Comics/ Manga Style

 

Doing comics is a quite recent thing for me.  But had been cartooning and doing single panel cartoons for decades.  Have a collection of my original comics/ manga to download for free.  

It was reading all of "Valerian and Lareline" by writer Pierre Christin and artist Jean-Claude Mézières and the 6 volumes of the amazing "Orbital" by writer Sylvain Runberg and artist Serge Pellé, that set me off wanting to try something along those lines in 2017. Some 8 years ago now.  My Terraform is that work, but what I discovered doing that is drawing the same fairly realistic character over and over, and making it color, actually isn't my thing. It took about 3 months to do 15 pages on parts of the weekends. 

I love Masamune Shirow's APPLESEED and GHOST IN THE SHELL, but that isn't the style of thing I would want to draw myself, knowing how long it takes. Complicated action scenes with complicated characters and machines.  Otomo Katsuhiro the same deal. Inspiring but not what I want to do myself.

I always considered drawing my first and longest love, but my career in engineering and software development with a large focus on reuse and not wasting time has lead me to a different approach and style. 

More like Mizuki Shigeru. Simple reusable characters on complicated backgrounds. The way Flash vector animation was done.  Toriyama Akira's Dr Slump is closer to my approach. Jokes are also important to me. It has to be funny, at least a bit. Life is far too serious without it.

I don't mind drawing something complicated once, like a background, or reusable set piece but to do it over and over, slightly different, just awakens my engineering brain that says "that is too inefficient and a waste of time, do it differently, make it a subroutine".

So I have. I make a series of reusable characters and parts for a comic, so a character doesn't have to be redrawn all the time.  Having characters mostly standing and talking helps a lot too. Can't leave out the influence of AMERICAN SPLENDOR there either.  I have had little to do with your standard MARVEL or DC American comics, SUPERMAN, BATMEN etc. The closest being a few issues of SPAWN around when the movie came out. So material about doing comic lettering the American way, is of zero interest to me, and it just seems Japanese MANGA is just so totally different in that regard anyway.  Upper case only text just seems so illiterate to me. 

I have used NARRATIVE CAPTIONS a lot too in my comics. Very effective for me.

I recently re-watched the 1966 surfing documentary THE ENDLESS SUMMER.  Filmed in color in soundless 16mm, the documentary relies heavy on the comedic entertaining narration and music added in post production.  When he initially travelled around showing his film, he played records while he talked live.   So the narration is captivating as it was worked out during many live performances.   

So my own comic/ manga style comes out of my approach to just doing things, and not wanting to draw the same thing over and over again. 

Music + Comics is also something I have worked on for a few years now that I find fulfilling.

Getting an Idea, Making it, Recording it, Improving it, then Listening to the music Out and About. Simple Things that make me a Happy Camper:

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Kyoto to Nagoya and back for お墓参りby Car

 

Yesterday was the yearly trip for お墓参り ( お はかまいり,  O hakamairi). For the last 6 years we went by train and bus, but this year my sister-in-law (SIL) thought renting a car and having our son drive would be fun/interesting/cheaper.

So we drove to Peace Park, cleaned up the graves and left offerings to great grandparents.

A very peaceful place, and we got the last of the good weather before the unbearable heat sets in.

The trip by car on the expressway is a much longer rougher ride than by train and bus. I don't want to do that again.  

SIL had rented a Toyota AQUA Hybrid ( a PRIUS sized 5 door hatchback), which is bigger than our Keicar, but a compact car in the rest of the world. 

Had lunch at a rest stop on the expressway coming back. So many trucks and cars and we got one of the last car parking spaces. 

Over 2 hours by car each way,  6 hours total, and I wasn't even driving and was exhausted from being shaken for most of it.

The Kyoto - Nagoya trip uses a couple of different expressways, but there is little to see. Lots of long tunnels through mountains, lots of valleys cut through small mountains with supporting walls each side of the expressway, lots of walled in sections to keep the truck & car noise in when going through more populated areas, and brief sections of construction or villages or forest. The video shows pretty much it for the 2 plus hours in a minute+.

The music was first time using 8 string guitar with the POD Express Black in Reaper. Drums, 2 guitar parts and ambient synthesizer.  Lots of Valhalla DSP Delay, Space Modulator and Supermassive.

The video is pretty much a reason to use the music in something.  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Me, Myself & I with a POD Express Black

 

27 seconds of 2B pencil, watercolor, fun and learning my new POD Express Black.  This is the look I did for The Guru Pilgrimage,  that I will probably do a few more of. Fast to draw, no inking, splosh some watercolor around and your done. The cute/ wonky shapes let you get away with a lot. I will probably redo that drum kit though. Love the look of SIMMONS, but that is also something I probably need to stay away from.

