 People attending
Animazement had a chance to meet shojo manga artists Yukako
Midori and Rurika Fuyuki on Friday afternoon. The fans jumped at the chance
when the artists asked the fans to come to the drawing table and watch
how they created sketches for their manga. They flocked to the front of
the room and surrounded the table for a close look. |
 "I have an
ideal picture in my mind," Midori said. The structure of the girl's face
and the hair in her drawing came quickly together, but the eyes took as
long as the rest of Midori's sketch. "The eyes are the windows of your
heart," she said. Although manga eyes are known for their expressiveness,
there's no special or separate training to draw those orbs, Midori said
- it's just part of the accepted manga technique. |
 The eyes were
equally elaborate in Fuyuki's sketch. "That's why we're so careful in drawing
eyes...they show the characters' emotional feelings...I'm trying to put
all of myself into my characters," said Fuyuki. Those character - and the
stories that accompany them - reflect the fantasies of the artists and
the readers, she said. Often, Fuyuki thinks up a character design, then
later creates the story for the characters. |
 Both women
(Fuyuki is seen on the left, Midori on the right) loved shojo manga
as children, and started creating their own comics and stories when they
were around ten years old. They turned professional at 16 and 18 years
of age; very young for a comics artist to start a professional career in
the U.S., but typical among manga artists. And both were self-taught. |
