Manga Artists :: Part 4: Kataoka & Kondo

I'll be the first to admit that a lot of the digital art out there is just plain bad. My design background trained me to be more visually observant, and as a result I have a low pain threshold for mediocrity compared to the average person. This "gift" is a double-edged sword; I am a better connoisseur of good design to be sure, but now I am more hypersensitive to just how much bad design is really out there. (Case in point; I lack the courage to see "Hoodwinked" because just the commercials make my eyes want to bleed. I hope this crudeness of CGI will just be a phase, but I doubt it.)

The inevitability of bad design is true for all mediums (logos, packaging, movies, etc.), and unfortunately manga and comics are no exception. So when I see a manga artist who can successfully use the computer to create a true work of art, I inwardly jump for joy. And trust me, all those who make me feel that way will be celebrated here.

Today's post focuses on Kazuma Kondo and Jinsei Kataoka, who are the artists for "Eureka Seven." I first heard about them in last month's Newtype; I don't know what the story is about but just the strength of their art makes me want to read it. Here's the article, which discusses how they joined up to make the manga and their artistic process. I'd suggest buying the mag from Newtype's site just for the article and illustrations (I'd better follow my own advice too, since I borrowed the mag from a friend and don't own it yet myself. Thank goodness for back orders!) Anyway, enjoy.

:: From Newtype USA, Jan 2006 Volume 5 Number 1, pgs. 156-157; News & Newtype: How to Art ::

Kazuma Kondo & Jinsei Kataoka: Two Heads are Better Than One (pg. 157)

Eureka Seven turned out to be one of the biggest anime hits of 2005, and the manga version appearing in Kadokawa Shoten's "Shonen Ace" magazine is quickly garnering attention from fans. This month's illustration (the inside cover image for the November 2005 issue of the magazine) is an excellent example of the fantastic collaborative work of Jinsei Kataoka and Kazuma Kondo, the artist duo responsible for creating the manga version of the story. Before we get started, though, let's hear more about how this talented twosome landed the project.

"My issue was that robots show up in the Eureka Seven story, but I can't draw robots!" Kataoka confesses. "we needed someone who could, and Kondo's name came up." The two agreed on a division of labor, where Kataoka would draw al the human characters and Kano would draw all the mecha. Both were initially very enthusiastic about the project after seeing some early sketches and story material, but things quickly grew more difficult than they expected. "We had to finish the first installment of the manga before the first episode of the manga went on the air, so I didn't have a chance to see any of the characters in action," says Kataoka. "That led to a lot of unanswered questions. I papered the wall in front of my desk with the character guidelines I'd received so far, and constantly referred to them as I worked on the manga. It was still really hard to get a feel for it, though. That first installment was a killer!"

Kataoka goes on to discuss some of the specific challenges she faced: "The character designer is Kenichi Yoshida, and his drawings are very flexible and expressive. Usually I can practice tracing a character for a while and get to where I can draw it fairly easily, but these characters were different. There aren't any hard-and-fast-rules with Yoshida's characters; you just have to capture the mood. I found them quite difficult to replicate, and I felt like I learned something new about them every time I looked at the reference drawings."

Kondo had a few problems of his own when it came to representing the mechanical objects in the show. "This project made me realize for the first time that I actually could draw robots," he laughs. "The first time I saw an LFO (the humanoid mecha from the show), I was really worried I might not be able to do it. These things ride along on Ref boards and move around all over the place, which meant having to draw them from angles not shown in the reference drawings. In other words, I'd have to come up with some kind of representation for the parts I couldn't see. I have plastic models now, but at first I was just guessing blindly."

Adapting an anime into manga isn't as straightforward as it sounds. Although the pair receives advance copies of the anime script and storyboards, blithely aping the originals isn't the way to go about it. "The anime airs weekly, but the manga only comes out once a month," Kataoka explains. "That's why we have to consider the best way to reproduce the story in manga format. We can't really follow the anime completely, and besides, people read at their own pace, so we have o think about differences in scene presentation. I hope fans will keep that in mind as they read this, and think of it as another form of the story, to enjoy on its own terms."

Two volumes of the manga have already been released in Japan, and according to Kataoka and Kondo, Volume 2 is even more stunning than the first. (The story heats up considerably following the arrival of Anemone!) both Kataoka and Kondo are passionate about this project, and we look forward to seeing more from them.


