Ishi No Kokoro Manga

On Tuesday we had a lecture on how to sell and present yourself at comic con. It was quite a helpful session. In terms of presenting my work on the stall we where shown the shoe cubes, and acrylic book stands (i already own both) but also a wooden print display i we ended up having large A3 prints. But as i am planning to stay within the A4/A5 spectrum I think I will leave it for now. Packaging wise I still don't know what i will be getting. We where shown examples of both paper and plastic bags. Although I see the branding advantages of using plastic bags, they seem to be a little out of my price range. As a group we where already planning on creating a banner for behind the table, but this reconfirmed how good it is to have one, and how it can draw attention to the table. I am unsure what table cloth well end up using as a group but I assume it will be black since it compliments all of our comics.  Arrangement wise, Millie and myself are going to be the pair who goes i

The initial plan was to print it through the university as they offered for us to have 20 books printed for free. However its with the condition that all profits go to them. But since I put so much effort in, and saving up for both a Japanese course in London over the summer, and the Japan trip itself, I am rather inclined to print it outside of the university and retain the profits I mike. I did work out how much it would cost me to do it through the university, and it turned out to be a very expensive option. With orders already coming in from my following on Instagram, and from friends and family I plan to get quite a large amount printed. With orders steadily rising, and roughly 200 foot traffic per day at the comic con I am looking to get around 100 copies done, as well as take orders in case I run out. As it is such a large quantity, and we are not staying at a hotel I will take the 80 copies up with me to London, and take 20 to the actual con. Since there wont be much space b

As I want to include an illustrative page it means I have a age to spare, and instead of keeping it blank I thought I could fill it with a profile page you see often in published manga. These usually consist of a full of half body drawing of specific characters along side a few key elements of information such as age, height and blood type. Above shows a couple of varying styles approaching this. Some just has a list, others have power charts and paragraphs. As I have a couple of plot devices/ terminologies which people reading might nit understand, I want to include a brief explanation for each of those too. I will likely end up doing a mixture of both, but I will be using a full body illustration and it will be inked not sketched. However, due to it being near the beginning of the book, I will likely only have Ronin and Loic featuring on it not Juno or Akue.

I thought, since it is quite prominent in my story, that i would delve into the Korean Silla Dynasty's bone rank system  to get a clear understanding of just what it means. The Bone Rank System, so called because it was based on a person’s hereditary bloodline, was introduced as part of a new law  in 520 CE by king Beophung. However,  GolPum system was technically abolished with the fall of Unified Silla in 935. This is the simplest diagram I could find which explained the kind of standing that people had, and how it corroborated with their title. First of, a Sunggol or 'Sacred Bone' They have to be directly related to royalty on BOTH sides of their parents. Up until King Muyeol, only a Sunggol could ascend to the throne. It was due to the lack of an adequate male Sunggol which made it possible for both Queen Seon Duk and Queen Jindeok to ascend to the throne. They were the last of the Sunggols. Jingol 진골 also known as “True Bone” refers to someone who was dire

Selling at Stoke-on-Trent is now my fourth convention to sell at, and although reasonably quiet still pulled a reasonable profit of £69.50. Surprisingly the thing that was most popular was a 7 postcard set of the BTS members which where £1 each or all 7 for £5. The deal seemed go down a treat, selling out of all prints including the display ones before we packed up. Other than that, two Haikyuu Kageyama A4 digital prints sold, plus several key rings and stickers. On previous experiences I had disagreeable table partners or have tabled on my own. This time around however, I ended up tabling with a friend of mine, whom will be my partner for comic con too. This was our practice set up and experiment on how we work together and i have to admit it went well! Other than her forgetting one or two things at the beginning and having to return home to get them, everything went according to plan. However this is what it was for, this is the time to make mistakes and learn from them. I feel t

The first incantation/ ritual is one to seal a demon within a artificially enhanced human child. What I want: to include the exchange of blood mention about the soul being consumed maybe something to do with heaven and hell innocence being stripped ensure that something to do with the demon being sealed is in there. First Draft:  two souls combine,demon blood  flows through the  humans heart, the two sealed and entwined  by fates designs whilst the blades of promise break.  the light dims, with heaven ever out of reach   but Hell grows ever closer with the demon that resides  in the depth of  the mergers heart. demon transfer begin Final Draft: Demons blood flows combing those two of nature different the humans heart sealed and claimed the two entwined by fates designs whilst the blades of promise break with heaven ever out of reach, hell draws closer blocking  the light that once shined. the demon aided  with the darknes

Incantations: Every series is different, sometimes creating their own original spell like quotes or using old magic ones derived from old religions supposedly practised throughout history. Their is several ways to deliver these lines, either in lost languages such as Latin or Ancient Greek. But some prefer to stick to the simple everyday native tongue. others choose not to use any verbally spoken words at all, however want my characters have to perform incantations. There is three types of 'magic' in my story. One that stems from the old lost magyk and curses, the second derived from the alchemic practices and the third being taken from religious and other worldly communications and summoning.  But for the purpose for this specific story, i will be focusing on the Alchemy Demon trans-mutating practices. The word "alchemy" is derived from the Medieval Latin word alchimia, which is in turn derived from the Arabic word al-kimia (الكيمياء); Islamic alchemy forme

I am really interested in designs which lift up from the centre circle. They tend to be either rigid lightning like effects, or quite whimsical and delicate in nature. I don't mind either, but for this particular process I think I will lean towards the more striking and strong designs, since this is supposed to be a sealing to contain a very powerful demon. So below are some of the effects I have come across which caught my eye. They all have rather similar circular visuals which, I feel would, encapsulate the circle and make it more of a visually exciting procedure. Each one is just slightly different, so i will work on combining them. As for the circles using existing ones as reference and a starting point I have come up with multiple designs. I am not sure which will be included, nor which will be the final sealing design. I will test it when i have the pages it will be used for at least semi coloured. below are some of the designs I altered, improved and created.

