My Manga plus a story description and characters!

[vincestick]

Hi all, I am new to Rmxp.org. I am Vincestick  :tongue: and this is my manga. the title is "Han Tenma". It means "half demon" (used a translater, and all that came out for 'half' was 'han' and there were a few for the word 'demon' and I decided to use 'tenma' because using 'akuma' or 'oni' would make the title seem generic....well, more generic. Anyway, here is the Volume 1 cover, and the story and everything else is below it.

Spoiler

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg136/vincestick/HanTenmaVolume1Cover.png[/img]

Story (not many details explained):
Adam Hitomaru is a half human and a half fox demon (or "kitsune" for you mythology folk) that lives with his human mother and demon father in Midori Village, a small kitsune village in the eastern forest. His father, Rao Hitomaru, is the village chief. One day, a wolf demon named Mark Adolf, along with an army of wolf demons, attack Midori Village. He is looking for a treasure called Jigoku's Amulet, which increases a demons energy when worn. Mark visited a being who has the Second Sight, who told him that the amulet is held in a forest village in the east. During the raid, Adam's mother is killed when his home was burned to the ground. Rao attempts to stop Mark from continuing, but gets injured, revealing that he is wearing Jigoku's Amulet. Rao lends the amulet to Adam, telling him to run. He then uses the strength he has left to hold off Mark while Adam runs away as far as he can. Instead, Adam hides nearby, watching the fight. Mark finds out that Rao is one of the Great Demons. Mark changes his plans, knowing that he can use the demonic energy of the Great Demons for his intentions. Taking advantage of Rao's injuries, Mark captures him and takes him away. Mark needs to use the Great Demons for the Seance of Kurayami, a ritual which summons the evil Demi-God Kurayami. Adam, using Jigoku's Amulet to his advantage, travels in search of Mark to stop the ritual, to save his father and to avenge the death of his mother.

More events happen later on, creating more motivations and more questions answered, along with more details on the mysterious Jigoku's Amulet.

Characters:

Adam Hitomaru
Koetsu Mahoutsukai
Crosser Shoki
Mark Adolf
Rao Hitomaru
Ryuu of the Light and Dark
Iori Zatoichi
Qent Shoki
Noah
Syd
Kyo Kouken
Milo Orenji
Django Shima
Wrinn
Eddie
Tireseas
Truth

The following characters below are only listed by their aliases, their real names are not shown:
Aries
Pisces
Taurus
Virgo
Cancer
Gem
Ini
Leo
Sagittarius
Libra
Aquarius
Scorpio
Capricorn
_____________________

Well, that is all (emphasis on 'all'). What do you think?

 

[Anonymous]

Is 'qent' a real name? Like one you've seen before?

Because I think it should have a u after that q.

The names in general suck, you have western names mixed with japanese ones mixed with ones that look like you slapped the keyboard with your wang a few times. Either use just western, just eastern or just wangnames. Otherwise it's not consistent.

Unless that's supposed to reflect where the characters come from and make them stand out but I doubt that.

On the art, are those thick outlines on his clothes actually part of his clothes? If so they're either not consistent with his pose or they'll look crazy when he's stood normally.

 

[Ynlraey]

The names in general suck, you have western names mixed with japanese ones mixed with ones that look like you slapped the keyboard with your wang a few times. Either use just western, just eastern or just wangnames. Otherwise it's not consistent.

Unless that's supposed to reflect where the characters come from and make them stand out but I doubt that.

Basically this, I mean, Mark Okami ... <.<;
As for the drawing itself. the character's legs (or prolly the character itself) feels flat as if he has no meat. Title text feels weird to me. Red colors didn't appeal me at all

 

[SakuraPhoenix]

I know it seems to be a peeve of a lot of people, so it sometimes it is something to look in the reasons why eastern and western names mix. (In my extended family it is because we are mixed)
Some reasons why eastern and western names can be mixed is that
- the characters indeed are mixed and inheirted their father's name
- mother remarried a japanese/eastern man
- mother was eastern/japanese and they adopted her name.
- they were adopted by an eastern/japanese.
- Or it's one of those newer trends in which the parents had adopted the maiden name of the mother or did one of those mother-hypen-father names and the child shortened it, picking the less strange one or the favorited one.