 Still to come to grips with BIAS, SAG and other amp controls, but that is all part of the fun.

Since I started recording I have used a distortion pedal into the ADC, then applied a cabinet in REAPER.  I have tried a few, mixing it up sometimes, but always found the Line6 UBER METAL to mostly be the best for me. And it is some 18 years old! The POD EXPRESS BLACK has amp models and cabinets and the above clip is using the POD with a cabinet.

I have effects turned off though, and reverb, chorus, flanging and delay are added in REAPER during the mix.

All the go now is a NANO CORTEX or HX STOMP like devices.  Mattias at his FREAK GUITAR WEEKEND uses 3 patches in a HX STOMP for his sound straight to the PA.

A HX STOMP would be nice, but that unit is about twice what I paid for my most expensive Ibanez RG guitar a few years ago. The cost, and my use of it as a distortion pedal just doesn't make sense to me, as a hobbyist granddad in his home studio, making music for myself that only 3 others will hear.  Unless it is used in a YouTube short, then maybe 250 will.

Some 12 months ago BOSS released their IR2 amp/Cabinet pedal and I was interested in getting that. Watched all the reviews, saw the price of Sweetwater etc, and........... it wasn't for sale in Japan.. yet. So I waited. It took some 12 months or so before it was available here. At which time I had seen it wasn't quite what I was after.  I am really only interested in Metal tones, which the BOSS has the opposite focus on.

I then noticed the recent POD EXPRESS BLACK. Now that is my thing, focusing on METAL tones. The price was right, and available.

So that is where we are now.  The unit can store 21 presets, which is 21 more than the pedals I have do, and means I can came up with 2 or 3 sounds I will actually use. It also has a PC editor, which is so much easier than using the units knobs and buttons.  

It is a power hunger device though, and needs a 500mA 9VDC adapter but runs on batteries too. So after playing with it a bit , I ordered the adapter, as that is far cheaper long term.

This drummer animation works better in a different improv jam with a different preset using the inbuilt cabinet:

Of course the riffs and licks in the above animations are the same old boring things I automatically play, and I need to focus on expanding my musical vocabulary, so I have something new to say musically.

BUT, part of it all is just for my own mental well being, and being a Happy Camper:

And changing topic slightly...

I watched Rick Beato's "what I learned visiting Asia" this morning. Unfortunately, he got distracted by messages coming in when he live streamed and was asked about Atlanta Music shops then talked about that way too long 😖 

What he learnt was music is still big in Japan and Korea. Playing it, Making it, seeing it live, Having places to go to see it performed that aren't stadiums or theaters. So much live music in Japan from overseas touring musicians, that don't bother to visit Atlanta, or anywhere else any more.  Music Stores are all around Asia. Lots of people play guitar in all genres in Japan and it isn't all dead or dying like America is.  

The decay in America isn't universal, but Australia is similar, for the same reasons, related to the destruction of "the middle class" through all kinds of now several decades old policies which favor rich corporations and the super rich. 

When I was at university in Australia, the pubs everywhere had bands several nights a week. But sometime during my time in Japan, 1987 ~2001, all the Pub stages were removed and replaced by Poker Machines, and Australian live band music "pretty much" died. Between 2005 and 2015, 80% of music stores closed around where I lived in Sydney.  Billy Hydes Music, Dicksons Music, Venue Music, Farrells Music all gone.  Just MALL MUSIC Dee Why  and Turramurra Music left when I left the country.

I am glad to be living in Kyoto, Japan at this time. 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Knowing Where You Are...

 

Knowing Where You Are, in the sense of your creative life, as well as that other till the end one.

The above is a DJ MIX project of this years, currently 29, music tracks. I update it every time I release a new one or do a music+comic. Mostly just trims out long end reverbs. That is better for on the train and walking around noisy shopping malls or sitting in Cafes. 

Recently read of an American who said he doesn't listen to music out and about or in Cafes now as he needs to be aware of a random shooter or other such thing now.  I am in Japan, and that is a non consideration! 😀 I know where I live.

The DJ MIX project is currently 1 hour 7 minutes worth of music rendered out as a single track with consistent levels.  I listen to this fairly often out and about when someone else's music hasn't grabbed my attention.

