MortMorrison is an artist of varied skill. His portfolio ranges from CG to pixel art and from traditional pieces to animation. Although Morrison is rather humble and always believes his pieces can be improved, anyone who looks at his art will be amazed at the technique, time,  and imagination that is put into it. The characters he brings to life are a joy to behold and each new artwork is a relief to those waiting to see what he comes up with next.

ToonariPost (TP): How and when did you first start practicing your art (are you traditionally trained or self-taught)?

MortMorrison (MM): I have been drawing and painting ever since I can remember. When I was 9 years old I stumbled upon my first influences, manga and anime series. At this point I was drawing just for fun. I was fascinated and inspired by the new impressions. Not until I was twelve years old did I began to exercise my art skills seriously. I bought some “How to Draw“ books and learned for first time about topics like proportion and perspective. From this point on I was addicted to learning as much as I can.

Nowadays, friends of mine don’t understand why I still buy these “How to Draw“ books, but I think I can still learn something new and if not they’re refreshing my mind and I like to look at them. I just never considered visiting any art classes because I was satisfied the way I was learning already.

TP: What mediums do you use for your art work?  Which is your favorite and why?

MM: I started with traditional methods like colored pencils, watercolor, and acrylics. I analyzed my idols’ works and tested different techniques. After a while I stumbled upon alcohol based markers like copic markers. I also tried airbrushing and colored ink. The result was that my traditional works become a mixture of markers, crayons, watercolor, colored ink, acrylic paint and airbrush. Every time after coloring a piece my room looked like a mess. The markers are still my absolute favorite of the traditional methods. I love how they work and their color range.

I did not bother to paint digitally for a long time – not until 2009. Still insecure, I blindly took my chances with the new tool. Suddenly, I grew an awareness of the differences between traditional and digital drawing and I noticed the advantages of digital art, like being able to redo everything for improvement over and over again. This is, by the way, another reason why my works took around 3 weeks to accomplish. Even today I need at least a week to finish a picture. It is indeed a double-edged sword.

I appreciate both – traditional and CG equally. My traditional work is fast paced and the smell of the materials reminds me in some way of my childhood. CG granted me new possibilities to visualize my thoughts – I consider it a new stage of life. But it also turns drawing into a long and exhausting process.

In 2010 I finally colored the first time a piece with a detailed background

TP: Which piece of your artwork are you most proud of?

MM: It’s hard to be proud or satisfied with my pictures and to overcome the feeling that I could have done more. There is always something I want to improve afterwards. I feel like for the time I spend on the piece it should come out better. I still have to learn to appreciate my work, but I am equally proud of all of my pictures.

TP: When you first started did you ever hit any bumps in your art process? How did you overcome them?

MM: Absolutely. I had and still have, sometimes, motivational issues to overcome. It’s a nasty, but natural part of my working process. When it happens, I lay down the pencil and let time go by. Part of the problem is my attitude, wanting to solve a problem when I see one. Working around it is not an option. If something does not work I will try and try again until it does.

TP: Who or what are your inspirations and why?

MM: My inspiration is also my first memory of a manga. My father sat down with Dragonball Volume 22 and I luckily got my hands on it. I read and bought volumes 1 through 4 the very next day and I continued to buy them (only hindered by my pocket money). I was fascinated by the drawings and the story and most of all, the humor. I admire Akira Toriyama for those books and for the impact his art has had on my life as an artist.

After that I turned to the anime Sailor Moon. It was broadcasted on television and I remember drawing lots of Sailor Moon fanarts. To this day, I am inspired by their art. Its amazing. Further, I have to mention artists like Eiichiro Oda (One Piece), Yusuke Murata (Eyeshield 21),Takeshi Obata (Bakuman, Death Note) and Masakazu Katsura (I”s) which are great inspirations for me. I still look at their work with great admiration.

The article Artist Spotlight: MortMorrison Interview, Part 1 appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Hakumo is a brilliant and amusing artist. While this artist’s gender remains a secret, this mystery is nothing but a trivial circumstance. It also adds one less layer of bias to any viewer lucky enough to stumble upon Hakumo’s gallery of digital artwork. Hakumo also creates traditional artwork, but because of the lack of a scanner at opportune times, these pieces rarely find themselves in an online gallery. You can see the delicately and passionately drawn original characters, fanart, and other pieces in Hakumo’s DeviantART gallery, Tumblr, personal website, and even buy them at the online store.

