An ALL-ROUND MANGAKA writes his or her own story, so we have to be astorywriter. (Honto desu ka?) Then we need a concept, something that is interesting, something people can relate to and have NEVER seen before in that sort of way. We have to create a world where the story can take place. Naruto is a world of Ninja’s, One Piece a world of pirates and Full Metal Alchemist is about alchemy. It’s about doing research of the world that you want to create. So we have to be a concept artist. A concept artist can be very general, so we’ll break a concept artist down in 3 pieces:
1. A character designer
designing our characters and not only their visual appearances BUT ALSO their characterizations and how they interact with the story.
2. An Environmental designer
designing our own landscapes, environments and architecture.
3 All the other stuff
The third piece of a concept designer is all the other stuff like; weapons, devices, vehicles and so on.
So we got a storywriter and a concept artist, what else? If Story is the brain of a mangaka and artwork the body, then tying them together into panels, making your artwork into sequential art so it all makes sense, is DEFINITELY the hart of the mangaka.
In this step the artist creates storyboards and manuscripts. From a raw sketch till the inking part. This is the TRUE WORK of an artist or illustrator, but it’s also the work of a motion pictures director. It’s about making creative decisions, such as interpretation of the story, choosing perspectives, the rhythm and timing of the scenes.
Like in the movies where they work on the editing, color correction, visual effects, music and sound design in the post production process. We work on the speech bubbles, toning, effect lines, and sound FX. It’s a job on it’s own! This step is close to a work of a graphic designer. And finally we have to criticize our work as the producter of our own project.
So what we got is a:
Storywriter
Concept artist
Illustrator
Director
Graphic designer
Producer
We have to become a completely organized system all brought to one. But don’t worry, once we slice it into pieces and take it step by step it will be a lot easier to manage. That’s why preparing for what’s coming is so very important. You can easily loose yourself if you don’t know what you are up against. In other words, the better you prepare yourself, the more chance you have for a long-term success. It’s like a highway, if you don’t know where you are going, you don’t know what exit you have to take or even how long it’s going to take to get there. And not even mentioning the fact how you are going to get there in the first place. So, the preparation is like the structure of your goal. So now that we know what a mangaka does, the second step is setting your goal.
STRUCTURE YOUR GOAL
Like reaching every goal in life you have to know what you want and how you are going to reach it. If we take this back to becoming a mangaka than ask yourself this question first.
WHAT IS YOUR GOAL?
Is it writing, drawing AND publishing your own manga? Or do you just want to draw? Do you want to do this for fun? Like a hobby or do you want to make it your profession? Try to get your goal as clear as possible. The second question you have to ask yourself is
WHY DO YOU WANT TO BECOME A MANGAKA?
- Is it because you’ve seen other great manga and you like it so much, you start wanting to do the same thing?
- Is it because you are good at drawing manga art?
- Do you want to be famous?
- Do you think you have a good story?
- Do you want to be an inspiration for others?
- Something else maybe?
Think about this because it can change your goal.
STORY VS DRAWING
Let’s say, your story writing skills are top notch but your drawing skills really suck. Do you really want to stick with manga? Because there is a lot of other stuff you can write for. The same goes for drawing, If you are good at drawing manga art it doesn’t mean you are meant to be a mangaka. Maybe you can be a great character designer for videogames or illustrate for a company’s.Maybe you should just stick with fanart?
But if manga is something you are absolutely sure of then consider this; If you have the passion for writing but suck at drawing, then you can either learn how to draw or work with someone who is more talented in drawing. The same goes the other way around. If you suck in writing story, learn how to do it or let someone else do it. This is very important, know your sunlight and kryptonite, your pro’s and cons, your virtus and glitches!
Ok, you are absolutely sure you want to do the story and art of a manga. Then what? Do you want to become a mangaka in Japan? Maybe in your home country? Somewhere else perhaps? The first thing that I hear people say when they hear me wanting to become a professional manga artist is that the only way of making it, is in Japan. No it’s not! I don’t care if you make it in a cave in the middle of an Arabian wasteland, as long as it has that Japanese feeling to it and the story and artwork is good.
Being a good mangaka is about making the miles. It’s a ride of falling and getting back up and listening to your instincts. I suggest that you start with a smaller story and make it into what they call a “ONE-SHOT” in Japanese this concept is expressed by the term: “Komikiri.” Which implies that the manga is presented in its entirety without any continuation. It tells the entire story in 15 till 60 pages. It’s actually a compressed manga story with all the good stuff. After your one shot is finished you can take it to publishers or try to publish it yourself.
It all depends of what you want and what you are capable of. When a story is interesting enough, people want to know about it. Sometimes you can’t plan everything ahead because you just don’t know what the future will bring. Just have the courage to make the steps and when you fall, yeah it hurts, but if you get right back up, dust yourself off and think of it as another lesson learned you are on your way.
It may sound a bit philosophical but this is not about copying something that I do. I’m just showing the tools. It’s about thinking for yourself and getting the best out of what is hidden inside of you. So I want you to be very conscious of the steps that you want to take. Because we are talking about your future. So, let’s focus some more on discovering our talents and weaknesses in the next heads up in order to improve our selves.
HEADS UP
Ok, here are some “head ups”. You got to have a great love for the things that you do. Liking is not enough for a long-term goal. You have to really love making manga if you want to keep it up. Loving not only helps to achieve your goals faster and better but it also keeps you motivated. You have to work hard, you have to work harder then you ever did. Because a manga lives or dies out of continuity.
If you have a great story, the readers want to read more of it. If they have to wait half a year for 20 pages then they already forgot the previous chapter. So publishing a chapter each week or month is the best way to go. Let’s say you want to publish a 20 page manga every month, you would have to draw 1 and a half page each day. So it’s gonna be important to make schedules. We will also discus this in further chapters.
Improve yourself. If you get criticized, don’t block it. Off course there are times you won’t agree with a comment on your work. It can get frustrating or it can get you down. Try to get the big picture. Are there more of the same opinions or is it just one or 2 people? If it’s just a couple of people then ignore them or filter out the usuable comments. If it’s a larger group that comments about the same thing don’t let this get you down. Remember that you need those critics in order to grow.
Professional mangaka have a editor to push them forward, try to treat the critics and comments as your editor in the beginning. Just keep getting back up and learn from your flaws and master your skills. A very good way to learn from critic is to be asking for it. Ask the opinions of others. Recognizing and being conscious of your own flaws is the biggest step of becoming better. Be true to yourself. Don’t copy other work and be original.
A mangaka needs tools to work with, so get ready to make some investments. But don’t worry about it too much, in another post I will show you the different types of budgets for your manga. From low to high budget.
source: http://howtobam.com/prep-yourself/
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