How to Draw Manga, The JM Way...

Here's My Story of My Career As a Manga-Cartoonist So Far

I have some formal artistic academic training. Not a lot. I attended an art school temporarily, but I used the opportunity primarily to socialize and enjoy myself, not so much working and studying. I've received mentorship in classical animation and traditional fine art, and I've gotten some training by taking some still life and life drawing classes in painting and charcoal at the local Florida Community College, Valencia and the Crealde School of Art.

My first mentor I had hated anime with a passion. He would always say "it's all the same shit" and refer to it in derogatory terms. For as long as I've been pursuing manga and anime, I've had to pursue them independently from my formal education for the most part, on my own, and I've had to teach myself how to draw in that style, and train myself independently. Like almost any skill, the more you train and practice and make attempts to pursue it the better you get. I had a DeviantART account for a while, but I did not enjoy how the other users treated me there. I got some hostility, and some people on that site openly discouraged me from pursuing anime just like my old teacher did, only with different motives and reasons for doing so than in the previous incidents. There's good artwork online, but it's not good for emotional support, unless it's one on one email correspondence with friends.

I learned anime and taught myself how to draw in the manga style by studying my general comic book and manga collection, and copying from and emulating the artists I admired. I also pursued webcomics and self-publishing, perhaps permanently, perhaps temporarily. I'm still deciding.

In terms of drawing anime, Teachers discouraged it, my peers discouraged it, rivals in media discouraged it, the media discouraged me, mocked and ignored me, my friends and parents mostly discouraged it. And the market and the Japanese creative community definitely discouraged it and the pursuit of world comics-manga (You know "Back off, sucky and primitive foreigners! Manga is our thing (not yours)!"), with low sales and a lot of public otaku and fan backlash against the genre and medium of world manga in general. The media discouraged it. Some of them mocked and insulted me and my style. I've been through my share of criticism. But I choose to continue in my studies because on a personal level, I like it, and I only really listen to my conscience, and it tells me drawing manga is the right thing to do.

My choice to pursue work as a manga can has been an almost universally unpopular one. With many people attempting to uncharacteristically write me off as a "foolish American amateur wannabe". But popularity is not the reason you do something like this. And it's not like anyone's stopping me from working if I actually do choose to work. On the plus side, since everyone does write me off, it frees me up to pursue my own original vision and style, and do things my way, in my personal and mostly private style.

But enduring hardship in some ways just serves to make you work harder and be more diligent and self-made.