ToonariPost (TP): How and when did you first start practicing your art (are you traditionally trained or self-taught)?

Hakumo (H): It started as a hobby, drawing when I was first exposed to the (art) comic world; Disney’s Mickey-Donald, The Smurfs, Tintin, Asterix and Obelix, then the initial boom of Japanese manga like Sailor Moon or Candy Candy. Because of the culture of where I lived at the time, being an illustrator/comic artist didn’t occur to me at the slightest. It was when my friend introduced me to anime in high school that made me realize there are people who draw and make that as a living out there. That anime, and later the manga that was first introduced to me, was Rurouni Kenshin – which I have loved until this day.

I am mostly self-taught, manga and anime took a greater part of me, which led me to embrace Japanese culture itself. It really influences my subject and style of drawing. When I realized art might be the path I wanted to pursue I was lucky enough to be able to go into art school. They did not teach me 100% of my skills as I expected BUT they taught me exactly what I needed; techniques, tips, and tricks.

TP: What mediums do you use for your art work?  Which is your favorite and why?

H: I use quite a bit of everything actually. As for recent works I have explored more on the digital side. I don’t have a scanner with me most of the time so I hardly show my traditional works. I like to experiment with many mediums, but my favorites are pencil, pen, and digital. If I have to pick again from the 3, I think pencil takes the lead.

TP: What piece of your work is your favorite and why?  Which one are you most proud of?

H: Hm, I’m the type of person who gets attached to their works. I like them all, each has the sentiment of why and how I made them. Let’s see…I think elaborate pieces with details or background took my attention the most. They look great when you imagine the full piece in your head but actually creating it is harder! Ones like “It’s better BLUE” or several pieces that I did for art books like Kingdom Carousel, GAIA, and Rising Sun, are probably my most memorable. “Let’s talk it nicely” and “Bookman Jr.” are also my favorites because of the perspective and inking trial-error. But for personal reasons, I always like “Paper Blue” and “Playground: Fish”.

The one I most proud of…is probably the recent piece for Kingdom Carousel. It was quite detailed and different from what I did so far. I can still feel the process and the feeling from when I did the last touch and declared it was finished.

TP: When you first started did you ever hit any bumps in your art process. How did you overcome them?

H: The first time I encountered DeviantART, it was a really great culture shock; I learned about things called “digital art”, “tablet”, and “illustration”. My background started with comics and I was not as digitally adept. It was practically the first time for me to hear those terms. I was absent from dA for about 2 or 3 years because I thought things weren’t being too well-received and I want to focus on school instead. But my curiosity just needed to see what other art and artists are out there. So eventually I came back, learned how to draw and use my first Wacom tablet, and I just kept drawing from there.

TP: Who or what are your inspirations and why?

H: Aside from movies, art books, and ogling at other artists’ works, my inspirations also come from daily life and experiences. Things like dreams, animals, patterns, scenery, food, regular things you encounter every day. They never allow you to stop thinking of what to create or draw.

Recently I found myself really attracted to ‘rough’ things like Studio 4C’s pencil works, Miwa Shirow’s pen works, Vagabond or One Piece; their line works look really attractive to me. Oh, and Gintama because it never fails to make me laugh and cry at the same time.

Image Courtesy of  Hakumo

The article Artist Spotlight: Hakumo Interview, Part 1 appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

This past Memorial Day weekend, anime fans from all over came to the International Palms Resort & Conference Center in Orlando, Florida to attend the second annual Florida Anime Experience.

For a convention in its second year, there were many things to do and see. The convention on its second day passed last year’s total attendance and proves that though it’s a small convention its popularity is growing steadfast. Toonari Post had the opportunity to attend the convention on Friday and Saturday.

Day One

As is usual for a convention, the first and last day are slow. Needless to say, there were many convention goers on Friday of all colors, ethnicities, and ages. Some were dressed in their cosplay outfits, others wore wigs of varying colors, while some fans wore geek t-shirts.

