I like to keep up on all the webmangas drawn by Christian artists, and recommend them to my friends, as well as learn from them in hopes of making my own someday, if I team up with an artist and/or learn to draw. :)
So I would love to see everyone's links!
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I tend to fall into the mental trap of thinking that if I'm doing anything that isn't 100% my own, I'm wasting my time. Of course, that's not necessarily true, especially since I can put that material into my portfolio; I just can't sell it. But my brain finds so many creative new ways to rebel against productivity...
You're absolutely right, though: it's better to try and fail than not to try at all.
My list of failures attests to this.
Or you could find some one-shots to do for practice. There are plenty of writers who write short stories for practice as well.
I sympathize about updating regularly. :P My personal theory is to build up a buffer of extra pages so in case of major catastrophes like illness, boredom in drawing, etc, you could still update... but beyond that I don't know. I'm really bad about getting frustrated with projects when they don't go perfect. :P
I do have numerous flaws that I see in my own work which I admit do make me want to improve my skills before taking the next step. Of course, I know that the only way to improve my work is to produce more of it, and I can think of numerous artists whose work I like that started out looking somewhat mediocre, and are now really good.
I think the main reason I'm hesitating is that I want to be sure that once I get started with a webcomic, that I'll stick with it. I want to be sure that I'm prepared to commit myself to keeping a regular production schedule. I've disappointed myself enough in the past that I'd prefer not to do that again.
Right now I'm in the process of writing up the scripts for my comic and doing character reference sheets for the protagonists. The project I'm working on right now is medieval historical fantasy. It's a genre that's been done a lot, but in my oh-so-humble opinion, I think I could do it in a way that stands out. It would also be a genre that I would be very comfortable with, which seems to me to be an important factor in preparing to launch something which I could conceivably be doing for many years. And there's also the question of making time to work on the thing so that I can update on a regular schedule. Since I recently became unemployed, a lot of things are up in the air at the moment.
At the same time, my wife has suggested that perhaps I should run with the steampunk story, since steampunk is enjoying a spate of popularity rivaled only by zombie apocalypse stories. If I felt more convinced that my art style was up to snuff for manga (minor concern, perhaps, as by doing it I would hopefully improve) and that I would be happy working on it for a very long time (more major concern, as I'm far more familiar with medieval history and culture than I am Victorian).
Which, of course, could just be excuses to hold off at this point.
why haven't you started a webcomic/manga yet?!?!? Technical skill doesn't look like it'll be a problem.
Here's some of my more recent work:
- Concept art for a video game
- A half-finished page from a recent (defunct) comic project
- Some celebrities as Ancient Romans
- A piece I did as part of a submission portfolio for Blizzard Entert...
And here are some of the bits I did for my art school manga class project. It's an alternate history/steampunk story called "Rust." Bear in mind that I was working on an extremely tight schedule, so they're not as polished as I would like:
- Gilbert character sheet
- Sigrid character sheet
- Sample page
And my personal suspicion is that most of the artists are girls, and most girls like shoujo better than shounen, hence the name. Just based on what I'm seeing on the Christian manga forum I'm on; and what kind of people that I know who like manga/anime; and which animes/mangas are the most popular.
What is your current style, btw? (I can't go to DeviantArt unless I have a thumbnail of the art first, so I can't check your DA page... do you have your art anyplace else?)
I can't say where all of the Christian shounen artists might be, though I have an unfounded suspicion or two. I myself was actively discouraged by my Journalism teacher from pursuing a mangaka style when I was in high school. She told me, "You need to stop drawing that Japanese stuff and get your own style; there's no future in that." I cling to that memory because of how spectacularly mistaken she was, despite being well-meaning. Okay, and I'll admit to a little bit of bitterness because she convinced me to take my art style in a different direction. I don't necessarily regret finding my own style, but if I'd kept drawing in a more mangaka style, I think my skills in that direction would be honed enough that I'd have no problem making shounen. At the very least, I'd have a better chance of landing a job at Tokyopop...
Okay, enough sour grapes. ^_^
Oh, I know of a bunch of Christian mangas. :) Links are on the titles.
Game Plan (shoujo) (drawn by "Inkhana" who I think is on CCAS but I don't know her username)
Shelter of Wings (aimed at middle-schoolers, drawn more like shoujo but has a wide appeal over both girls and boys. Drawn by Lisa Hutchinson who is on CCAS)
The Project (a number of mangas, unfortunately, they're all on hiatus at the moment...)
ChristianManga.com (hosts a bunch of mangas. A lot are on hiatus but there are some with updates. Site owned by Inkhana)
And if you check out the 'links' sections on each site, there might be more... I am always forgetting the ones without proper RSS feeds.
These two are by Christian manga-kas as far as I know, but are not specificially Christian:
E-Depth Angel (mecha shounen, in color... definitely a PG-13 rating for language and blood, but deals with some interesting issues of humanity, sanctity of life, cyborgs, etc. Updates regularly. Also if you go to the manga-ka's homesite, she has a one-shot of "The Christmas Shoes" which is adorable. :D)
Skipping Tomorrows (shoujo with a touch of science fiction/time travel. On hiatus, but nearly complete.)
My personal favs are Shelter of Wings, KingdomCome (hosted on The Project), Advocate Voice (hosted on CM), and Game Plan. I consider those to be the best-drawn as well as the best plots.
I'm also noticing that most webmangas are shoujos... which is all right, they're good stories and need to be told...but I'm wondering where all the shounen artists are.
Right now, the only Christian comic I'm aware of online at all is Wes Molebash's strip "Max Vs. Max". It's quite funny, but not manga by any stretch.
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