Do your homework.

Self-publishing comics is not a route for the lazy. I’m sure you can get away with exerting the minimum amount of effort but you shouldn’t expect blockbuster results and immediately at that. No, pursuing this endeavor requires patience, an open and curious mind and the willingness to experiment and take on unique challenges.

To understand how to be good at it, you have to learn about the different components involved and how to do perform well in each of them. I’m still figuring out many things myself and feel it’s a continued learning process. The good news is that they are not usually mutually exclusive and achievements in the beginning can create a snowball effect for the future.

How to Run a Successful Kickstarter for your Manga

Running a crowdfunding campaign through websites like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo can be incredibly exciting and rewarding. There is a genuine rush seeing friends, family and yes, even complete strangers provide monetary support for your creative project. It’s especially empowering for a beginning creator who doesn’t have the financial backing of a professional publisher and must publicize, produce and sell their beloved works out of their own pockets.

While I think there are far more exhaustive posts on the subject out there, I’m interested in sharing the steps which I felt really worked for Polterguys’ campaign. I’ve witnessed the benefits of following these bits of advice firsthand and I truly believe with hard work and patience, anybody can achieve the same results.

The Problem with How To Draw Manga Books

Back when I lived in the Philippines, I remember discovering my first How to Draw Manga books. They were tucked in the arts section of my local bookstore next to the books on painting and architecture. I recall getting quite excited because I just discovered chinese-translated manga and wanted to learn how to make my own comics.

But even then, I knew they wouldn’t be able to help me completely. I didn’t like the house “style” they employed and preferred to use my own. I felt no need to learn how to draw manga eyes, face or hair the way they prescribe because I observed from watching countless anime, they were all drawn differently any way. Why would I want to draw what everyone else is drawing? I wanted to learn cool stuff like how to draw backgrounds or fighting poses and bought the corresponding books in the series for that. But you know what? I never did actually learn much from them.

Challenge yourself.

At June 07, 2012
By Laur
In tips
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A Fistful of Paintballs for the Community Art Show

Last Saturday, I went over to West Hollywood to get interviewed for a documentary on the making of the Six Seasons and a Movie art show.

How to Suck as a Manga Artist

Alex knows this post is sarcastic.

You can’t wait to be famous. It’s going to be a piece of cake, Shonen Jump is going to publish your work and it’s going to rock everybody’s world. You don’t need to do any kind of hard work at all.