However the trends of naming childern after other cultural names isn't new in eastern countries and I am sure some in japan even give their children names after their western counterparts, (i.e Hebrew names like Joshua, Yeshua, etc.; Muslim/African Names, like Mohamad, Kismet, etc; heck I've seen names after cars, like Mercedes, Toyota, Porscha; fruits like Apple,  etc.) you might want to just make sure you address it so that for those who are automatically turned away at the sight of such things are placated.

 

[vincestick]

The name "Qent" is pronounced like Superman's alter ego's last name, "Kent".
You shouldn't say the names suck just because they mix western with eastern names...It's not strange for someone to have both a western and eastern name for a few reasons, which SakuraPhoenix explained above.
And wangnames? not sure what you mean but I think your not familiar with japanese words, if you meant:
Mahoutsukai= Japanese word for "Wizard", or maybe
Tireseas= Named after "Tiresias", blind prophet from the Odyssey, only spelled differently.
...and yes, I do realize that a name like "Mark Okami" is a bit on the suckish side, not to mention boring, and since he is a wolf demon I'd add that it is cliche...maybe I'll change his last name to Adolf, which is the modern form of the german word Adalwolf, which means "noble wolf", which would create irony because he is evil and does the exact opposite of "noble" deeds.
and the thick outlines are part of his clothes, almost like a "kill bill" outfit knockoff.
I'm not really understanding two things Ynlraey...by no meat do you mean it would look better if the legs (or the rest) had creases to make it look more 3-dimensional, if so then I can do that.
And do you find the text unappealing or the color? you really didn't make that clear...do you hate red or something?

 

[Anonymous]

There's perfectly normal reasons for people mixing western and eastern names in real life but in fiction details like that can fuck up your setting really bad if they're not adressed in the story. I'm assuming your setting is somewhere in a fictional Japan because of the names and the fact you're using kitsunes. In this case any non-Japanese name should be adressed by the story or (despite being perfectly plausiable in real life) it will make your seetting less believeable.

Because it's out of place people expect it to be a story element. If a gun is introduced then the audience will be disappointed if it never fires or is not referred to when a gun might be of use. It's the same with any detail that can catch the audience's attention. If a name that sticks out is not a part of your story (and it doesn't even have to be a vital part, you could just have him looked down upon/picked on by a few other people because of the name) then it's a gun that isn't getting fired. Your audience will wonder why you put it there in the first place and at best they'll assume that you originally planned for it to be relevant and forgot about it and doubt your ability as a writer. At worst they'll assume that you don't know anything about Japan, you didn't do the necisarry research and you have no respect for your own setting (and they sure as hell won't care about your story if they think you don't).

Fiction doesn't LIKE things that don't match up unless they're doing it for effect. In TV shows if someone has a name that doesn't match with the others they're usually of a different race than the other characters, from somewhere else than the other characters or they have oddball parents who think the name is cool.

If you have ten people wearing cowboy hats and one wearing a baseball cap it's perfectly plausiable in real life. Fiction would need this to be relevant somehow. Even if it was just used for a running joke. Names work in much the same way.

'Qent' was what I was calling a wangname. It's a name obviously produced by slapping your wang on the keyboard since any thought would allow you to realize it doesn't work in english. I don't care if it pronounceable in chinese or japanese or klingon or whatever language you're using now, it can't be pronounced in english because the Q doesn't have a u after it.

Also it's not going to be ironic if someone called 'Adolf' does bad deeds, it just seems like a distasteful Hitler joke.

I'm going to move this to writing in 24 hours because you've not posted enough art to comment on, it's just a tiny picture of a guy with a lot of blank space. Add more art if you want it to stay here.

