Tutorial - Manga Writing : 03

Hey its been a long time since I posted a tutorial, so here it is.

First of all I want to apologize for my previous tutorial (Tutorial - Manga Writing : 01) the part where I talked about 3 Act structure I found out its bullshit :P, but I wont delete it because it shows my inexperience which is important coz you wont become Geroge R.R. Martin or Paulo Coelho  or Eiichiro Oda or Tsugumi ohba the first time you write a script.

"You learn to draw by drawing and learn to write by writing."

Reading or watching tutorials wont take you far. Reading books helps a lot though, read anything you can get your hands on good or bad, old or new, fiction or history or romance or anything else, if its bad figure out why its bad and how can you make it better or if its good try to notice what makes it a good read.

So putting all that 3act structure crap aside lets start fresh.

Now a story can have as many acts as you want 3, 15, 22, 50, 100 or 100+ but speaking specifically for manga which publishes 22 pages weekly or biweekly or monthly the last page should end in a way that readers cannot wait to read the next chapter thats where a act structure will come in place, in the beginning of the chapter you start building a situation and as you get to the end, your story should reach almost to its peak (emphasis on the word almost), you leave your readers involved and hanging (remember this will only work with a serialized manga with multiple chapter, one shots have a different approach)

I am reminding you again forget about the 3act structure if you want to make a complex story, it will kill your script.

Q> Why is the 3 act structure that I talked about in previous tutorial so bad?

A> I am working on a story which is extremely complex, its 14-17 times more complex than one piece. While creating it and read some good books I realized that none of them had a 3 act structure if these stories were limited to a 3act structure one piece, naruto or bleach would end in lest than 10 chapters, avatar would be a 12 minute short film, harry potter or A Song of ice and fire or The alchemist would be a 100 pages short novels. 3 act focuses on just one character this wont work in any story with multiple protagonists like one piece, naruto, bleach, harry potter, game of thrones etc. and their are so many more draw backs to it. Read this to learn why 3Act structure is bad - http://www.raindance.org/why-3-act-will-kill-your-writing/

Creating a story is not an easy task you may think it is coz all you come up with is a concept which is quite easy to come up with but developing it into 100-600 chapters in a progressive way by which your readers feel involved and connected is the hard part. A story has so many components concept, plot, character profiles, environment, setting, back story, hints of future, etc. Don't feel down no writer before or after you got or will get it right in their first try even the one with a born talent. I myself am struggling though it but as I said earlier we can only learn to write by writing. Have some people proof read it for you of different age groups and non professionals, this will help you know what readers like and don't like.

I dont know how much this helps, but I am happy I posted it.

One more this the reason I might not post things anytime soon is I have graduated from college and working at a very low paying job as it is the only thing I can get my hands on and other times I draw, paint, read and write. I will post but not anytime soon.

I am back!!!

Hey, long time no see. I hope your are all doing ok. 6 months it has been, it feels good to be back. For the past 6 months all I did was draw, write and read. I am not really good at the drama part so I'll just cut the chase and get right to the point.

First off the mistakes I made that you shouldn't. You see the day I went off grid and days following it I was too excited and started studying everything at once. It was like I was doing portrait in the morning, anatomy in afternoon, figure and poses in evening and after that studying perspective. Well that continued for 4 months after which I met a nice person who is a painter but has color blindness (meaning: he cannot see the colors of the world as they are but see it in a desaturated way not black and white :P), he told me the right way to practice drawing.

And the right way is to take one step at a time, start with what you like, I started with faces coz I think they carry the most emotions then anatomy then poses then background and so on, dont try to swallow everything at one you will choke like me. So I have been doing it the right way for the past two months. I am still not where I want to be and at this point this is 2% of where I see my self. If you are just starting out too remember quantity matters, the more stroke you put on a paper the better you become.

Things I did that were right to do, I read a lot for every theory you study you practice it 50 time. Leonardo the Vinci (the only person I consider my teacher and mentor because he was good artist and he is dead. I know one thing about myself is that I cannot learn from teachers who are alive or in a classroom, I need to do thing myself and I do them my way) said :

"He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast."

So I guess its time to show my work, I cant show you everything coz I don't know the exact amount of pages but after reviewing the bill its about 18,000 pages. I might have done about 50,000 sketches if not more and its nearly impossible to take that many photographs but some that are lying on the top I can show and by the by art has made me a philosopher too, let me know if it happened to anyone else.

Sorry for wrinkled  pages I didnt keep them properly.

 (5 minute Portraits)

  (5 minute Portraits)

                                                                                     (Watercolor Skin tone study)

  (Hands and feet)

                                                                                      (railway station live sketch)

                                  (railway station live sketch)             (concept portrait)

                               (experimenting with face shapes)          (concept portrait)

                                        (concept portrait)

I know I didn't grow much and I don't feel good about it, but I will keep drawing until I die I guess, oh that reminds me you see every other motivation fades away after a while but the best motivator is death (I am serious) death is a universal truth for every thing that takes birth. It really works for me try it for yourself and remember:

"A satisfied artist is an artist no longer" 

                             -Rahul A.kumar (me)

See I told you I became a philosopher :P. Its good to be back :)