Artist Lea
Hernandez made many appearances in the early days of the anime convention
circuit, and she even ran a convention or two. Then her family grew, and
she moved from california to Texas. The artist's trip to AnimeIowa was
one of the first times in years that Hernandez has taken a convention trip
outside her home state. At a Friday panel, Hernandez enjoyed talking with
a group of fans about her art and storytelling. The memorable characters
in Cathedral Child and Clockwork Angels are based on her daughter and her
unique way of talking, she said, while the Silky Warrior Tansie characters
were based on her friends. And there's a common thread between those stories,
set hundreds of years apart and in different worlds. "You have these characters
who need to grow up and take responsibility for their own lives," she said.
"I keep telling people over and over to be responsible for the choices
they make. You need to be your first best friend and not wait for others
to make up for the choices you make."
Other themes
can be found in those stories - bigotry in Cathedral child, gay-bashing
in Clockwork Angels and a look at the world of fame in Tansie. What emotions
does Hernandez feel when she creates a story? "It depends. If I draw something
sad, I'm down. If I draw something that's silly, I get gigged out. I think
I'm funny but I don't make myself laugh very much unless it's Near-Life
Experiences, I draw myself as a cartoon animal so I can show
how I felt. Hernandez spent part of her panel encouraging an aspiring artist
to extend his career. "If you're good enough to ink your stuff, you're
good enough to drawn your own stuff. There are some people who have lifetime
gigs just inking, but you need to drawn your own stuff. You know you're
ready for a career when you can't not draw, even if you're going to be
poor."
Hernandez'
drawing style is a blend of her experience in American comics, flavored
by exposure to the manga style and even American advertising art from a
half-century ago. When she was asked about the difficult subject of how
to draw noses, she answered that anime noses are abstractions, based on
the way the light falls on them. "They have no relationship to real noses,"
said Hernandez. And anime faces, while they look western, are based on
asian faces. "The bone structure is different...don't learn your anatomy
based on the comic art of any country," she advised. One of the basics
of comic art is exaggeration, from the bulging muscles of American superheroes
to the impossibly long legs of anime characters. "Trigun is a another example
of extreme anatomy. Most people are six heads tall, but Vashan proportions
are eleven heads - if you look at him he's got a lot of legs. Manga is
going to teach you good stylization but it's not going to teach you what
you need to learn to draw."
Artist Lea
Hernandez made many appearances in the early days of the anime convention
circuit, and she even ran a convention or two. Then her family grew, and
she moved from california to Texas. The artist's trip to AnimeIowa was
one of the first times in years that Hernandez has taken a convention trip
outside her home state. At a Friday panel, Hernandez enjoyed talking with
a group of fans about her art and storytelling. The memorable characters
in Cathedral Child and Clockwork Angels are based on her daughter and her
unique way of talking, she said, while the Silky Warrior Tansie characters
were based on her friends. And there's a common thread between those stories,
set hundreds of years apart and in different worlds. "You have these characters
who need to grow up and take responsibility for their own lives," she said.
"I keep telling people over and over to be responsible for the choices
they make. You need to be your first best friend and not wait for others
to make up for the choices you make."
Other themes
can be found in those stories - bigotry in Cathedral child, gay-bashing
in Clockwork Angels and a look at the world of fame in Tansie. What emotions
does Hernandez feel when she creates a story? "It depends. If I draw something
sad, I'm down. If I draw something that's silly, I get gigged out. I think
I'm funny but I don't make myself laugh very much unless it's Near-Life
Experiences, I draw myself as a cartoon animal so I can show
how I felt. Hernandez spent part of her panel encouraging an aspiring artist
to extend his career. "If you're good enough to ink your stuff, you're
good enough to drawn your own stuff. There are some people who have lifetime
gigs just inking, but you need to drawn your own stuff. You know you're
ready for a career when you can't not draw, even if you're going to be
poor."
Hernandez'
drawing style is a blend of her experience in American comics, flavored
by exposure to the manga style and even American advertising art from a
half-century ago. When she was asked about the difficult subject of how
to draw noses, she answered that anime noses are abstractions, based on
the way the light falls on them. "They have no relationship to real noses,"
said Hernandez. And anime faces, while they look western, are based on
asian faces. "The bone structure is different...don't learn your anatomy
based on the comic art of any country," she advised. One of the basics
of comic art is exaggeration, from the bulging muscles of American superheroes
to the impossibly long legs of anime characters. "Trigun is a another example
of extreme anatomy. Most people are six heads tall, but Vashan proportions
are eleven heads - if you look at him he's got a lot of legs. Manga is
going to teach you good stylization but it's not going to teach you what
you need to learn to draw."
