By Aliraluna
When
did you decide to be a mangaka and
how did you start?
A: I think it was when I was
around 15 years old. I’ve been drawing
since I was 3, I took a lot of art courses since then too. I discovered Anime and manga at the age of
10. But yeah, I started taking a serious
approach to it when I turned 15. I began
buying a lot of comic creation books, educational ones, to learn paneling and
sequential art. Then branched out to
manga art to catch the differences between both styles and see what I could and
could not do.
Can
you tell us a little bit about your current and future works?
A: I’ve been working professionally for writers
since 2008, so I decided I wanted to stretch my own story telling muscles again
and created LifeSpan. That manga recollects a lot of lucid dreams
I’ve had for years and condenses them in a cohesive story. I’m also self-publishing it, just to see how
far I can get with it; it’s a personal challenge. The future is uncertain for now. All I can say is that we’re working hard to
publish two stories (God Shop and Flaming Pie) written by a long time
friend/editor Alan J. Porter. We’re closer to transform Flaming into a
serialized manga sooner, but I can’t give too much detail yet.
You
were published by Tokyopop on 2008 along with Alan J. Porter (the writer of God
Shop) how was that experience?
A: It was a fun one, very hard too, a great
learning experience. The editors were
easy on me, or maybe they thought my work was good enough hahahahaha. But not everything was smooth sailing,
Tokyopop was dying, they cut one of my editors on the fly and just assigned me
a new one that didn’t seem to care that much for the project. Nonetheless we got to finish it, I got paid
and we all lived happily ever after.
Which
is the easiest and hardest part of a drawing to develop?
A:
If we talk about a technical level, proportions are always a tricky part of art. In the sequential part of things is continuity,
making sure that your character looks the same in every panel. And in context of creation, the background of
a character, making him/her interesting for readers.
What
helps you to get inspired when you are working?
A: Reading my favorite manga stories
is always a great source for inspiration.
Also, listening to great music gets my hype rolling…
What
do you like to do in your free time?
A: Gaming, watching movies,
and spending time with my wife J.
Do
you have any tips for those future mangaka?
A: Well, learn a lot of anatomy, real one, you
have to learn how a realistic human body works and looks to then make
alterations. Know the rule so you can
bend it, practice at least one and two points perspective. Draw your characters in all possible angles
you can challenge yourself to, draw a little more. Respect the source material, if you’re
drawing manga, research it, learn from “how to…” books, read a lot of it and
study them. Manga is not just drawing
characters with pointy hair and bloody noses, there’s a lot more to it. Participate in all contests that you can even
if you fail all of them. You’ll have
professionals giving you feedback that will greatly help you grow. We’re humans and we get depressed easily,
just be strong and never stop fighting for what you want.
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