 

[vincestick]

I've only found a small percentage of useful points in your statements...
So, what your saying is that fiction can't be like real life? fiction HAS to have a reason for everything, and to have every little thing that shows up or occurs explained, even death?
wangname..thats awfully mature of you to put it.
Let me show you how screwed up the english language is, and how words CAN and ARE used in weird ways:
"Ghoti" is pronounced "Fish" and here is why:
GH= as in "rough"
O= as in "women"
Ti= as in "nation"
based on that, the english language is what you'd probably call "wanglanguage" with it's weird usage of letters, so you have no right to say that something like 'Qent' can't be pronounced in english, wether it does or doesn't have a 'u' after the 'Q'.

And lastly, the Adolf comment...if you actually READ that statement then you'd see that the name Adolf is a modern name that comes from the german word 'Adolwolf', which means "noble wolf". Mark is a wolf demon, and also the antagonist...he does bad things, the opposite of 'noble', and having his last name to Adolf, which would mean 'noble wolf' would create irony. Honestly, you know how many regular people are named Adolf in the world? Is Hitler the only person that comes to mind when you hear that name?

 

[coyotecraft]

Is Ini, one of the characters listed with the zodiac names, a stand in for Ophiuchus/Serpentarius? The lesser known 13th zodiac between Scorpio and Sagittarius.
edit: Never mind, I got it! Gem and Ini are probably twins that make the zodiac Gemini... I can't read but I can count!

I was going to ask were you learned phonics. I was going to correct you and explain the "gh" rule of phonics when I found "Ghoti" on wikipedia. Ghoti is a respelling of fish using irregularities in spelling. But technically it's misinterpreted since the "F" sound comes from the letter blend "ough". For people who don't get it read about it here
Got to admit you stumped me on that one.

I don't mind weird name spellings as long as I can tell what the name is and how to pronounce it.  In grade school, nobody knew how to correctly pronounce "Hermonie" (of the harry potter books) until one of the teachers found a pronunciation guide. 

The only thing I would be picky about is spelling a non-English word with an English spelling. For people who don't know other languages.
You know like Pico de gallo.  "ll" in Spanish is "y" sound. But a person who doesn't know any Spanish wouldn't know that would they? So they would pronounce it wrong and look stupid in a Mexican restaurant.

 

[vincestick]

Oh wow, I never new about the lesser known 13th zodiac....and you are correct, Gem and Ini are twins that make up the zodiac 'Gemini', but of course they are only aliases.

...for the second thing..gotta love wikipedia...but I must tell you that i didn't learn it from there =)

It's nice to see some people don't care how a name is spelled as long as it's pronouncable..erm, about that....the zodiac characters aliases are only shown, their real names are told throughout the story, which has a mix with German, Latin, Greek, and fantasy names. In the character profiles in the volumes I will include parenthesis that will show you how to pronounce the name, much like in a dictionary. But if your someone who is a stickler for names that just HAVE to be spelled correctly or have meaning every single time, then you are better off reading a dictionary instead of most books and comics.

 

[coyotecraft]

Enough about the story. I want to see more of the art. I can't tell that much by the cover. Can you tell us about your process. Are you drawing this on paper and coloring it digitally? Or is it all digital? Will the pages be in black and white?
Some character art would be nice.

In highschool I helped draw a 14pg manga as an art assignment. It was really lame, and I'm really embarrassed by it. I wasn't very good with computers then. I don't even know what version of photoshop we used. But I remember it was slow and painful. Everything came out horrible in the end.

I think the biggest mistake we made was we drew out everything first. But we didn't take into account how big the text bubbles would be and how much text we were going to use.

 

[vincestick]

One thing I've learned that its better to do the text first, then the text bubble.

I've currently only done the cover, Issue 1 cover, page 1 and 2 are sketched out (and colored)....The final work will be on White paper, hand-drawn and colored using Fireworks (so yes I will be drawing on paper and coloring digitally).

And more art is below me, I have the characters plus a few other pictures of the characters.

