Soul Eater Moment of Zen/Scattershot Post

[nenena]

-DEATH DAYS- by *LennyMillion101 on deviantART







Magical Girls by Heyles on Tegaki E





Also, this got buried in the comments on the last recap post, but it's too good not to share:



Courtesy of legberjack.





In other news.... Well, it took them a good five months after they originally promised to do so, but GanGan Online comics are now accesible for iPhone/iPad devices. And they finally have their own app instead of using the godawful Actibook app to deliver their content, too!

Unfortunately, I took the app for a test drive today, and sadly it is not very good. The way that the app works is rather convoluted: You have to visit the GGO website with Safari, click on the "iPhone/iPad" links to open up the comics in the app interface, and then read things that way. The good news is that the comics that I read appear to be downloaded to my iPad, so maybe they won't disappear after a month the way that the chapters normally do on the GGO website. The bad news is that the app is incredibly non-user-friendly and counter-intuitive: it takes four buttons to get to your "library" page, the menu often freezes or just plain doesn't show up when you click on the bottom of comic pages, and the "bookmark" feature didn't actually work the first three times that I tried it.

But at least Umineko looks completely fabulous in my iPad. All of the comics do. They just look LIGHTYEARS better on the iPad than they do on the Flash interface that GGO has been using until now.

All of the other content on GGO is still Flash-based and inaccessible, though. And there is, of course, still absolutely no hint of making any of Squeenix's print magazines digitally available any time within the forseeable future. Why so twentieth century, Squeenix? We're more than a decade into the twenty-first century now and it's about time you got with the program!



Speaking of manga-ish things... Flist, may I ask for your expertise? I have a seventh-grade student who asked me if I could recommend any books for learning to draw anime and manga. That is not my area of interest so I had nothing to recommend for him, but maybe one of you guys might have a good book rec or two? Any help would be very much appreciated!



And finally, I'm going to go ahead and link to this post on sf_drama (it's a locked post but the comm has open membership) because the comments are a collective beautiful smackdown of that horrible stereotype about how medication for mental illnesses stifles creativity. That's definitely ranking up there among Nena's Least Favorite Offensive Stereotypes About Mental Illness EVER and seeing it get the takedown that it deserves made my day.

Comments

[allyson boeckman (from livejournal.com)]

Well, something important for the student to do is learn about anatomy. The How to Draw Manga books can only get you so far, and for the most part they're not entirely helpful if you're serious about making comics. I would recommend books by Scott McCloud for compositional ideas. He seems to have a very good grasp on the concept. If they do want a HTM book that the two main ones I'd suggest are Vol. 8 (Super Basics) by Angel Matsumoto, and The Costume Encyclopedias by Hikaru Hayashi and Kimiko Morimoto. A great facial expression book is Facial Expressions by Mark Simon.

I would highly recommend anatomy books, but for the most part they involve nudes and I'm sure their parents wouldn't like you suggesting books like that. Can't take the chance, ne?

If they have ready access to the internet they can find all kinds of good tutorials on Deviantart.

Here are a few links to particularly good tutorials:
http://pandabaka.deviantart.com/art/How-I-making-manga-part-1-108305172
http://pandabaka.deviantart.com/art/How-I-making-manga-part-2-133393223
http://alexds1.deviantart.com/art/Hand-tutorial-83785318
http://alexds1.deviantart.com/art/Foot-tutorial-90158269
http://what-i-do-is-secret.deviantart.com/art/Multi-reference-Sketches-001-35260379
http://kitten-chan.deviantart.com/art/Tutorial-Clothes-and-Folds-40875508
http://fox-orian.deviantart.com/art/Perspective-Composition-Pt-1-118068853
http://fox-orian.deviantart.com/art/Perspective-Composition-Pt-2-125042592

The last piece of advice I'd give is draw everyday. Even if it is just sketches, draw. I find the best subjects are the ones that don't even know you're sketching them. I used to draw other students in college all the time. It helps convey a more natural position.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

This has been very helpful. I will definitely pass on these links to him. Thank you!

[aiwatan.livejournal.com]

Those magical girls are made of cuteness, and dat Noah killed me.

About learning books...It depends on what he wants/needs, but this and this have really nice drawings, they don't go into much detail, is more like a progress.I found them nice when took a look at them, but dunno about how useful may it be.

Personally I used this one Right now I find it kind of lame, but I remember it was useful back when I bought it, and my brother found it useful too. It also have different volumes about drawing men, woman, figts and stuff.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Awesome. Thank you!

[broccoman.livejournal.com]

Nearly every webcomic/anime artist I've listened to at cons has said learning anatomy was the most important thing in general- I know that there's a real good book on drawing anatomy I got as a present for a friend once, but I forgot the title. Might be in a library.

[kashii-ai.livejournal.com]

On the drawing thing, there's a great site called Pose Maniacs developed, actually, in Japan, originally. I think it may have started out as a site for budding manga/anime artists, but I know many artists who use it.

It shows the human body stripped down to muscle and fat, so things don't look too graphic while also being anatomically educational.

It can be found here: http://www.posemaniacs.com/blog/

Also, a book for their age level on anatomy would be good. I suggest looking for something that strips away the different parts of muscle and bone, and looks at the way these systems work in-depth. I do have a book that does this, but it's for adults, so I don't think it'd be age appropriate.

As for a good book on anime/manga, I highly suggest "Draw Great Manga" by Emmett Elven and Eugene Felder. I'm personally not a fan of the book's art style, but the basics it covers are more than enough--it was my primary source when I started teaching myself anime/manga drawing.

Hope these help! ^^

[nenena.livejournal.com]

That is definitely helpful. Thank you!

[allyson boeckman (from livejournal.com)]

Wow, I'd never seen that posemaniacs site. That's really cool!

[sagesoren.livejournal.com]

I keep seeing the "Deal with it" thing in many different incarnations. Where'd it come from originally?

[nenena.livejournal.com]

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/deal-with-it

Long story short: It was an animation from a duck hunting game and then it became a meme on SomethingAwful.

[ilikebigtoes.livejournal.com]

While not about anime/manga 'style' I can't help but want to recommend this link.

http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/07/meta-top-ten-reasons-to-contribute-to.html#famousartists

Practical drawing for any kind of artist venture. Style not withholding. Also try to mention to the kid to try and learn basics before haphazardly trying to adapt a style. That has been a huge learning curve for myself.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, that is neat. Thank you!

Manga book

[(Anonymous)]

I'll second the Scott McCloud books-- they are really, really good. They cover anatomy, composition, history, even color, and are fun to read and easy to understand.

Another good book on manga is "How NOT To Draw Manga", by John Kantz and Chris Reid. The book covers the most common cliches of the manga art form and how to avoid making your manga art less than it could be.

HOWEVER the subject matter in there miiiiiight not be appropriate for a seventh grader. It also covers such subjects as, for instance, fanservice. (And parodies it.) But anyways, yes, it can be crass. But it's one of the best /manga-specific/ guidebooks I know of.

Honestly, I'm going to come right out and say that a lot of "How to draw Manga" books are kind of crap, imo... Most of the ones I see are of a "copy/trace our awful 'trying too hard to look manga' pictures out of the book" nature rather than a "Let's teach you how to draw, then show you how to apply certain techniques to achieve a manga look" books.