The convention had four mainstay rooms that fans could enjoy. For video game enthusiasts, there was the Japanese Game Room where attendees could play old games that were only released in Japan and not released in the U.S. such as Transformers, Sailor Moon and Card Captors.

The convention also featured the Magna Library and Tea Room where fans could sit and read magna or play board games while sitting down on mats Japanese style at a small table as they waited for their order of tea and snacks to be delivered to them. The artist alley room featured local and out-of-town artists who showcased their work for fans to purchase.

The Anime viewing room hosted by the Anime Addict Anonymous Podcast showed anime shows and movies all three days of the convention. Finally, the Vendor room hosted anime merchants and their wares for attendees to buy.

There were many panels for attendees to choose from. We attended the AMV Hour of Power!, which was hosted by fandom guest Daric “Jingoro” Jackson. This panel showcased AMV (Anime Music Videos) created by anime fans. Next up was the Anime Retro: Sailor Moon. From the magna to the anime, to the video games and live action show in Japan, this panel discussed everything Sailor Moon. The Girl’s Guide to Con-Going panel hosted by the women of the A.A.A.

Podcast put their collective 20+ con experiences together in an informative and amusing way to tell con stories from the girl’s perspective. The room was almost full for this panel and there were men in attendance as well. Another interesting event was the Otaku Speed Dating. This was fun, enjoyable and a bit socially awkward for some.

Day Two

Saturday is usually the busiest day for a three day convention and indeed that was the case for Florida Anime. The first panel of the day was the “Traveling to Japan” which was hosted by Chiaki of the Anime Addicts Anonymous Podcast. This panel was funny as well as informative. Chiaki gave out great information to would-be travelers to the land of the rising sun. She had a Power Point presentation with important information which is available on the Anime Addicts Anonymous Podcast site for fans to download.

Later in the day, the convention hosted the Robotech panel with special guests Dan Woren (the voice of Roy Fokker from Robotech ) and Fuzzy. They showed video from the series as well as interviews with the voice actors of the series.

After that, we attended the Voice Actor’s Panel which featured Dan Worren (the voice of Roy Fokker from Robotech), Terri Hawkes (the voice of Sailor Moon from Sailor Moon) and Darrel Guilbeau (the voice of Mikado from Durarara). Panelists answered questions from the audience that were about their experience in the voice acting industry, how to get into voice acting, as well as taking character voice requests from the audience.

Another great panel was the Wasabi Anime Goes to Japan which was a humorous photo slideshow of their visit to Japan and finally, the Crossplay Contest opened. Crossplay is where ladies cosplay as male anime characters and men cosplay as female characters.

Other panels of interest included the Adult Swim Anime Retrospective that was about fans favorite anime shows that aired on the cartoon block; Animusical Idol 2012, Gundam Panel Year 2, The Great Cosplay Dating Game and Otaku Insomnia Dance.

The Florida Anime Experience is a great convention to attend especially if you’re new to the convention scene. The staff is friendly and ready and able to help you and the attendee goers are pretty cool as well. We definitely will attend next year and I hope you will too.

Image Courtesy of   The Florida Anime Experience

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Kathy (also known as iloveapples) is an artist, who is mainly self taught through art books she found online. The instructional books of Andrew Loomis have been particularly influential in Kathy’s growth as an artist. She is especially thankful for the internet and the artists that she has discovered through it. Without this immense resource she would not have been able to gather as much inspiration or create the varied style that she is known for.

ToonariPost (TP): How and when did you first start practicing your art?

Kathy (K): I can’t really remember a time when I wasn’t drawing! I remember being introduced to anime when I was in elementary school and drawing Sailor Moon and other anime characters. I think it was in Middle School, though, when I tried to draw seriously and experimented with drawing digitally.

TP: What mediums do you use for your art work?  Which is your favorite and why?

K: I’m really used to using my tablet and my wonderful computer, but to be honest, I don’t have a lot of experience using different mediums! Aside from doing my art digitally, I also use colored pencils and ballpoint pens.

TP: What piece of your work is your favorite and why?  Which one are you most proud of?

K: I think that my favorite is “Shhh”. I’m actually pretty sure that it’s one of my more simple drawings, but there was a feeling that I wanted to capture when I was drawing it and I think that I succeeded!