Here is the original sketch for the cover art

Spoiler

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg136/vincestick/CCF07202008_00000.jpg[/img]

Here is the character sheet #1

Spoiler

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg136/vincestick/HanTenma-Char1.jpg[/img]

And Character cheet #2

Spoiler

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg136/vincestick/HanTenma-Char2.jpg[/img]

Here is a drawing of the character Truth

Spoiler

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg136/vincestick/HanTenma-Truth.jpg[/img]

A picture of Adam

Spoiler

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg136/vincestick/HanTenma-Adam1.jpg[/img]

Those are all i can upload that are within reach right now.

 

[Anonymous]

The reason real life and fiction can't always overlap is that fiction has an author and an audience. People accept things in real life because it's in real life, people accept things in fiction because of suspension of disbelief. Inconsistencies strain suspension of disbelief which you don't want to do, it's one of the most important things you have.

But I've tried. If it's so important to you to fail as a writer then I won't get in your way anymore. Well done for copypasteing the ghoti thing, you're so clever for figuring out how to press ctrl-v! ^_^!!!

Besides, since you want this to stay in the art section it's really your art that needs commenting on so I'll leave the names and the story.

Your sketch for the cover is far better looking than the final one. It has folds and a lot more detail. I don't get this.

All your characters are incredibly pale. Skin isn't white, not even white skin. You shouldn't neglect colouring the skin because it makes it look like there's no effort put in.

Who are the character sheets drawn for, yourself or the audience? If they're for your audience, just to give people a look at the characters, then they're fine. If they're for your own use (and I strongly suggest making some for yur own use, they help with keeping details consistent from panel to panel) then they really need to show the full body, possibly from back and side as well.

All the characters are visually distinct from each other, that's a very good thing. A lot of people make characters in 'thier manga' who are all very similar-looking. It's a very good thing to be able to draw more than one face and you can.

Your colouring is horrible, though. On the pencil ones it looks like the pencils you're using are a little shabby so that's probably not your fault but one the digitally coloured one at the top you're not managing to colour to the line and that's just a lack of effort. Your cover is a first impression on the reader, the last place you'd want a lack of effort to be apparent. If you find digital colouring difficult after a few more tries I suggest you get some better coloured pencils and use those, there's some real skill there, especially the details in the 'Truth' drawing, that's just not shining through because of the quality of pencils and the fact that it looks like you're rushing a bit.

 

[Despain]

"Ghoti" is pronounced "Fish" and here is why:
GH= as in "rough"
O= as in "women"
Ti= as in "nation"

xD LOL!!! never heard that b4!!

neway japan (or was we call it nippon) rules!!! dont let the mod`s keep you down

 

[vincestick]

I won't.

And how can you be sure there are inconsistencies in my manga if I've only put up the story synopsis? Maybe everything is linked and/or has a reason to it. Plus, I've seen a lot of other famous manga and animes that have mixed western with eastern without giving any sort of reason to it. You can't say I fail as a writer if you've only read the story synopsis.

And no, i did not copy and paste the 'ghoti' thing, it's something you learn from your teacher one day when the whole class is bored.

I'm just gonna leave it at that, now for the art:

I have now looked and compared my sketch with the final, and the sketch IS a lot better.....maybe I can import the sketch into the title and fix up the coloring...and that would be a final-final cover

I know my characters look pale..really pale. I don't have any skin colored (or 'peach') pencils right now, so i have to carefully lightly color the skin with a pink one. I do admit though, Mark, Scorpio and Sagittarius' skin is light brown....I'll fix that soon.

That character sheet is for the audience, just to give them a look as you've said. I have my own character sheets, front to back, left to right views, but I've only done a few of them, I'm starting to finish up the rest. I've decided not to color them.

And thank you, to be honest, it was very hard for me to make 30 different faces, plus i still have the filler characters to make and the add-ons in the background, like in markets or in other crowded places.

Yes, my coloring is terrible. The pencils were about 4 years old and I did rush through them. I just colored them to give the audience a look on what colors they wore, and the color of their hair and eyes. I've just begun digital coloring and now I'm looking at the cover I'm thinking "I'm not gonna use this as my final." I mean, the shadow has a thick, black outline that's clearly visible. I'm gonna make another cover, with the sketch imported into it, and show that to see if it's any better.

