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Messages - John Will

Pages: [1] 2
1
Manga to me is a beautiful and extremely flexible medium, so I chose it over all other storytelling mediums. My goal is to become a professional within Japan, and has been for 5 years.

What is yours?

2
General MM Discussion / Re: How was your valentines day?
« on: February 18, 2016, 10:31:14 pm »
I spent the weekend with my best friend because it was his birthday party the day before valentines. Basically  the day was filled with a hemorrhaging hangover, sore feet, and tasty but boiling oven hot pizza. While I am one of those peeps who criticize valentines and don't pay mind to it, I still felt a sinking feeling deep inside me through seeing other couples frolicking at the mall. I guess we all do, no matter how we try to deny it, no matter how many bad experiences we've had with love, it's human nature to want to procreate.

Otherwise I spent the afternoon up all night playing arkham city, which was fun. I love Batman and especially Mister J.

Anyone else feel that as aspiring comic creators our future love lives seem quite grim? I mean, most of my relationships up to this point have ended due to the fact that I can only spare so much time away from work (even though I'm an amateur haha) to contribute to the relationship. But the guilt of prioritizing work over love always led me to distance myself from work to the point of threatening my goals, which ends up putting me in a position of resentment towards my partner. It's a horrible thing, and it's what makes monsters, especially out of men. I saw myself slowly becoming that guy who treats his girlfriend like sh*t because of my resentment going into a snow ball effect. Now I'm afraid of getting into a normal relationship for I might bend into a twisted shadow of myself.

Love corrupts. Or at least a fake version does.


3
General MM Discussion / Re: What artstyle do you enjoy the most?
« on: January 31, 2016, 11:43:04 am »
It's all about expressing features that you enjoy in real life.

I've read and watched several interviews with manga artists and manga editors and they all say the same thing when it comes to advice: Copy your favorite artists but bend it to your own style over time. I guess by that they mean that it'll help you learn the basics of manga illustration, and by copy they refer to something called 'mosha' which is reproducing manga pages one by one. A lot of famous manga artists started that way so it should work, but I prefer not to since I'd rather not hinder my originality. But I still study other authors in their technique, but not their style.

If you had to practice 'mosha' on a manga, which one would you do it from?

4
General MM Discussion / Re: What artstyle do you enjoy the most?
« on: January 31, 2016, 04:38:00 am »
Nice choices, I really like Sadamoto's art and I was surprised by Fujishima's since I've only watched omg's anime.

Mine would probably be Katsuhiro Otomo, Takeshi Obata, and Akira Toriyama.

With Otomo his art style is very advanced for his era, and actually met with some criticism back then for being too realistic. Still, I think his art is amazing.
 

Obata's art in all of his work has always been amazing, but his latest work (while not an original story) show cases the old man's finest
(from Platinum End)


While Toriyama is copied way too much, his simple but perfect line work can never be reproduced.


Honestly though, I wouldn't want to draw like any of these artists; the art you make reflects your world, and no art style to this point has fitted with mine. Does anyone else feel that way?

Edit: By 'perfect linework' I mean that each line, and the way he draws them, brings his world alive.

5
Develop Your Story / Re: The Fall of Nations Online
« on: January 30, 2016, 01:30:36 pm »
I see that you're focusing more on Tamera this time around. She's so mean! ;D Which can be a good thing, since she's bitter about Keaghan, but I must say it feels forced. It's also kinda inconsistent, especially when this speech comes out of nowhere:



Roan: (Looking over Tamera’s shoulder) Who’s Keaghan? Wait is he that one guy who… freaking…”

Embarrassed, Tamera puts her phone away.

Tamera: (With contrastingly stylized images that follow) You don’t know him. Four years ago Keaghan and I were dating. The whole time we were together, he talked about how he wanted to build his own game: one that would prove all the critics wrong. Eventually, he got tired of talking and left. He said he’d found a developer that liked his idea, all the way in Korea. He moved away to work with them. I haven’t spoken to him since. He never called, or visited, I assumed he moved on.