For the 'Antagonists of my comic, it centres around the organisation Vermillion Bloom, also known in the underworld circles as Vermillion Ataxia. It consists of amixture of Priests, Sorcerers and Alchemists, all coexisting under one name. Naturally there is some friction between the professions, and fractions have branched off, along with the dark underbelly of the group known as the Ataxia. These guys are pretty much the centre of all evil in my story. Creating demons, mutants and things which cannot be labelled. They are also the source of the main curse in the original story 'Ishi no Kokoro' which this comic branches from. This will mainly be looking at the sorcerers/ priest side of things, with the idea of using humans genetically modified to become sealed traps that demons can be sealed into. However, the only bodies which can be used are those of children aged 8-14, as their bodies are young enough not to reject the spirit, but also their spirits are more flexible,

Toward the middle of my comic, a demon makes an appearance into the story line. Although its personality, nor history is really explained nor taken into account, its appearance is still yet to be decided. There are a lot of types of demons out there, both those that are derived from legends passed down through history, and those which are completely fictitious. I have done quite a bit of research around this area, looking at demons being illustrated in Manga and Anime too, and was bombarded with such an array i didn't know where to even start! So to keep things simple i went on a 'Demonology' site (https://www.deliriumsrealm.com/demons/) which was extremely helpful! After reading up on the backstories, abilities and portrayals i decided to look more closely at the types which have the possession, or the ability to co host a human body, since that is what technically happens in my story if you strip it down to its bones. That and those which are normally 'sealed'

Instagram Social Media Post; I was beginning to feel a little daunted at the task ahead of me, with only the sketches and a couple line arts having been completed. So I decided, in order to boost my confidence I would gather all of my work together and see the visual quantity of what I had achieved,  despite the low feeling of not have accomplished much, it gave me a real surge in happiness. Enough so to get up and carry on with my efforts to get it all completed within the deadline, and to the best of my ability. It was a Wednesday, and i was unsure on what exactly to post, so I decided to share my joy in seeing the work I had complete splayed out on my desk. (Naturally only a small portion f it into the frame so I chose my personal favourites.) But I thought this was a god way to encapsulate my work, give a teaser to the followers, all the while not revealing anything to specific or detailed! It was received really quite well.

Modifications! Often my sketches are very refined and neat, to the point where correction is not needed, or not noticeable when the line art is drawn over it. However, because i was lacking in the traditional media sketching, I started the sketches from scratch digitally, giving them a much rougher aesthetic, with a lack of intricate detail. Although they where quicker to produce than if i where to spend time on them like I usually do via traditional work i ended up picking up the time later when drawing the highly warped action/ perspectives.  Above shows one of the pages that under went a significant amount of change, especially the top two panels. Using the free transform tool, along with a KUN manga physical  model ( like the wooden doll used for proportions but anime/manga-fied). Decision:   Below you can see the original sketch  that I came up with. When compared to the above page, it is obvious how much refinement and changes where put in place to make it more propo

Line arting is one of the most pain staking processes I ever have to go through as an artist. That and repetitive colouring, which will come up shortly. As I am relying heavily on the Katsugeki Touken Ranbu greyscale styled aesthetic, inking wise I stuck to a relatively simple inking line art style. In keeping with this, I refrained from filling any large patches of shade in pitch black, excluding the shadow under the chin since that is exclusively a stylistic preference. These are a range of pages I have completed. Problem Encountered: Initially I went with lining them in sequential order, but this quickly fell through as it made my procrastination levels rise and motivation plummet. Instead, I started to approach it with a different method, picking and chosing pages at random which sparked my interest. This meant I worked a lot faster, but also the quality of my work went up as well. I think I will be following a similar system when colouring my pages. At first, 24

What I aim to achieve over the Easter break! During these two weeks of holiday, I plan to complete at least half if not two thirds of my comic. With the Script almost finished and bubbles planned, I have drawn around where I estimated they will be and have begun to colour it in. So far all 24 pages have been completed for sketches, and I have begun the line art process. This is a really lengthy process I was surprised to find out. When lining an illustration it takes a lot less time, but as it is so many mini illustrations per page it took a surprising amount of time to complete. I estimate I can complete 2-3 line arts a day, hopefully meaning I will be onto the colour and screen toning process by the time the holiday draws to an end.

These are some of the initial sketches I have drawn for the basic pages. I have tried to keep them relatively simple in terms of designs, with only one action page holding 9 panels. The rest range between 1-7 ideally. Originally I planned these out using a brief synopsis of my story rather than a fully written script as I feel it personally hinders my work process. However, if I jot/sketch down the pages, I can tweak and alter them to how i want them to be without rewriting over and over and having trouble visualising individual panels and how the page will look when fully drawn in. Composure and a fluid path through the comic is one of the most important things to achieve, and I find mine gets disjointed if I write the script first. Hence my slight deviation from the normal method. The drawing was heavily influence by the character line up, trying to keep the same likeness and recognisably like the original designs was rather challenging, however this greatly improved whe