I mostly forget it is my own stuff and can evaluate it without attachment. I quite like most of this. Hear the mistakes in some of it, but have an it is what it is attitude to it. Sometimes I think of what I should do next track, like some shred like solo or more metal band like guitar chorus.  

The tracks I put on Bandcamp have 1 to 3 listens for the majority, so I don't do this for any audience.  Having a better mix, or mastering or even more popular genre isn't going to increase the audience, when the only promotion I do is to the same few acquaintances that read this blog or my social media posts.

All for my own entertainment, doing what I like, and I don't want to hear from the mass market, or niche genre creeps.  They will have no interest in what I do, and I am not any kind of wannabe celebrity after their attention.  The majority of  social media accounts with large numbers of followers are not my thing at all.

I went to Mattias's FREAK GUITAR CAMP in OSAKA 2025, for inspiration to add something to new stuff I do. I don't particularly care to just play his course tracks like he does though.  Some new musical vocabulary for myself is all I am after.

I told him I love what you do. Which I do, but it isn't all what I want to do though.

And knowing I am a retired grandad, much nearer the end of my life and not a young dude trying to make his way as a guitar Rockstar, makes me much more laid back about it all.  I do have a sense I have to make stuff while I can, before ill health, or just an injury, makes it difficult or impossible.

I listened to a clip from an interview of an American guy recently retired to Japan who said that if his wife died before him, he would move back to his home country.  Had similar talks with wife and sister-in-law, and I am in Japan till my end, even if alone.  There is no attraction to my "home country" to decide otherwise, even if the bureaucratic paperwork on my own would be a pain in Japan.  

My Sister-in-law and Wife are going away for a 3 day, 2 night, trip to a place they grew up from early tomorrow. I will be here with just the 2 cats, which isn't alone at all. They are indoor cats, so spend all their time close by. They talk to me a lot, and one is my constant companion.  I am not the kind of person that doesn't want to be "alone". Cats allowing it, I will get on with various music and art projects and interests.

And there is this too:

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A Freak Fairy Tale, a true story of WARBLE & CLUKK: 2B pencil & watercolor

 

A Freak Fairy Tale, a true story of WARBLE & CLUKK in watercolor & nonsense in the style of a child's picture book. Based on the FREAK GUITAR WEEKEND in Osaka 2025 I attended in May with the wonderful Mattias Eklundh.

Why would you do that?

It is for my own entertainment. I admit it is a bit silly, and not going to be understandable for someone who didn't attend, or have my approach to things, but is something I wanted to do in the last few days. I was waiting for a customer to get back to me about the latest concept I sent off for a crane shirt design, and it rained most of the week, so going out and sitting in a café wasn't on.

It explains the FREAK GUITAR WEEKEND, without actually giving away too much. There is clapping out KONNAKOL, getting confused, listening to guitar exercises disguised as strange music, and philosophy and approaches to creative music and life.  There is so much material in the booklet we received for guitar boldly going. I also wasn't going to just reproduce that material, but refer to it in an obscure way, like Clukk being a made up word for rhythm, among others. 

2B Pencil and Watercolor?

For the longest time I have had 2 of Hayao Miyazaki's Military Vehicles/Airplane pencil and watercolor illustrated/comic books. Day Dream Data Notes and The Wind Rises. Day Dream has illustrations of tanks, subs, boats, planes and all the crews are pigs, and that "cute" look is part of what I was after too.

I wanted to do something loose along those lines, and last Sunday went out and bought some medium rough watercolor paper and the Japanese brush Miyazaki recommends,

to go along with the watercolor paints and pallet I already have. I did a series of watercolors about 10 years ago, so watercolor isn't actually new to me.

I also discovered that the initial 30 page treatment for LILO & STITCH, that I only just watched as it was the Friday Night TV movie here, was all watercolor illustrations, and just love the look he achieved with that pitch book.

The attraction of watercolor is it is such an uncontrolled medium compared to the vector illustrations I do. A complete change from most of what I do. And just doing the lines in a 2B pencil and leaving them rough and uncleaned up, leaves out all that time consuming cleanup and inking process.

And that is what I was going to do, except a week ago I did this, and painted the alien in Clip Studio Paint using the watercolor brushes it has, and loved the process and result. Fast too!

And didn't have to muck around with water, and the fear of knocking it over in the studio.

So a few days ago I started making notes and sketches in a comics notebook I keep and used my NEXT DIMENSION style characters, as they are just so easy to draw in 2B pencil without working lines, and can still be very expressive.

I also wanted to do a Dungeons & Dragons-ish map in the first panel related to my trip to the Sound Messe  from Kyoto to the ATC Hall Osaka.  Lots of changing train and platforms, and lots of stairs for a granddad carrying a guitar.