I think the work I’m most proud of is “Fanart of an OC”. Unfortunately, it’s not my own character, but I really like how the lines and the colors came out.

TP: How would you describe your drawing style?

K: My drawing style is constantly changing! I seriously stop liking anything I draw after a couple of weeks, which tends to lead to me changing my drawing style quite often! I’m not sure how I would describe it, but I do my best to capture a certain character or personality in the people I draw. I try to keep my art very simple, whether it’s because I’m trying to be artistic or just lazy, haha.

TP: When you first started did you ever hit any bumps in your art process. How did you overcome them?

K: Anatomy and proportion are always the hardest things for me to draw. I’m still not getting it perfect in my drawings, but thank God drawing programs are very forgiving. When I need to improve on something specifically, I sort of study and practice it on my own. Lots of my practice drawings don’t get uploaded online, but I have loads of them.

I also used to put in so much time making line arts and then shading them in really painstakingly, until I realized that even if I put in so much effort, the finished product never really looked that great. I had to start forcing myself to step back and learn when to stop working on something. Now I’m not afraid to cut things out, flip things around, or just scrap a drawing entirely.

TP: Who or what are your inspirations and why?

K: I have so many, I’m not sure if I could even begin to list them! I really like Annette Marnat, René Gruau, J.C. Leyendecker, Gil Elvgren, and many other artists, but I also really admire a lot of people online! I can’t begin to list them all out, but I really like people’s art styles that consist of just simple lines or ones that have a lot of unique character to them! My art style is sort of a melding of what I love about other people’s styles, but it still needs a lot of polishing!

TP: What artists would you consider working with to do a piece? What type of work do you think would come from this partnership?

K: I think the only artists I could really imagine myself working with are people that I’m already sort of comfortable with online! A few examples would be Planetariums or Happy-Lollipop ,just off the top of my head, but I wouldn’t mind working with anyone really! I would hope that the best aspects of our styles really show themselves off in such a piece.

TP: If there was any art medium that you wish you could master, what would it be and why?

K: I don’t think that I would want to focus too hard on any one medium, but If I were to choose one I think it would some kind of paint. I really love Impressionism and really old fashioned artists and I want to learn how to paint like the masters!

TP: What are your goals in life?  Do you plan to continue art as a hobby or make it a career?

K: I’m going to have to see how my life unfolds! Right now, art is just a hobby because I’m not sure about how reliable it is as a real career, but I have other interests that I would maybe like to pursue. I would really like to be able to continue doing art, though, throughout my life.

TP: What other interests do you have that may turn into a career or what would you like to do if you are unable to support yourself with art?

K: To be honest, my primary career choice will probably be something like engineering or pharmacy because a stable job will probably benefit me more in the future. I still have some time before I actually decide to do anything, though. I’m going to have to see how much I improve in my art before thinking about doing anything serious with it!

TP: Do you feel that your culture has influenced you in some way that makes you different than other artists?

K: I don’t really think I’m in touch with my culture at all, but I’ve seen bits and pieces of others and they are all very interesting! I enjoy learning about other countries and customs and they help me add variety to my designs.

The article Artist Spotlight: Kathy Interview appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Jorge Santiago, Jr. grew up in the southwest U.S. and lives, breathes, eats, and even dreams about comics. He loved anything to do with storytelling as a kid, but when he was young, comics just did not seem to be a job consideration. Once he reached his high school years, he was introduced to manga, sparking his interest in comics that has brought him to where he is today.

At first, his hard work of putting out two books a year was going nowhere, and he decided to make a choice either to be content with local small press or take a huge risk and take the time to improve his storytelling and cartoonist skills.

He has chosen to take the risk of development and prepare himself to make the leap into the big leagues of the comic book industry. It has been about ten years since he first started to create comics as his sole focus, and now his plan is “comics or bust.”

Toonari Post (TP): When did you decide that you wanted to write and illustrate your own manga?

Jorge Santiago, Jr. (JSJ): I’ve wanted to draw comics since I was a little kid. I didn’t really start thinking about it seriously until I was about to graduate college and realized I was drawing more comics than I was doing my projects for class. I did graduate with a good GPA, though.

