"How I work"

Some artists will say that their greatest asset is their patience and attention to detail. That is good. My greatest asset, on the other hand, is white ink. I'm a very careless inker, you see, and a sloppy penciller. When I ink, I don't even to make the pencil lines clear before I begin, though the finished product still somehow manages to look fine. I'll have to hand it to 6 years of practise at drawing manga characters and their environments. That doesn't mean I don't make any mistakes though - truth is, I don't think I've ever drawn a page without making a mistake. Thank god for the computer.

When I have a story in my head, the first thing I do is to stake out the beginning and the ending in my head - I don't brainstorm or script. The middle part is not as important - the beginning is usually the most important, followed by the resolution. This may not be true for longer stories, but it's definately true for shorter ones (ones shorter than 40 pages). If you have a short story with a bad or rushed ending, the reader ends up feeling short-changed (there are exceptions). Because of this, I find short manga stories much, much more difficult to write than longer ones; and more difficult to write than fictional short stories. If you can write good, self-contained short stories, then longer ones should be no problem. However, the reverse isn't necessarily true.

That said, draw my pages one page at a time, once I have the entire concept in my head. Sometimes I start without having a proper conclusion, and 100% of the time I have regretted it. To draw, I use Windsor and Newton black ink, and either a Zebra No. 95, a Hunt No. 107 and a Zebra No. 2586. The paper depends on the effect I'm trying to achieve, but is usually just computer paper. The paper size varies: I may use pre-printed special "manga drawing" paper, but usually I cut my own. The current paper I'm using is A4 with a 1/4 inch margin around the area of drawing. None of the measures I use are the standard professional measurements (10" x 15" drawing area), but then I don't mind. The final product of my work is digital anyway - which means that can be easily modified. Hurrah for the computer age.

I also don't use screentone because it's expensive, preferring to do black and white art only - I consider it as distinctive feature. Other effects I use the computer to put in. I use a 2B pencil to do rough drafts, and an HB to do more detailed parts. And ofcourse, there's my most valuable asset, Deleter white ink.