Basically the whole time so far she's been quite a b*tch to roan and refrained from talking to him or explaining anything, then all of a sudden she goes ahead and tells him a huge story. I assume this is exposition, but it is done poorly and horribly forced. First off, Roan didn't even probe her, she just went ahead and gave him an earful. I suggest you make him get it out of her, until she's spills it in parts, this way she'll feel more 3 dimensional. But even then it'll just drag the chapter out without selling the hook. As Hitchcock once said: "Exposition is a pill that must be sugar-coated.". Basically, look at your readers as dogs, and how do you get a dog to take it's medication? You mix it with a treat.  So you gotta make us interested first, and we have to be unaware it's exposition at all.

Right now I'm not feeling it with Tamera, she isn't very interesting. Keaghan has more potential though, I recommend you focus on him more. I'm under the impression that you're a girl, so I'd understand if you would want Tamera as the main focus, and the theme is also very gender-specific to women, which is okay (I enjoy those stories). But even so she still feels like more of a motivation for Keaghan than a protagonist. Other than that she doesn't have much story, and as you said her life is quite boring.

My biggest suggestion to you is to put FNO on hold for now and try making short stories first (chapter length works) to develop your story telling and characters. The most common mistake with today's beginner manga writers is that they jump straight into serial-length work. Everyone wants to tell their stories in their entirety, but this is like trying to fly to mars without having even gotten to the moon. Practice with smaller works and you'll develop faster.

I apologize if I'm being too harsh, but I wanted to give you my honest thoughts.

6
Announcements / Re: Apology
« on: January 27, 2016, 01:05:20 pm »
I wouldn't stress over how many people we get but rather who we get. I really think this site should stick strong to it's values of being a serious manga creator community, rather than some hub for dabblers like manga raiders. Rather aim for quality, and not quantity.

7
Announcements / Re: Apology
« on: January 27, 2016, 05:05:15 am »
For awhile I thought the site was gone forever, but then I got the email. Well, I'm glad we're up and running again, would be a great loss to lose such a valuable community.

8
Feedback / Re: Skin
« on: January 16, 2016, 02:27:45 am »
I like the current skin, but having more selections could be a great addition since not everyone likes the same thing

9
Writing / Re: What manga should we be inspired by?
« on: January 15, 2016, 03:19:47 am »
Yes, the manga has the quality that the anime lacks due to it catching up with the manga (as well as each chapter being 14 or so pages long, Toriyama got away with it because he started it as a gag manga, those usually be that short)

And I agree about mad max, action is the only focus, which works, but the story is bland and uninteresting. It's amazing that even with a weak story a lot of the best movies shine past it with fantastic quality elsewhere. Still, with a bad story you will always walk away from the movie feeling that something is missing, or disappointing, regardless of how much you are blown away by everything else.

10
Develop Your Story / Re: The Fall of Nations Online
« on: January 15, 2016, 02:06:23 am »
I look forward to them! ;)

11
Develop Your Story / Re: The Fall of Nations Online
« on: January 14, 2016, 09:22:13 pm »
You both have misunderstood me, I'm not trying to reinvent something and I'm not trying to tell SAO how I want things done. I said what I said about Log Horizon a year ago and since then my perspective of it has changed. I am trying to create something different. If FNO existed. I would just read that manga. But I searched, and couldn't find it, so I decided I'll make it. That's why I write. Why would I waste my time writing SAO as if it didn't exist when I could just watch it? Even though I claimed inspiration from Log Horizon back then, it would be different I were working on chapter 2. Given that I'm still on chapter 1 it's hard to say this is the same story it was last year, and It's not.

Fair enough, you've got a point in saying you want to write the manga you haven't come across.
As for your view on originality, I strongly disagree, but if we go back and forth on that argument this will become a discussion on opinions and not FNO.

As you have said that you are planing to draw FNO, would you be making any storyboards/names/neemu in the future? It would be a lot more easier for me to judge that. I will still read FNO regardless, but it is a lot more easier to analyze it as a manga if it were pictures and panels.

