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Thursday 2 October 2008

Bi-weekly Akira fetish.

My problem, or rather the principal problem in my vast catalogue of problems, is that I have too many "styles". They all boil down to a similar way of drawing- but when it comes to the rendering, panel composition, "comics narrative style" and even the way characters are drawn, I'm all over the place. The problem is really that when I see a marvel pinup, or a page of manga, or a pencil-inked BD spread, I think to myself- "I could do that!" and most of the time- I could. (or rather- a barely passable knock off.) To be a Jack of all trades is definitely a plus in this industry , but I often feel the "master of none" part of that phrase tickling the back of my mind. At least once every two weeks, however, I decide that Otomo is amazing and I must replicate everything he does. I reckon this is because Akira was one of the comics that strongly influenced me as a kid, but I still think it's strange that I return to it all the time. I don't want to make perfect Akira copies, but there's something in the way he draws that's clearly very appealing to me. If I can just figure out what that is, I might just end up a better cartoonist one day.
Anyway, here's a girl doing some abseiling. This was from an idea for a competition that I never entered- because I decided to turn it into a comic that I never finished. Typical.

2 comments:

nana said...

Lovely sketches (the last post too)! In the last post your character expressions seem tighter than before.

The girl hanging from the rope seem to have two different faces. Did you do an Akira copy and then drew it again yourself?

I think I've spent too much time trying to imitate others, but sometimes copying gives you the feel of getting a piece of someone's mind, even if it's just a crumble. Solid knowledge is probably what I should be focusing on at the moment though...

aqws said...

Haha, no that's just because I was doodling. I couldn't decide what way to draw the faces. It's not really a way of drawing that i'm trying to imitate- more a quality of line- a quality of composition. Both Otomo's line and composition aren't the best in the world, but I find something really appealing about them. I reckon it's a common element between many of the artists I admire- but I can't quite put my finger on what it is.