The Facets of the Silver Crystal: Artwork Gallery

TRSE: Artwork Gallery
Notes on JA's Drawing Style

"Knowledge, Patience, Determination and Lots of practice; are the keys to learning to draw well."
"It is intended that most of my drawings are kept simple, basically colored, and to-the-point." Updated June 2008:
     First thing: I'm the kind of guy who prefer to be a anime-based cartoonist (think of comic strips in the newspapers) with a strong influence by Charles Schultz, creator of Peanuts (Snoopy) and later Anime, who specializes in humor, so it is rare for me to do high quality drawings mainly due to the time, but as of June 2007, in preparation for doing my own mangas(comics), I have started to learn to take time doing the high quality drawings. I draw the fanarts mainly just for fun (and provide some laughs too), thus, due to time constraints, and the fact that I'm tend to spend most of my available time on doing my own mangas as well as my primary job involving geology stuff. It's very rare for me be in mood to do high-quality drawings. Most drawings are also kept simple and to the point on purpose too. That may change when I start working on my new manga, Pacificators: The Gateway to the Heavens (see under Online Manga Library). ^_^
     Lot have changed since the first year of the Realm of Sailor Energy website. During the first two years of TRSE, I used to had a plenty of free times (easily updating my website every three days), but much of free time I have were concentrated on the popular fanfic mangas (now my own future mangas). Now I'm a geologist, business partner (Blue Star Traders) & manufacturer (I cut and polish agates), I don't have as much free time as I used to, and weeknights and Sundays are only the free times I have (hence, slower updates). Since 1990, collecting natural minerals and polishing agates have been always my primary interest (take a glance at my Dwarves' Earth Treasures and then hit "Back" to return to this page). So that greatly affected how much I can spend time drawing fanarts. So I started focusing on just humor fanarts while maintaining most of my attention toward what I love most: writing and drawing the manga-type stories, hence: the fanfic mangas and now my original graphic novels. I have found doing fanfic mangas to be an excellent to practice, develop and experiment with my manga-writing and drawing skills.
    I had done some drawings during my High School years, and my drawings were primarily of characters of old "NES" & SNES Nintendo games like Super Mario Bros, Megaman, and Final Fantasy characters. But I'm not really that interested in drawing (more interested in studying) until Sailor Moon happened to catch my interest by accident (1997, third year of college). So because of Sailor Moon, I got really interested in drawing, and it also encouraged my interest in storytelling, hence, my website, Realm of Sailor Energy. ^_^ Sailor Moon also introduced me to "The World of Anime" where I just began enjoying other Anime & mangas, and I already recently drew few fanarts of other Anime like Tenchi Muyo, Death Note, Naruto, SGT FROG, Fruit Baskets, FullMetal Alchemists, etc... ^_^ My fanfic mangas are an excellent demonstration of how my drawing skills have evolved over time, so if you want to see how my drawing skills have changed over time, just read my fanfic mangas. ^_^ My drawing skills evolved very quickly during the first two years of my website, but it slowed down a great deal after that time because of time constraints, but I have found doing fanfic mangas to be most efficient way of improving my drawing skills. Finally, I just started to learn to slow down and paying attention to the quality of my drawing skills, and have been working to hone it and develop my own style which I'm doing pretty well.

    Here are the examples of varying quality of my drawings (taken from Sailor Chibimoon: The Queen of Kappa, most recent fanfic manga I have done which can be found in the Manga Library section).

   This is the kind of simple but bit clumsy quality that is most common among any fanarts I did where I just draw anything simply and quickly for fun without being too picky (due to lack of time). I don't have a team of assistants to help with me with more advanced drawings like backgrounds as seen in Death Note or any high quality mangas so I have to do with what is available to me and by keeping everything simple and easy to draw, I am able to meet my drawing goals. I discovered that if I go easy on the drawing, I can finish 30 page chapter in one month which would take one more month if I go with higher quality (more detailing and backgrounds).

I sometimes go wtih the Chibized(Deformed) version and that is quite common in my artworks especially the bottom extra panels and many of "mini-mangas" since that style is very easy to draw quickly. Of course, they look cuter too with stronger displays of expressions.

