Oh, no; another introduction...!
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 11:03 amTo start from the beginning, I was born just a tad under 20 years ago, in the US--I mean, the beginning of what is relevant here.
Unless it is explicitly assigned, I do not finish art pieces. That would be drawing as an end, and like no proper artist, I use it as a means. Being a fiction writer and, in fact, not a proper artist, this is okay. Though I ultimately work in words, I have an extremely visual mind that often likes to think on a sketchpad. Often, I draw someone I am writing about, something I might write about sometime, something I probably won't write about but want to see with my own eyes, and of course, cute, unrelated doodles that serve no purpose but to warm up my brain.
My goal, then, is that of anyone who draws: to be able to put to paper what goes on in my head. This, the development of one's own style ultimately comes from within, but if one also discovers a mentor one can relate to (Cartoonists--you remember that time you picked up one of those "how to draw" books for inspiration and found but sinisterly shaded bowls of fruit and sketchy versions of the default Windows XP wallpaper? This was not one of these.), whose style rings at a note that, to you, rings loud and beautifully clear, that is a truly special gift.
The first time I heard of Osamu Tezuka's work was when my cousin described to me a TV series he enjoys called Black Jack. The premise sounded intriguing--when I expressed my interest, he linked me to a couple of stills from the show. And it was animated. I had been expecting one of those live action hospital shows or at least a typical anime, but instead, it was drawn in a style I had never seen before. It did fall into the category of anime, but as I had with none before, I could empathize with the hand that had drawn these characters. Many individual lines succeeded in expressing things that I could remember wanting to express and trying to in pages and pages of crossed out scribbles and only half expressing in styles and ways that did not quite click with what was in my mind's eye. I thought to myself: if what I write were images instead of pages of words, it would look a lot like this.
I was too busy at the time to even write; I looked further into this artist's work only a few months later, for reasons I do not remember.
I did a lot, mostly on this very website. I fell in love more and more with the artistic style--Tezuka's and my own had a bit in common before I had ever heard of him, so it really spoke to and inspired me--as well as the personality behind it. If this artist and I were to meet and chat about the creative process, I like to imagine that we would get along--teacher and student, face to face. This is impossible: he died the very year I was born.
All that happened quite recently, and compared to many in these forums, I have probably seen very little of Tezuka's work. The Metropolis anime, the obvious one, I have seen; a fraction of the original Black Jack anime; the first volume of Phoenix (and dreaming of the second); Nextworld, which I felt like I had loved before I had ever known it existed; Marine Express; and Black Jack: Two Doctors of Darkness, which, like anime Metropolis, was not written by Tezuka himself, but I can't resist Rock in a major role! Yes, that's right--due to reading Transformation, I'm another Rock fan.
And anything else you might want to know will likely reveal itself as I keep on posting. This place seems welcoming, my favorite quality in a forum, and I'm glad I found it!
Unless it is explicitly assigned, I do not finish art pieces. That would be drawing as an end, and like no proper artist, I use it as a means. Being a fiction writer and, in fact, not a proper artist, this is okay. Though I ultimately work in words, I have an extremely visual mind that often likes to think on a sketchpad. Often, I draw someone I am writing about, something I might write about sometime, something I probably won't write about but want to see with my own eyes, and of course, cute, unrelated doodles that serve no purpose but to warm up my brain.
My goal, then, is that of anyone who draws: to be able to put to paper what goes on in my head. This, the development of one's own style ultimately comes from within, but if one also discovers a mentor one can relate to (Cartoonists--you remember that time you picked up one of those "how to draw" books for inspiration and found but sinisterly shaded bowls of fruit and sketchy versions of the default Windows XP wallpaper? This was not one of these.), whose style rings at a note that, to you, rings loud and beautifully clear, that is a truly special gift.
The first time I heard of Osamu Tezuka's work was when my cousin described to me a TV series he enjoys called Black Jack. The premise sounded intriguing--when I expressed my interest, he linked me to a couple of stills from the show. And it was animated. I had been expecting one of those live action hospital shows or at least a typical anime, but instead, it was drawn in a style I had never seen before. It did fall into the category of anime, but as I had with none before, I could empathize with the hand that had drawn these characters. Many individual lines succeeded in expressing things that I could remember wanting to express and trying to in pages and pages of crossed out scribbles and only half expressing in styles and ways that did not quite click with what was in my mind's eye. I thought to myself: if what I write were images instead of pages of words, it would look a lot like this.
I was too busy at the time to even write; I looked further into this artist's work only a few months later, for reasons I do not remember.
I did a lot, mostly on this very website. I fell in love more and more with the artistic style--Tezuka's and my own had a bit in common before I had ever heard of him, so it really spoke to and inspired me--as well as the personality behind it. If this artist and I were to meet and chat about the creative process, I like to imagine that we would get along--teacher and student, face to face. This is impossible: he died the very year I was born.
All that happened quite recently, and compared to many in these forums, I have probably seen very little of Tezuka's work. The Metropolis anime, the obvious one, I have seen; a fraction of the original Black Jack anime; the first volume of Phoenix (and dreaming of the second); Nextworld, which I felt like I had loved before I had ever known it existed; Marine Express; and Black Jack: Two Doctors of Darkness, which, like anime Metropolis, was not written by Tezuka himself, but I can't resist Rock in a major role! Yes, that's right--due to reading Transformation, I'm another Rock fan.
And anything else you might want to know will likely reveal itself as I keep on posting. This place seems welcoming, my favorite quality in a forum, and I'm glad I found it!
I'm also excited that you enjoy fiction and art.