Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 2: Bonus Page

When I wrote this scene, Rory originally said “Just stop talking and come with me”

And I was really into Wicked the musical back then (well, still am now!) and the sentence naturally fell into this 🙂

Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 2: Page 20

Oh Rory, I love you.

I’ll be honest… I started this page sometime last year. I picked it up again this week. It had been so long since I’d worked on it, I’d kinda forgotten what I was doing.

So it’s been a long while since the last update but I’m back again. As I mentioned before, I had a really busy time last year. I was pushing myself to do more things than I’m used to.  And I’m really glad for it, I challenged myself more, pushed myself outside of my comfort zone and learned so many things about myself. I feel like I’ve really grown as a person because of last year.

But I also realised I was doing too much. And it really did exhaust me. The pre-2017 me enjoyed doing quieter activities, whether that be “do nothing” which is introvert-speak for “hang out in my imaginative mind” or creative things that help build our inner-worlds. After all, that was how DHG started.

So this year, I took a step back. I retreated back into my own world. This year is about working out where my balance is. There’s still a lot I want to learn about myself and I’m slowly getting there!

DHG has been taken off the shelf and is back on my desk. It is, after all, my “heart and soul” project which so many messages I want to share with everyone – so whilst it may move slowly, it’s back up and moving!

Meanwhile, in other news – I recently watched an anime series called Your Lie In April. I highly recommend it, it is both emotional and beautiful and struck a chord* right in my heart.

Hopefully update you again soon!

*Pun unintended but I’ll go with it – it is after all a series based around music 🙂

Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 2: Page 1

Chapter 2 begins. I’m mega excited!

I’m trying to adopt a simpler style, one that reflects the ‘manga’ style more and can hopefully cut down the time spent on pages!

Fun extra note: I have a document which stores all my ideas for DHG. It’s about 70+ pages now and I read back through it every so often. Every time I do, I find myself getting so excited for future pages! On one hand, it’s a little scary because I’m only on Chapter 2, but on the other hand, I can’t wait to start work on those future ideas!

Speaking of ideas, as mentioned previously, I’ve been working on various other projects which focus on my writing over art.  I’m currently working on a graphic novel / short comic series. It’s a little slow-going but I hold hope that I’ll get there. It includes ideas which I had wanted to put into DHG but decided were too serious and dark, compared to DHG’s more lighthearted approach. Originally, I wanted to illustrate it myself but considering the story’s more serious tone, I’m not sure I’ll be able to produce artwork to match it. So for now, I’m focusing on the writing.

In aid of this, this year I attended a graphic novel writing workshop led by Tony Lee and also paid a brief visit to Comics Uncovered, a comics conference offering classes and talks about the comics industry (covering both writing and art). Funnily enough, Tony taught a bite-sized version of his workshop at that conference.

The workshop was one of the best things I’ve ever attended. So informative and fun. I left feeling like maybe I could be a writer. ‘Maybe’ is enough for me to keep going. The conference, I unfortunately couldn’t stick around very long for (which was a shame because there was so much I wanted to go to!) but I did find it insightful and plan on attending next year’s! For both events, I absolutely loved the inspiration and buzz it gave me to keep working on this goal.

If you ever get a chance, I totally recommend attending one of these events 🙂

I also submitted a little something to 2000AD’s open submissions. Competition is fierce so I’m not holding out for anything but it was super fun working on the script. It was also quite a good learning exercise. A comic which tells an entire story in four pages? How?!… So I’m quite happy for the experience of just doing it. 🙂

 

Anyway, so that’s a little info on the other things I’ve been doing. Hopefully you’ll forgive me for DHG’s inconsistent updates! (I feel lucky that you’re even reading this!)

By the way, if anybody wants a fun manga to read, I recommend Nobo and Her? by Molico Ross. Very funny and cute. 🙂

Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 1: Page 55

It took three years to get to the end of Chapter 1… what?! :O

When I first started doing this, I wasn’t expecting for it to take so long. At times, it was a little frustrating. I wanted to churn out pages as quickly as possible – but it wasn’t happening. I felt really slow. I felt like I wasn’t doing enough. I wasn’t good enough.

But I’ve learned that sometimes things take time. Over these three years, I feel I’ve definitely improved my technique and style. And although still not as fast as I’d like, I am much faster at doing these pages than when I first started!

If you keep at it, little by little, you do get better and it’s really nice to look back at your progress. When I compare this page to my very very first one, I can see a huge difference!

After three years, I’m now less impatient with myself. I’ve learned to let things go their own pace. I’ve learned to be less serious (because this project is supposed to be fun, after all!). If I run out of time then I can pick it up tomorrow. Although I try to be efficient, sometimes everyday life can take away my attention!

The next update may not come for a little while. Since it’ll be a Chapter Title page, it’ll be in full colour – and for that, I’ll have to work on my colouring technique!

Thank you for sticking with me ♥ I’ll do my best to keep this story going.

P.S. Aspiring artists should not be afraid of using Google Images to find reference material for their drawings. It’s exactly what I did for the middle panel of today’s page, a great way to gather ideas and really helps you to learn how to eventually draw things without referencing!

Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 1: Page 54

Not that I really ‘dislike’ any of my pages (well, I try not to!) but I was probably the least pleased with this one. I thought it was kind of plain. As a result, I chose to colour it as quick as possible with less attention to detail than usual.

Ironically enough, I really like this page now. The last panel, which I thought was the plainest part of the whole thing, is actually now my favourite part. The faded brush of grey looks sort of cool

For this page, I’ve been listening to piano arrangements by Kyle Landry who I recently found on YouTube. He is beyond awesome.

• Howl’s Moving Castle Theme is my absolute favourite of his right now. I can’t even explain the feelings I had when listening to this. It’s a beautiful arrangement, I felt like I’d soared right into another world.
• Joe Hisaishi Medley – because Studio Ghibli again and he really plays it so well.
• 2 Hours of Crazy Piano Playing To Help Study and Relax – I’m still going through this one. It’s great in the background.

Thank you once again for reading. Much love to you all! ♥

Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 1: Page 49

Rory – master of the back chat.

When I first added the screentones into this page, I couldn’t help thinking it looked a little… too pale. Especially compared to previous pages. I was going for a more manga-influenced look which is generally simpler with not so strong colours (at least in the mangas I’ve read).

Dana’s hair has proven to be tricky. Her hair is light-coloured but without screentones, I thought it looked too ’empty’. So I added some light grey screentoning. In retrospect, I could have made her hair more detailed in terms of line art – that way, even without screentones, it wouldn’t look empty. I’ll keep that in mind for future pages.

I also need to work on backgrounds. But I’m conflicted between my writing and my drawing. On one hand, I really want to do more writing (not just DHG but other projects) which I said to myself, I will definitely do. On the other hand, I don’t want DHG’s artwork to slip… since this is the only project in which I do any art, I’ll attempt to keep it looking consistent. I can do at least that much…

This page was brought to you with the aid of Café Music BGM Channel on YouTube. I recently discovered them when searching for café / bossa nova / jazz music. My favourite is their Studio Ghibli cover in the style of bossa nova / jazz, but definitely check out their channel for many more playlists. Perfect music for studying, relaxing or pretending you’re in a coffee shop ♥

Final note: the next page is one of my favourites, I look forward to posting it soon! 🙂

Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 1: Page 48

Today’s page introduces Mother Ki or Dana “good luck living up to HER standards” Ki.

Her look is partially inspired by Momiji Sohma’s mother from Fruits Basket and Emily Gilmore (Lorelai Gilmore’s mother) from Gilmore Girls.

And finally, my new music obsession is BABYMETAL which I listened to whilst working on this page. They have a very unique sound. It’s one I didn’t think would work (but really does), is quite unusual (but that’s why I like it) and would be very suitable as an animé opening theme

Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 1: Page 47

So… fun fact about today’s page.

I’d just finished adding in screentones and dialogue. I took one last look at it just to make sure I was happy and noticed the last panel looked strange… Why is Rory stretching out his arm like that?

Went back to the original sketch and realised… whilst doing the line art, I’d managed to miss out the top half of Rory’s right arm.

So consequently I had to add in extra line art digitally. Fortunately, it was only a simple addition. Because I prefer drawing by hand, my digital drawing skills are unfortunately not the best!

I think I managed to pull it off though 🙂

Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 1: Page 46

I guess this page has a lot more dialogue than artwork. I wanted to keep the story moving!

Additionally, I always fall into the trap of drawing big and then not leaving enough space for dialogue. In the very top panel, I had to scale down the art because there was zero space available for any speech! Things like this make me appreciate how much thought comic artists and letterers put into their work – I applaud them!

Final note! The last couple of weeks I’ve been listening to The Chris Moyles Show podcasts while working on page art – the team are really funny, talking about next to nothing!

Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 1: Page 45

Introducing Father Ki!

This week, I finished lining the next batch of pages!

One thing I’ve noticed is I work much quicker (and perhaps better) when I take myself less seriously. I guess thinking “eh, this will get done. I’m quite enjoying this” is a much healthier mindset than “arghhh, hurry up, work faster, that’s rubbish, do it again, why is this taking me so long?” The first one is much less stressful. 🙂

Not sure why I hadn’t realised this earlier. A similar thing happened during first year of university. I was playing Guitar Hero with my flatmates. When I was thinking “I don’t want to be rubbish in front of everyone!” I missed half of the notes. When I let go of that thought and resigned myself to just having fun, I did a lot better.

Moral of the story: Just enjoy it. A little pressure can be good for you, yes, but too much can negatively affect your work and productivity (and probably well-being!)

And on that note, I’ve decided to work more on my writing over my drawing. In terms of DHG, nothing will change. Well, except I won’t talk myself down so much for not being as talented as Kouchi Kaede. There are just a lot of stories whizzing in my head which I’d love to get down on paper.

I’ll still be continuing DHG as normal. And I have plenty of ideas left for future chapters which I hope will be enjoyable and maybe a little inspiring!

By the way, I wrote a post which includes a little explanation behind DHG and why I call it my “heart and soul” project. In case you’re interested… 🙂

All that’s left to say is thank you so much for staying with me 🙂