<== Sometimes, when I have time or feel like it, I would pay bit more attention to the way I draw. When that happens, I slow down and as a result, more details are added. But even, I still tend to be bit clumsy with any drawings. ^_^; I also tend to be more dramatic with detailing during dramatic scenes.

   Now that is fairly high but rare high quality drawing I have done. I recently developed a new drawing method that I'm so happy with that I'm more motivated to do more high-quality drawings of my own characters. ^_^ You can see that my style tend to consist of a good mix both style of Anime and realism as a result of playing with my drawing style over time to find and develop something that "rings" well with me. The most obvious feature was the nose which is horizontal (and more 3D) instead of typical sharp "V" (on its side) outlining noses in many Anime series. The "V" shape didn't work quite right with me in my drawings, because sharp "V" nose on a frontal view of a face tend to make that nose look bent (or smashed) toward the side. I found to be a sucker for soft detailing. ^_^;

   I like to be silly(good for health!) so I have a habit of including anything silly especially those involving animals like the fish spitting the crumbled paper out after clomping on it.

Now, I have NO desire to be some "mimic/copycat" artist meaning that a drawer just copies someone else's drawing style (typical of basic animation artists copying the top animator's style). It is my recent belief that such copying reflects lack of creativity and originality. If Naoko T.'s can develop her own original drawing style, so can I too!. I still like to keep my drawings bit basic and more cartoony (simple details on clothing) so to avoid getting stuck wtih spending too much time on something that I wouldn't be able to finish stuff on time ALONE. Many mangas & comics were done by a main artist with a team of assistants and I would be expected to do my own mangas all by myself so I have to keep everything bit simpler.
It is my strong opinion that there is no such thing as "perfect" (hence this so-called perfectionism), because EVERY artists around the world are still learning, and improving as long as they're still drawing. Obsession with "perfectionism" was what killed Van Gogh artist. All we can do is do best as we can, and never stop improving. ^_^

I had had several people saying that my drawing style is not an Anime style. Well, I applied the concept of Anime to my drawing style, and in fact, the art of Anime & Manga is very flexible, meaning that it can come in a wide variety from "Chibized" to realistic proportions. There are plenty of realistic looking characters in the Anime such as Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Lone Wolf and the Cub, Alita the Battle Angel and go on. You can learn more about that by reading my Realism in the Art of Anime article.

Now, please enjoy my artworks especially the humor ones which I always enjoy doing and I do invite you to read my mangas too.
The comics are free after all! ^_~

	This is the kind of simple but bit clumsy quality that is most common among any fanarts I did where I just draw anything simply and quickly for fun without being too picky (due to lack of time). I don't have a team of assistants to help with me with more advanced drawings like backgrounds as seen in Death Note or any high quality mangas so I have to do with what is available to me and by keeping everything simple and easy to draw, I am able to meet my drawing goals. I discovered that if I go easy on the drawing, I can finish 30 page chapter in one month which would take one more month if I go with higher quality (more detailing and backgrounds).
	I sometimes go wtih the Chibized(Deformed) version and that is quite common in my artworks especially the bottom extra panels and many of "mini-mangas" since that style is very easy to draw quickly. Of course, they look cuter too with stronger displays of expressions.
	<== Sometimes, when I have time or feel like it, I would pay bit more attention to the way I draw. When that happens, I slow down and as a result, more details are added. But even, I still tend to be bit clumsy with any drawings. ^_^; I also tend to be more dramatic with detailing during dramatic scenes.
	Now that is fairly high but rare high quality drawing I have done. I recently developed a new drawing method that I'm so happy with that I'm more motivated to do more high-quality drawings of my own characters. ^_^ You can see that my style tend to consist of a good mix both style of Anime and realism as a result of playing with my drawing style over time to find and develop something that "rings" well with me. The most obvious feature was the nose which is horizontal (and more 3D) instead of typical sharp "V" (on its side) outlining noses in many Anime series. The "V" shape didn't work quite right with me in my drawings, because sharp "V" nose on a frontal view of a face tend to make that nose look bent (or smashed) toward the side. I found to be a sucker for soft detailing. ^_^;
	I like to be silly(good for health!) so I have a habit of including anything silly especially those involving animals like the fish spitting the crumbled paper out after clomping on it.