So I did a test page yesterday, very like page 1 here. I downloaded font BLAMBOT Ashcan as being perfect for this.  The font is wonky, and has lower case letters and so goes well with the do it in one take, a bit wonky 2B pencil drawings. This style is so I don't have to do any working lines and use an eraser. I did put the crowd scenes together in Photoshop though before painting them in CSP. Even Syd Mead did that.

This Freaky Tale is only 4 pages, and took about a day to think about and do. Leaves space for more stories if I want to do that, such as on the actual guitar exhibits and the like.  Or something derived from this.  

I have A5 Clear files I put a copy of my comics in. This one now has a larger font, so that at A5 size, I can read it without taking my glasses off, which is what I have to do to read the few years older page on the left here. I really do these for myself, like my music and MUSIC+COMICS.

My post Sound Messe Osaka 2025: May 10 Saturday is a different take on it all.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Intelligent Life

 

The Universe is such an enormous place. Filled with trillions of galaxies and yet to be determined structures.

Our own Galaxy is just the one, that we know has some intelligent life. Us.  At least some of us.

And after decades, one of our Voyager probes only recently left our own Solar System.  It is estimated it will take another 40,000 years to reach another star system.

We, our science and engineering may still just be too primitive, but our current understanding is going fast enough to travel galactic distances in a fraction of a human life time is "impossible".  

Don't know what technology will exist in 100,000 years though. But pretty sure humans as we are today will have evolved into something else. Evolution has not stopped.

There must be so much Intelligent Life out there though...  

This is, maybe, the 3rd or 4th time I have done one of these on this subject. I expect it isn't the last either.  

And we bought a One By WACOM (R) to replace our now dead MEDIUM INTUOS WACOM (L) Tablet.

I was surprised to find the active area is the same size as the old one, or close enough it doesn't matter to me. The old one had buttons and you could use your fingers to rotate the display, but I hated that stuff and never used them and had finger control turned off.

The new one doesn't have that stuff and I don't care, and will not miss it. The old one has 4096 levels of pressure and the new one "only" 2048.   

From a quick test, I didn't notice any difference for pen pressure. I don't draw on tablet though, or VERY rarely. I find it very uncomfortable. I do my drawing with pencil/pen on paper then scan that.  I only use the tablet to edit scanned pencil line work sometimes, and the rest is airbrush color.  Select size of brush and fade, then set 8% or 14% pressure and built up the color slowly, for digital painting stuff, like the alien above.  

I had planned to color this guy with watercolors. But with other things going on yesterday, I stuck to Photoshop color, based around rendering clouds.

Edit: 2025/6/11 So powered up my older Clip Studio Paint and tried the watercolor brushes there with the tablet.

Been a few years since I touched CSP and don't remember touching their watercolor features before. I Need practice in the different brush effects, but they are giving a lovely effect! Love the splotchy watercolor look achieved here, and much prefer the color selector and features here over my old Photoshop. 

Indeed, Intelligent Life is a very rare thing, social media shows that very clearly...

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

A Powered USB HUB

Had a few devices plugged into a ELCOM USB powered hub a few months back. 

The WACOM Medium INTUOS Tablet and Logitech HD WEBCAM and the hub don't function any more and there was a smell of burning electronics, that I couldn't locate at the time.

The Wacom was 15+ years old, the WEBCAM was 2+ years and the USB hub 3 months.  Did the hub die killing the rest? These things are supposed to be over voltage and current protected, but I couldn't prove anything without some fancy electronic investigation that I am not equipped to do any more.

I bought the webcam to do stop frame animation a few years ago, as this more expensive model had manual controls required for exposure and focus. But I hadn't used it for over 12 months, and don't care to do any more in the foreseeable future.  I have another 720p webcam, that I have used just once being interviewed. 

I used the Wacom for coloring digital paintings but haven't done one for 3 years or so now. I may have to replace it, or maybe I don't.  At least not today, as I use a mouse for all my CorelDraw illustration work.

The hub? If I replace it, it wouldn't be a brand that just puts its brand on just anything made in China.   

I noticed the hub had failed as my mouse was plugged into it, and  it stopped working while I was using it after lunch one day after using the machine all day, a few weeks ago. The mouse wasn't damaged though, and I plugged it into a passive port I had and I  continued working.  It was then I found the webcam dead. It wasn't till today I discovered the Wacom was dead.

The inconveniences of modern tech art life. 