 

[miss matcha]

Hi there, I wanted to start off by saying that I like the expressions in your character sketches.  It seems as though it would have taken a lot of time to draw so many portraits.  I wish you luck with finishing your project.  I would like to take a second though to make a comment about the whole Japanese-names thing.  I actually have a Japanese last name and English first name (Japanese Dad, European Mom), and I do speak the language fluently, so pardon me for saying this, but the names and title feel very awkward to me.

I'll start with "Han Tenma": this sounds especially strange because grammatically and colloquially, no one would ever say that.  To better help you understand this, try using an English thesaurus to come up with synonyms for "half" and synonyms for "demon"... find ones you wouldn't consider common (since that's what you were trying to do in avoiding words like "akuma"), put them together, and that's what "Han Tenma" is like.  I just did this and I came up with "bifid energumen."  Now as English speakers, we both know how weird that is   That's basically what translators are doing... they're giving you all the different definitions and synonyms for a particular word, but you aren't going to understand whether or not those words are ever used, less you speak the language.  Remember this when you go to find random Japanese words.     

Also remember that Japanese shows, books, manga, etc. can utilize such things because the authors are Japanese, and they understand subtle nuances about names, places, folklore, etc. that you won't get from typing a word into a translator or taking an introductory language class.   

I notice the same thing when I go to Asian countries though... You are right that many of the people there are very fascinated with the Western world and do exactly the same thing that you are doing; from bizzare Anglo-names that are spoken with heavy accents and cultural interpretations, to just plain weird English all over the place.  Basically, wherever you find it, it's going to feel silly to someone who actually speaks the language and understands the culture.  I think it's fine to use names because you like them, but just keep in mind that it is a tad strange to a native speaker.

If you want to stick with a Japanese title though, the word "haafu" is common slang for people of mixed decent.  Hope this was helpful

 

 

[vincestick]

Aw..well, it's kinda too late for me to change the title now.....I guess if people don't want to say it they can say 'HT' instead for short....
I actually laughed at the thought of calling it 'Haafu' cause it reminds me of a sound you make when you sneeze XD

erm..anyway...

I have redone the Volume 1 cover. I imported my volume 1 sketch in with the lettering and tried to neaten up the color a bit. I admit it's no masterpiece but how does it compare to the other one?

This is my first Volume 1 cover

Spoiler

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg136/vincestick/HanTenmaVolume1Cover.png[/img]

And this is my second Volume 1 cover

Spoiler

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg136/vincestick/HTVolume1CoverFinal.png[/img]

 

[miss matcha]

Aw..well, it's kinda too late for me to change the title now.....I guess if people don't want to say it they can say 'HT' instead for short....

Hehe, well as long as you don't mind knowing that Han Tenma's Japanese definition doesn't mean what you intend it to mean

 

[vincestick]

Aw..well, it's kinda too late for me to change the title now.....I guess if people don't want to say it they can say 'HT' instead for short....

Hehe, well as long as you don't mind knowing that Han Tenma's Japanese definition doesn't mean what you intend it to mean

maybe I can make the title mean something prophetic to the story. The title change may be too late but I can squueze in more details that explains what the title means in the story, like make it translate to something in a made-up language.....that might work....

Hey,,,,wait a minute....this is the art section, what am i talking about the story for..?
I mean, don't get me wrong, some things that people have said here for the story and what not were actually quite useful......and now i thinks we shouldn't discuss the writing portion here.....although I did start it by posting it in the first place....So, as a response to my last post, regarding the covers..which of the two looks better?

 

[moog]

They both look really odd and unproffessional, but the second one looks more defined than the first. Whats up with his leg in the first one?

 

[Ynlraey]

For some odd reason Truth reminds me a lot of a person from Fate/Stay Night.

I don't find anything wrong with red, just don't like how it contrast with the BG.
And I agree with Wumpi.