Panelling for graphic novels

It has been a while since I last posted on this blog, so what have I been focusing on.....the answer is panels.

My recent findings on panels

After getting “Create your own graphic novel” by Mike Chinn and Chris Mcloughlin out of the library I came across an interesting part about panels. A typical page should between 5 and 7 per page, but can range up to 9. When I re-looked at my manga I noticed that I always tend to have very few panels per page. Actually I struggle to manage to have 5 panels sometimes. Hence I am sure this is one of my problems towards getting the story to move along.

In the aim to try and improve my abilities I spent time looking at some yaoi mangas since the only way to learn is to study other's work, that and it was a good excuse to read some yaoi! Haha. Like what Mike Chinn and Chris Mcloughlin said in their book, the theory stood up where on average each page had about 5-7 panels. I also look at the amount of text per page and again on average this was a lot more than what I ever managed to place upon my pages. For example an average page by Yamato Nase's would have on average about 16 pieces of text. It was after looking at some of Yamato Nase's work that I noticed the big difference between how she lays out her work compared to mine. With Yamato Nase's pages they are crammed full of detail, text and panels compared to mine which tend to be quiet sparse. I also noticed the pages I liked most in Noctivagus: Wandering by Night were the ones where I had managed to get quiet a bit of text on the page and also the ones where there was more panelling.

Hence I think the moral of the story is pages need a lot of text and panels. Although dramatic pages where you want to create atmosphere work well with little on them, an average page needs to be full of detail / text. Therefore my aim for future pages is to follow this logic and increase the amount of text / panelling I have per page.

Censoring yaoi

Many yaoi mangakas censor their work (some better than others). But when censoring is done well it can produce something, which although you know it has been censored, looks just as good and as if the picture had not been censored. Personally I think it is an art form in itself the ability to censor a picture without detracting from the original image.

After reading many yaoi mangas I have come across several ways (good and bad) as how an image can be censored.

1. Put a massive black rectangle over the area.
   My opinion:
   This has to be one of the worst ways to censor a picture since it totally distracts from the composition of the page. It grabs the viewers attention and holds it on that area as opposed to letting the viewers eye wander around the page's composition in a natural way.
   
   
2. Having the area blurred / pixelated.
   My opinion:
   Again like the massive black rectangle method this can also effect the page's composition. Although not as bad as black rectangle method, it still creates areas of the page which just stand out as being different and not fitting in. Also you are spending your time drawing something in detail just to then blur it to the point it is not recognisable. Seems a bit counter productive to me. Only useful if you are censoring a page but will need the uncensored version for something else. 
   
   
3. The invisible penis
   My opinion:
   For me the invisible penis option is the best way of censoring I have come across for many reasons. Firstly it does not detract from the composition of the page since you can work the empty areas into the composition. Secondly it uses the concept of less is more. It leaves something to the readers' imagination. Thirdly, since the penis is invisible it can therefore show, for example, what a hand is doing from a view point which would not normally be seen (due to it being obscured by the penis).

Due to the above thoughts, this is why when applying censoring to my yaoi manga I opted for the invisible penis option. To see my attempt at this method see chapter 1 page 25.

Body Language Secrets

Recently I watched the “How to get what you want” episode 3 “Winning” of the series “Body Language Secrets” on Sky. When I was watching the episode I kept thinking how relevant and useful some of their tips were for me in relation to doing well as an artist and making Noctivagus: Wandering by Night successful.

First tip was to have small but achievable goals towards the larger ambition. As soon as I heard this I thought, “yes I agree. This does work”. The reason I say this was before I started version 2 of my yaoi manga I set out about coming up with small little goals to achieve as I went along. Once each one is complete there is a sense of achievement (as opposed to letting the enormity of the task at hand become too much to mentally deal with).

The second tip (which I have recently put into practise) is to think positively and to visualise a task being completed and successful. If you visualised it being successful it was more likely to succeed. Hence when I was in work the other day (and it was a quiet period of the shift), I was visualising what the next page was going to look like and I have to say it really did help. It helped me to break down what images would be good on the page and even over the next few pages. Even better was the fact I could work on my manga in this way without actually being infront of my computer!

Below is a quick rough sketch I did from what I had previously visualised while at work. Here is hoping for some more quiet shifts where I can sit there visualising my manga ^_^.

A new leaf for my art blog

After many months of going, "I am going revamp my old blog up and get it up and running", I have finally got around to doing so.  The aim of this new and improved blog is to give readers of the yaoi manga "Noctivagus: Wandering by Night" and sneaky peak at future pages, insight on how pages are progressing and a general look at my artwork.

Below is a sneak peak of the next page of Noctivagus: Wandering by Night.  I have no idea what has happened in panel 1 other than my character has got possessed!  He is supposed to look cute and innocent in that panel, but for some reason while sketching he started to turn into this evil being, haha.