Some of the
special moments of anime conventions come when artists from West and East
come together to discuss their styles, techniques and goals. Ohayocon's
first day saw a character design gathering of artists from the U.S. and
Japan. On the floor in the dark outfits are Doug Smith of I.C. Entertainment
and Fred Gallagher, the Megatokyo online artist. Seated to their left are
manga artists Shimpei Itoh and Mio Odagi. They were surrounded by fans,
many of whom brought their own sketchbooks and wanted to learn from these
experienced artists.
Gallagher
said he has a habit of quickly designing characters for his online comic.
"That's okay," he said, but he added it's not easy to get a character's
special look just right every time. There are artists who draw their characters
to certain ways based on their personalities, but Gallagher enjoys playing
his characters against type. "I work a lot on contrasts. The character's
behavior can seem to be out of sync with the way the character looks,"
he said. What ab out those background faces that show up in every series?
"Even characters that will be in the backgrounds and never seen again,
I like to give some thought to them. Sometimes you'll get these characters
who come to life and have a larger role." Gallagher suggested that budding
artists not be too shy about showing their work to others. "I've gone from
the thought that my art had no worth whatsoever to thinking that art is
communication - if you don't show it to other people you never will know
what they think."
Itoh fell
into the manga world as a result of his first goal, which was to be a live
action movie director. "I started to draw because I wanted to control everything,"
he said. His design and drawing goal is to get a character's proportions
right. To accomplish that, he sometimes uses himself as a model. Looking
in a mirror, he checks poses to find if they'll work properly when they're
drawn on paper. "It's important to get proportions correct, otherwise you
have an immature piece of art." Itoh used a sketchpad at the Ohayocon panel,
but he'll also use Photoshop as a computer drawing tool - again, to get
character proportions right. "Peoples' faces have to be balanced. If one
part fails the other part fails."
Smith enjoys
the freedom that original character design offers. "I don't know what I
want," he said about the process of starting with a blank piece of paper.
"I start marking on paper and think `I like it,' and then I come up with
something. Then I think about changing it." Much of that process happens
in the artists' head, based on experience. This writer watched Smith sketching
for fans at Ohyaocon, and noted that he effortlessly came up with ideas
to finish a character sketch for a fan. Developing that talent means the
artist has to listen to criticism - but not too much. "You have to accept
feedback. You use that to learn what you have to work. It may be an insult
at first, but an artists eventually has to take that and finally say "Now
I see what you mean."
Some of the
special moments of anime conventions come when artists from West and East
come together to discuss their styles, techniques and goals. Ohayocon's
first day saw a character design gathering of artists from the U.S. and
Japan. On the floor in the dark outfits are Doug Smith of I.C. Entertainment
and Fred Gallagher, the Megatokyo online artist. Seated to their left are
manga artists Shimpei Itoh and Mio Odagi. They were surrounded by fans,
many of whom brought their own sketchbooks and wanted to learn from these
experienced artists.
Gallagher
said he has a habit of quickly designing characters for his online comic.
"That's okay," he said, but he added it's not easy to get a character's
special look just right every time. There are artists who draw their characters
to certain ways based on their personalities, but Gallagher enjoys playing
his characters against type. "I work a lot on contrasts. The character's
behavior can seem to be out of sync with the way the character looks,"
he said. What ab out those background faces that show up in every series?
"Even characters that will be in the backgrounds and never seen again,
I like to give some thought to them. Sometimes you'll get these characters
who come to life and have a larger role." Gallagher suggested that budding
artists not be too shy about showing their work to others. "I've gone from
the thought that my art had no worth whatsoever to thinking that art is
communication - if you don't show it to other people you never will know
what they think."
Itoh fell
into the manga world as a result of his first goal, which was to be a live
action movie director. "I started to draw because I wanted to control everything,"
he said. His design and drawing goal is to get a character's proportions
right. To accomplish that, he sometimes uses himself as a model. Looking
in a mirror, he checks poses to find if they'll work properly when they're
drawn on paper. "It's important to get proportions correct, otherwise you
have an immature piece of art." Itoh used a sketchpad at the Ohayocon panel,
but he'll also use Photoshop as a computer drawing tool - again, to get
character proportions right. "Peoples' faces have to be balanced. If one
part fails the other part fails."
Smith enjoys
the freedom that original character design offers. "I don't know what I
want," he said about the process of starting with a blank piece of paper.
"I start marking on paper and think `I like it,' and then I come up with
something. Then I think about changing it." Much of that process happens
in the artists' head, based on experience. This writer watched Smith sketching
for fans at Ohyaocon, and noted that he effortlessly came up with ideas
to finish a character sketch for a fan. Developing that talent means the
artist has to listen to criticism - but not too much. "You have to accept
feedback. You use that to learn what you have to work. It may be an insult
at first, but an artists eventually has to take that and finally say "Now
I see what you mean."