TP: Initially, were there any downfalls in doing both the writing and the illustrations?  Is there one process you enjoy more than the other?

JSJ: Not initially, but I do have times where it’s hard for me to write good dialogue, or it’s hard to draw noses properly, so I struggle for a bit. It slows me down, but overcoming that challenge is fun. I love to draw, although I do like the writing part a bit more. I feel if I had to give up one in favor of the other, I would probably stop drawing professionally to work on writing. Although, I would never stop drawing for myself.

TP: What was the inspiration for your manga, ‘Goodnight Mrs. Goose’?  Are there any artists in particular that influenced your style?

JSJ: ‘Good Night Mrs. Goose’ was inspired by my friend’s wife who was talking about her experiences with ‘Sailor Moon’. I won’t go into detail, but that made me start to think about the trope that these magical girl stories star girls aged 8-15, which makes sense since that’s the market for them.

I wanted to come up with my own take on it, where instead of it being a 15-year-old girl, who has to fight monsters and maybe find a boyfriend, to make it a 30-year-old career woman, who is trying to keep her marriage together while also having to occasionally fight monsters in silly costumes.

My art right now is very different from ‘Goose vol. 1′, but I can say my influences at the time were Alphonse Mucha, the art nouveau poster artist that is often touted as the example of that art movement. Most of my character illustrations at the time and the covers were inspired by his posters and how he portrayed women.

TP: Can you tell me more about the process you go through in creating your work and getting it published?  Was it difficult to find a company to publish and sell your work?

JSJ: My process now is very different compared to back then. To be honest, ‘Good Night Mrs. Goose’ is a book I did two years ago, so I don’t want to discuss out-of-date methods, but I will talk about how I plan to tackle volume 3 (I’m trying to keep a book ahead of what’s printed). I have my plot established for the overall book, then I map out what needs to happen and when.

I then break up the book into chapters to space out the events, and write up a script to get my page count set and also to make sure I have good page turn reveals and that each chapter makes you want to read the next one. Once the script is complete, I begin doing thumbnails for it to get the page layouts set up and establish where my characters will go. For any artists reading this, this is the most important stage of the comic process.

If your comic reads well at the thumbnail stage, it’ll read well in pencils and inks even if those aren’t 100 percent polished. After my thumbnails are done, I start penciling the pages, which is followed by the inks. A new step I began in volume 2 of ‘Goose’ that I’ll continue for 3 is using gray scale Copic markers to create shadows on figures and give some variety of value in the art. Lastly, I scan and add any tones that I need, and letter the pages.

There are a lot of publishers out there, and they’re all on the lookout for new ideas and properties to start. You just have to find the one that is best suited to your work, and then pitch to them and hope for the best.

TP: Do plan on writing more manga?  What sorts of ideas do you have in mind?  More fairytale themes?  There seems to be a market for that type of book now that two Snow White themed movies are being released and the popularity of shows such as Grimm and Once Upon a Time.

JSJ: I’ll keep writing comics until someone makes me stop. Right now, I’m working in the science fiction genre, but I do plan to continue ‘Good Night Mrs. Goose’ until it’s complete. While fairytale themes are popular at the moment, I think ‘Goose’ isn’t so much about that, but more about the drama of a mother and wife trying to find time for her family when she is the breadwinner and also has side drama to work out. ‘Goose’ isn’t about the monsters; it’s about the woman.

TP: Has there been any negative feedback on you manga? How did you deal with it?

JSJ: People who read ‘Goose’ seem to like it; I’ve yet to receive any biting comments about it. I can take criticism if it’s not trollish comments, which I don’t take into consideration.

If someone says they didn’t care for the book and tells you why, they’re caring enough at least to let you know what they would like you to improve on to hopefully grab them the next time. Although you can’t use every suggestion given to you, you have to do what’s right for you and your project.

TP: What are your favorite manga titles and/or artists?

JSJ: As far as manga, Natsume Ono is my personal favorite, especially ‘Not Simple’. I love her stories and her art, and I’ll pick up anything with her name on it. As far as comics go, one of my biggest influences right now is Stuart Immonen, who is an amazing artist with the chameleon-like ability to change his art to suit the story he’s drawing, but you never forget for a second that you’re being wowed by Stuart Immonen.

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