It isn't that I can't afford to replace them, it is I probably don't need to. The other thing is you can't replace them with the one you had, as that model isn't made any more. 

The ONE By Wacom reviews doesn't make it out to be as good, but it is a bit smaller, which is good for my small working space, and not expensive at 7,700yen, about half what my previous model cost. This will be my 3rd Wacom tablet. What I will do now is not keep everything I don't use very often plugged in all the time.  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Mid 2025, and has AI changed it all? And Other Thoughts.

 

Almost half way through the year, and have had fewer freelance illustration gigs than have had for the last fair few years. Not that that matters any more to me. I have lots of my own trips, music, animation and comics to fill my time with.  

Maybe I have finally, really, retired?

I think there are a few reasons for this. 

1. Googles change from a search engine to an advertisement delivery platform, means no one can find anything any more.

2. Googles AI search front end makes up replies and doesn't direct people to websites any more.

3. People are probably now trying AI to generate their logos rather than than paying an illustrator/graphic designer.

4. Google is constantly making up new excuses why the webpages that have been indexed for  the last 17 years don't comply any more.

5. I expect with the new ANALYTICS requirement that site visitors have to agree to the tracking or not, and me just making ALL pages DENY TRACKING without asking the user at all, get  down ranked in search.  

I can see from our website stats that visits are way down for people actively looking at logo and illustration samples, and the SPAM email for Improve your SEO with AI is now way, WAY up. 

There is also so much AI generated waffling junk on YouTube and Websites the usefulness of the internet has been greatly diminished for the majority.  Nothing I can do about any of that.

The other thing now seems to be everybody else has a YouTube channel, podcast and livestreams all the time.  

It has been a problem for awhile that real information that should have been a paragraph on a website, probably on Reddit at the moment, or blog, has become a 30minute video, of most meaningless waffle.  But that is the general problem with Social Media. So much noise with so little value, but enough for the uncritical masses.  And everyone is like that sometimes.  

All distractions. 

To come up with your own original stuff, you need to be away from engagement distractions. Just thinking.  I suggest instrumental music doesn't harm and doesn't distract in the same way.

Got to say traditional commercial media is terrible too:

Always with the spin.

But recent good news has been that both Canada and Australia rejected Fascism in their elections. Good to see. Despite the Murdoch owned media in Australia saying in the lead up it was a sure thing the Fascists will have any easy victory! 

I am our cats human. Not the other way round. And for him we made a trip yesterday afternoon to the other side of the tracks, near SUMINODO Station Osaka as that is where the best cat groomer we have found is now working, after being local for years. An hour trip each way. Our cat had developed a rather nasty clump of tangled fur, in his very long coat he could not clean up himself and we couldn't cut off, so we decided he needed a short cut for summer, as we had done previously. Most places only trim dogs, not cats. 

SUMINODO is an area that is being redeveloped, that isn't well off. There was a volunteer driven place for free kids meals for down and out families. Very different from where we live.  

We had to wait 2 hours for our cat's cut and wash so walked around the area, then spent some time in a STARBUCKS.  Nearby we later found a Holly’s Café, Doutor Coffee and a Zetteria.  Zetteria is what Lotteria now is.  I found STARBUCKS annoying as the BGM was way too loud and I couldn't hear what my wife was saying. I hate loud BGM, but isn't a problem if I am by myself and have headphones on.  Had the current Mango Frappuccino and stretched out drinking it to almost an hour. A new record for me.  Next time would try another place. I am not a STARBUCKS fan at all. 

Last weeks MY WAY - SEEKERS OF KNOWLEDGE was on 18th generation Taiko drum maker, Yasuo Asano.

How he has updated the product line with traditional, quality improved and new products was fascinating.  A Taiko Troupe is an awesome sound.

Which is now the next musical thing I will try.  A Taiko Troupe Loop and Metal guitar and Synths, like this:

And the track TAIKO METAL is on our Bandcamp page here.

And the short version, that will probably get more views

First use of Gemini AI asking for a similar image to the GROK rubbish above, and it did a much better job. I did add the logo to the big back drum in photoshop though.

Have a small family trip in a couple of weeks to Nagoya, my wife and her sister are going for a small trip to Nagano where they lived for a few years growing up, and I am now looking more intensely at the options to get a Win11 PC before October.  My existing PC is perfectly fine, it just doesn't support Win11 and Win10 support finishes in October.  

I bought DELL PCs online at one time, then later used a, local at the time, PC store to build them, but now it may be easiest to get a locally assembled machine, such as MOUSE or store APPLIED NET.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology