Escape Room

Hello

Today I just found out this new game in Viet Nam called 'Escape Room '. I didn't know what it was so I asked people there and they told me it's a mind game - ( I was already thrilled at this point ) and you entered a room, they locked you in, and you have to find all the clues and code to get out. I have to do everything to play it because I thought it was a very good experience for me and it would inspire my graphic novel so much. Since my graphic novel has the same kind of ideas. where all the students go into a maze and the teacher locked them in. The only way to get out is they have to solve all the codes to find another way to escape. Since I was stuck with my ideas and writings about the code and what should come next in the maze, I thought this experience would help my story block - and it did. The gallery room has inspired me to draw the idea in chapter two, where the group of student go inside the tunnel and they entered a completely blank room with no other way, except a painting with a note underneath it.It was essentially what we were in the Escape Room, and I think it's great how I can interpret that idea to my graphic novel. Another thing I really like about this is that is another type of sources, rather than reading off a book or the internet about mystery or solving crimes, you experience yourself and it's easier to translate to the characters because you interact with the information itself, and you use all 5 of your senses in a 3 dimensional room.

Inspirational Manga

Popular and mainstream mangas nowadays have a tendency of going to the same direction, which is an innocent hero who's always optimistic in life saving the world from troubles
                       
( One Piece )                                                    ( Naruto )
( a boy wanted to be pirate king )                   ( the story of a boy who wanted to be a Hokage )
However I want to go with a different approach with mine: unique and irony 
This is what people thinks manga art is like:
 ( I hope this shows that manga actually has alot of variation of drawing and styles )

It's true, they are mostly like that however I have been reading alot of mangas and for my preferences, I wanted to go with these manga art style more



Oyasumi Pun Pun                        Tokyo Ghoul or                      Full Metal Alchemist
( psychology )                                          ( shounen )                       ( shounen )
What I'm intending to do with my project piece is that my artwork will look very dark and gloomy, yet the story is actually light heart and very optimistic. I took the same approach as Fullmetal Alchemist, this is one of the best manga ever in my opinion and people in decades have agreed. Whereas it took the most serious and underlook issues ever that made into something so simple yet so srong and positive. I also admire the way it has the most diverse range of characters with religions, ethnicity, respecting both male and female, and the two main characters are actually the two most imperfect human beings not as glamorizing some sort of heroes in other comic book.

Interview with tvm

Interview with TVM Publisher:


November 2nd 2014 

[ I have arranged an interview with the design, manager and pr marketing department of TVM comics the day before, asking if I could ask them questions related to graphic novels. They were happy and book me at 4 the day after]

Me: Hello I'm Kieu Minh Anh. I'm here because my school has a project that related to comic book, and I was very thankful that you guys can help me with that. Firstly can I ask you what type of comic book do you guys usually publish, and what genre do you guys tend to go for.
Interviewee : You can see we sell mostly manga, however we have other type of comic book and books too. We usually tend to go for Shounen manga ( boy genre, this includes action, detective, mystery, ... ) rather than Shoujo manga ( girl genre, romance, comics that revolves alot of heavy emotions ). We think this is because with Shounen manga, both boys and girls can read and enjoy it, but with Shoujo, boys usually dont want to read these love and deep romantic stories. However, we still publish both shoujo and shounen, and we always want to make the same balance out of it.
Me: Can you tell me specifically the process of publishing a particular comic book? What are the steps to get there.
Interviewee: Firstly we would see what's trending, and we will decide what graphic novel we would want to publish that we think it will sell out here or the customers will enjoy and buy ( because Vietnamese audiences are different than Japanese audiences ). We would also depends on the statistics of what sell out before and make a comparison. Then we would have to buy the copyrights of it from the company that publish it ( for example Full Metal Alchemist from Square Enix ), we will corporate with that company and they will send us the materials for us to translate in Vietnam and then we will print off the comic.
is the process and how is it done when you publish a particular comic book
Me: How do you guys translate and print off the comic?
Interviewee: Oh we have another department to do that, they usually do it on Adobe Photoshop. For printing the comic we send it to a printer shop to do it, we will choose the papers though. We use very high quality paper for our comics such as Australia paper or Dutch paper, for the edge of the book we glue it with milk glue. To make the pages connect well to each other, we need a clear order of the pages, and then we will arrange it as first page with last, second page with the second last page and so on..
Me: Have you ever considered printing Vietnamese comic books since all of the books you have published so far are mostly Japanese and foreign comics?
Interviewee: Yes we have been recently we think it's a good thing to discover new talents and bring Vietnamese comic to surface. We think it's an amazing thing to encouraging more graphic novel artist in Vietnam and support our own country.
Me: If you ever do would you reach out to the artist first or the artist have to to come to you guys
Interviewee: We would reach to them first, since we have never been published any Vietnamese comic before so they wouldnt know how to reach to us anyway.

My content page 



Isn't this nice? I hope it is because it's my content page ayy ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ. So this idea just popped up in my head this morning when I woke up, and picked up one of the old comic book ( FullMetal Alchemist ). I flipped the pages, and somehow I noticed that when you read a comic book, always, alwayys, after the cover page there's always a content page. I have always known that IT was there but I have never, fully noticed it. I think it's a very simple but effective idea, I could make an extra page without any real effort ( I basically made this content page 30 minutes on my way to school this morning haha ). I also think
that it would make my graphic novel looks more professional and like an actual graphic novel. I think it would
benefit the reader as well, I really like the idea what I've done it seems like I've killed 3 birds with one stone AHAH.

the comic that I read this morning and the cover page that inspired me

so as you can see I have 50 pages ready for my comic ready woo hoo i think that I mentioned this before, oh and I spent the entire evening yesterday working on my cover, unfortunately the electricity went off suddenly. So what I did was moving all all of my stuffs to my apartment hallway ( where they still have lights ) to do my cover AHAHA. I dont know if Im pleased with it or not Im only like 1/10th complete, I need to finish at least half  of it today. Rather than use markers or photoshop fo rmy cover ( not like I dont like it or anything, I just, dont know how to use it well ) instead I used paints, acrylic paints. It's weird I know I have never seen a comic cover used acrylic paints on it, but wouldnt it be cool if I was the first one. Like creativity? AHAHHAHA anyway I wanted to make the acrylic painting looks like an oil painting and looks very dramatic and artistic. I dont know how it looks yet because this is first time Im combining manga style with wester style mhmmm 


Here's my process right now, you cant really see anythng because I didnt do anything much, it's really complicated and I have to work with alot of different details smh 

12th January 2015

Also I just met Sam today, he's a senior in my grade who did personal project like us last year. It was really fun and helpful meeting him, especially knowing that he also produce a graphic novel the same as me for his pp last year. He gave me alot of useful tips, here are examples of some that I asked him to send me through email in case I need future references:





I was really just, tensed and nervous when he talked about the process he had to do throughout his personal project, and it was a huge amount.. If you ever came up to me and ask if Im going to be able to finish  my comic on time, even if I said yes, there are still some voices back in my head keep reminding me that I wont. It feels like an impossible mission right now, I really want it to be great, I want myself to produce something that I am proud of from the plot to the drawing. I have enough pages on my hand already, but the problems are
               - it's too messy I have to fix alot of things
               - I need the plot to flow
Right now, I dont think it is, what I supposed to do is a one-shot, instead I made the actual comic with actual volumes and chapters. Since I thought to myself, I am not even great at writing story, so I can simply produce any reasonale plot or ending, I will just make up as I go. It seems very irritating to me now as everything is just too messy, I jump from a horror scene right away to a detective scene to a fighting scene AHAHHAHA. It makes sense in my head, but isnt it too much for the reading, shouldnt I just keep to a point and stop jumping to everything I like. I think the thing is, I am very selfish at a point I want to do everything. And a basic human being isnt capable of being great at everything, I should have just focused on one thing rather than everything. Now what I need to focus is getting chapter 2 finished and then I will make final version for everything it should flow perfectly.
I am doing a robot fighting, I should try to finish that quickly as possible and get back to the real plot which everything makes sense. I have 50 pages of comics and 15 pages of thank you, menu, blah blah blah
I think that I have all these cool ideas but I myself dont know how to execute it well. But then again, when I think about the idea, I think about how a professional would make it, then totally forgot I am an amateur and lacking so much necessary skills

7th January 2015

This is starting to sounds like a diary, but not a happy cheery one where the sixteen years old lies in bed thinks about her prom date with her pink feather pencil, this is more like a middle age gloomy person who mostly complains in their diary. And that's me, right now, in this process journal.

Anyways, it's like midnight already but you can say procastination hits me hard. I have begun to make the final version of my comic book, taking the advice under account of my friend, Manh. Though, truthfully that is just part of the reason why, really I just found the papers I wanted all along this morning. It's a special type of paper that made especially for manga, here look:


I couldn't believe it I found it, it has been 2 years since I first bought it. It has just been lying around in the corner of my apartment for such a long time. I love it so much I'm telling you, it feels like drawing on baby's skins really (( aahah oops that's not a very appropriate metaphor :P )).
I meant like just look at the lines, scales and everything just falls neatly together:

[ CLOSE UP ]

this is how it supposed to look like when you buy it, it calls a '' MANGA PAPER '' 

note: they are usually thick and the most common brands are: Deleter, IC and Maxon
read more in here: http://www.jamieism.com/1883/prince-of-tennis/become-mangaka-part-2-learn-tools
you can take this picture and print it out your own if you like, I suggest use A4 thick and hard paper.



this is how you supposed to use and draw in a manga paper ( meaning I have been drawing it wrong the whole time AHAHHA, I just did the researching right now )
here the links of the two pictures above if anyone needs any references ( if somebody read this besides me and my teachers.. ). It would come useful someday
1st link: http://www.mangaarts.com.au/how_to_use_manga_manuscript_paper.htm
2nd link: http://saintcosevent.deviantart.com/art/Manga-Paper-Sample01-302703035

I take my words back, maybe researching these kind of stuffs would be useful in someway
This is my first proper piece of blogging, at least this is the first one to have pictures and sources, so please read it guys AHAHA.

6th January 2014

Less than 20 days til personal project is due, needless to say Im panicking, internally. I didnt update yesterday but I've planned and done rough draft of the next 4 pages, today I tried to shade and finished all the panels ( which I tried to finish all the details and cleared all the unecessarities ). Obviously I didnt finish it but this is my progree so far:




I think I'm going quite okay so far, I have done the first puzzle in the maze, it was a poem with hidden code sequence in it. It wasnt that hard to think of the poem or the hidden code, I thought if it's the first puzzle in the maze, it shouldnt be too hard, you know, leveling up steps by steps ahahah. The other reason is Im not very familiar with all of these dectective and mystery stuffs anyway, I meant I do read and watch alot of solving crimes but when you start thinking about, and creating it, it's so much more difficult. You have to build a whole situtation, it has to be logical and there must be reasons back up for it in every direction, and msot of all it has to be both unexpected yet expected at the same time. You dont want something too boring, the readers are more clever than you think they are. At least, these are what I thought of, after reading the 30 rules yesterday. I am doing more research today, just this morning I have to read Sherlock Holmes' The Case in Reigate. At least I thought if I read some detective stories, it would inspire me better and give me more ideas. Well it kind of did, I only gist reading it because there're alot of works under my head right now, it didnt really help at all with my story right now but I hope it would at some point in my comic. Im doing research in detective novels and their author like sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. Just the research part alone stresses me alot. However, I am a type of person like to know things, I dont like to learn things, well I do in some way but what I meant is I like exploring things, informations, universe, the world, all of these fascinated me alot. I just dont like the ideas of studying, because somehow it puts pressures on you, because studying lately has the same meaning as scores and marks. Scores and marks are just numbers, determining your worth which I found ridiculous. I've never fond of myself strangling to those ideas and concepts of having a good scores, finding a good universities and have a stable job. Most likely because in 30 years, will anyone actually care?
I have rambling way too much and out of topic right now, I guess coming back to the point, comic is not easy, I knew that that's why I chose it. But I myself would like if I said I didnt enjoy it.

Now drawing may seem to be an easy part, but it's not really, it helps a little that I have been drawing manga style for the past 10 years but when it comes to draw a comic, each panel you have to draw:
      - background scenery ( I tried to make everything as details as possible, and shades every little part )
      - characters' design ( I have to remember every little details of each characters to distinguish them from the other, but I'm too lazy mostly so I just shade the background characters grey from the main characters haha )
       - characters' movement ( they are not just stand up dolls anymore, they have to move, their heads, legs, or body in general to fit with the story line, usually I made my friends stand up and do all these things for me then I just draw it again in manga style hahaha )

But the hardest part for me is the writing, because the key concept here is how to make it's interesting and captivating to the reader yet it's reasonable. I really dont want it to be just a mere entertainment or fan service ( you know what I mean ), something mainstream that everybody already see. Im not necessarily aiming for a '' genius piece of work '', just something that I'm proud of, and I'm fine with that. I talked too much, didnt I, I guess I should stop here and continue my works hehe!