12
Writing / Re: What manga should we be inspired by?
« on: January 14, 2016, 09:09:52 pm »
I need to get my hands on Memoirs of a Geisha, I hear so much about it. Usually when I buy books I go straight to the classics section and only pick from there, but I can assume memoirs of a geisha would be amongst them.


13
Art / Re: Manga cover analysis (guidebooks included)
« on: January 14, 2016, 05:14:53 am »
 Those first two Japanese version covers are my two favorite dragonball covers. I despise those red English covers, they're outright horrible.

A lot of english versions of manga ruin the original japanese covers and sometimes even use random illustrations in place of the original. Drives me crazy.

My favorite manga covers are those first couple of Bakuman, of course the art degrades to a simpler style as it goes on, but manga is an extremely strenuous task so you can't blame Obata.

14
Red Ink Book Store / Re: What Books Are You Reading?
« on: January 14, 2016, 04:21:22 am »
I really want to read Murakami's novels, first need to find some first

Right now I am about halfway through The Neverending Story by Michael Ende. It is amazing and intriguing. Sure it may be considered a children's novel, but as an adult I find the themes and concepts are meant for mature readers.

I have almost a hundred books to read, but next will probably be either Tolkien's The Hobbit or Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell.

15
Writing / Re: What manga should we be inspired by?
« on: January 14, 2016, 04:14:27 am »
You have a good point, Lumaria. The worst manga in circulation, in my opinion, is Black Clover. It blatantly and shamelessly imitates One Piece and Naruto. It should be important that we as creators move away from taking inspiration from drained ideas as to not perpetuate unoriginality.

The biggest tragedy of today's storytelling medium is that there hasn't been a brand new, distinctive genre in over a century (or more?). Sure there's sub-genres and crossovers, but the fact that we have a mental block on creating something completely new, even as an impossibility, is sad. Maybe it is impossible, I mean, a genre can be seen as something a story simply falls under. I don't know about any of you, but to me I don't think I can even comprehend anything new.

Anyway, I do have some suggestions:

Osamu Tezuka: Honestly, anything by him is important. He invented the 'Story Manga', which has immortalized manga as what it is today. He's touched on (and built structures for) every genre and done it better than anyone else. He isn't called the "God of Manga" in Japan for nothing.

Akira: This classic has amazing direction and it's story is epic and mind boggling at times.

Dragonball: I know, maybe the most torn to shreds of em' all. The reason I bring this up is that putting aside dragonball's bad rep, it has many redeeming qualities. For one: It's depiction of action. Most manga these days have very unclear action depictions, they can take lots of time to realize what is actually on the page. But dragonball's action is very clear, and I think that is very important. Also the flow of action is very precise and smooth.

Other than that I really can't suggest much more, personally my inspiration has turned from manga to other things such as movies, art, books, and even music. I believe that in order to nourish and grow the quality of today's manga we need to look to outside mediums and integrate them.

Another important endeavor is to study and question manga in depth, don't just think "That's cool, I'm going to use that" while studying manga, but instead take some time and ask yourself why you find it cool, it's use, and how you can use it or even tweak it to your own style.

In closing, here are some movies I'd like to suggest as inspiration:

Alien: It's important to study the classics of a certain genre, and when it comes to sci-fi and suspense what is more suiting than the classic Alien? I recommend you take time and analyze the cinematography, pacing, momentum, and how they introduce and depict their characters (I think they are done quite brilliantly).

Citizen Kane: Everything.

Mad Max Fury Road: This is an amazing source of amazing action and it's sequences are ruthlessly gripping.

The Dark Knight: I'm not a fan of Chistopher Nolan's Batman, but damn this movie is a masterpiece. It's interesting to see how a bizarre character like The Joker can enter any situation and completely imbue it with intrigue and surprise.

Whiplash: The cinematography and character progression is mind blowing in this modern classic. You will leave this movie so full of energy and inspiration that you'll burst out into dance! But on a serious note it is important to observe how the characters grow in the movie and how their inner personalities come out to play.

That is all I have for now, I hope it helps someone.

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