only one character and facial expression design for one of the character Cain is shown here:

The final character for this Manga Jiman entry is the character SelenaMay:

*The initial sketch here is the chosen character for the manga. Here is the facial expressions:

I'm currently nearly finishing the comic in pencil. By the end of this week the pages will be inked and imported to photoshop for the next stages. 

Snow Story from Late 2012

Hello Everyone, sorry for the long hiatus. I felt pretty bad for not posting up any work so to make up for lost time I decided to post up what I did throughout late November and December. This is a Short nineteen page story about three characters from a comic that I made up back in 2009. These three girls Rae (frizzy hair), Demi (short hair) and Angie (long hair) decided to do something fun and exciting during the Christmas Period. Although in London it did not snow but in areas of the world were filled with snow, I felt that the least I could do was do a snow story. It is inked in monochromatic blue drawing in and the outline in 0.7 fine blue pen. Here are the first twelve images:

                                                                                  










Here are the remaining nine images:

There will be a continuation of the story. This one will be based on Rae's friend Angie and a particular period of the past. This will be shown hopefully if it snows in London. I assume that it would be in February because it is during this month that it gets much much colder. 

Second Manga Jiman Entry!

With the first Manga Jiman entry completed, I will now proceed to the second entry, with the story and building sketches completed. The only tasks that need to be fulfilled are the character designs. Still using the theme waves, there is a drawing that I have created on Photoshop. (But this will not be seen since it will be used in the comic entry.)

The first two protagonists are Tanisha and Aiden. Here is how they are visualised:

Tanisha's hairstyle was something I drawn quite quickly, this was just a quick sketch and I somehow seemed to be quite satisfied when I finished her characteristic faces.

Aiden's hair style is similar to Mick Hucknall's hairstyle from the 1990's. (T

he front man of the band Simply Red) The sooner I realised this I decided to leave it as it is. I was a fan of their music ever since I was a child and it quite surprising that their music still sounds as brilliant as it did ages ago. The last two characteristic faces on the bottom will indicate how his hairstyle will be revealed in the comic.

I have chosen to use my secondary school teacher Ms Debbie Brown again (she was previously used in the Obsession Project) in this story because during the time of when I was studying art in school she was very influencial and inspiring. I admired the way she would always give me advice to create new ideas in the projects that I was creating. This comic entry is dedicated to her because I feel that she has indeed been a huge influence on how I continued to pursue art from school to university.

Originally she was going to be depicted on how I have seen her i

n the past. But since I was unable to depict how her hairstyle in my thoughts I decided to look on the net and find something suitable. On the other hand, I have chosen to make her wear the same thick black lenses she wore from my school days.

This is how she will be seen in the comic:

Now that the main characters have been completed I will now proceed to thumbnailing a rough draft of the comic entry.

New Competiton: Manga Jiman 2010: Part One

A new Manga Jiman competition has now begun, so I have now decided to enter again but this time I might enter more than one entry. The first one, will be based on a past memory* of Kylan, who is one of the bullies who abused Petra.

This is how he would be visualised as a child and in his late teens I also have created various facial expressions that will be used for the comic:

*I thought of that this will be necessary because this entry, because I yearned to do something in a boy's point of view so this entry is heavily based about him.