Bios: Kazuma Kondo (right) was born in 1978. He began his manga career at age 19 and published one of his stories in the Sept. 2001 issue of Kadokawa Shoten's "Shonen Ace" magazine. Jinsei Kataoka was born in 1979. She submitted her first manga effort at nine years old and won her first award by 13. One of her manga stories appeared in the February 2004 issue of Shonen Ace.

Captions:
This version of Eureka appears on the standard-edition cover of Eureka Seven volume 1. In this illustration (which first appeared in the Feb. 2005 issue of Shonen Ace), Renton's energetic pose conjures up images of the amazing story to come. This image of Anemone is the focal point of the Eureka Seven Volume 2 manga cover. This illustration was created for the August 2005 issue of Shonen Ace. The odd pairing of a vast exploding background with Eureka's intense fixed stare is eerily effective. The featured illustration for this month was the inside cover image for the Nov. 2005 issue of Shonen Ace. The unusual viewing angle has a stunning impact.


Step by Step (pg. 156)

1. Make Sketches
The layout is chosen from four candidates, and a rough pencil sketch is created on ordinary copy paper. Kataoka draws the character and assembles the layout. While Kondo handles the mecha and the tattoo-like butterfly overlay.

2. Clean Up and Scan
The initial sketches are kept small to facilitate layout balancing. They're scanned and printed at a larger size, then inked and re-scanned. Scans are done at 600 dpi, but the image's resolution is then reduced to 400 dpi for easier manipulation.

3. Combine Scanned Images
Objects are drawn separately and later combined into a single layout in Photoshop. Note how the character and mecha lines are mixed together; this must be fixed before painting. Once the boundaries are clean, the two layers are merged.

4. Save Selections
Before detailed painting starts, quick fills are used to distinguish separate areas of the image. These are selected and saved as channels, so each can be colored separately without affecting the others. The butterfly layer is hidden for mow.

5. Color by layers
Kataoka does a rough coloring, which Kondo touches up by stacking several lightly colored layers together in multiply mode. This eye alone requires five separate layers to finish.

6. Flatten the image
For this project, the character was painted separately from the rest of the drawing. Once complete, the fully colored character was dropped on top of the placeholder. This is the first time Kataoka and Kondo have done it that way.

7. Add Filters
Since the robot functions as the background, it was lightened using a white filter in order to make Anemone stand out more. By progressively reducing the intensity of the mecha colors, the character's colors became more prominent.

8. Final Touches.
Minor color adjustments help create a more balanced image overall. Left is the original image, and right is after adjusting saturation. The new hair color is slightly fainter, but the difference is too subtle to notice without a direct comparison.


Nicking the Knack: Graceful lines with the smudge tool

The smudge tool is often taken for granted, but it can be used to create a soft watercolor effect that leaves a very nice impression. It can be useful for hair highlights and other inherently smudgy affects.

As we saw earlier, Kataoka and Kondo divide the coloring work between them for illustrations. Kataoka handles the initial coloring stage, painting the whole image quickly using a pen or brush. Then Kondo comes in and performs touch-up work with the smudge tool. At the start of the Eureka Seven project, Kataoka was handling all the coloring, and all the illustrations from that time have very simple and fresh-looking color arrangements. After Kondo joined the coloring process, the images have shifted toward softer and subtler color textures. Nevertheless, the two artists continue to plan the color scheme for most of their illustrations together, and the end result is a final product they both contribute equally to.

"[Kataoka] likes to go with quick and string colors that look fresh and exciting, but I'm the opposite," Kondo comments. "I prefer to carefully construct the color bit by bit using multiple layers of lighter-colored bases." The smudge tool also adds to the effect by softening the lines, where a pen tool would make them look sharp. Kondo's technique produces a lovely watercolor look that doesn't feel very CG-like.

Using the smudge tool exclusively has its drawbacks—the pixel size of the brush is limited by available system memory (Kondo finds that 35 pixels is about the upper limit in his case, and the work can be much more time-intensive (Kondo reports times of ten hours of more for a single illustration!)

Captions: After drawing a line with a pen, use the smudge tool to draw it out. Applying the stroke from top to bottom gives a cleaner edge. You can also use this smudge technique for hair highlights. Point #1: This screenshot was taken right after Kataoka finished painting. The color textures are simple but energetic, with highlights and shadows clearly present. Point #2: This level of clarity in the eye color comes from careful stacking of layers—five in this case. The combination of multiple layers of slightly different colors gives the image depth.

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Super great article. If the Photoshop terminology is all Greek to anyone, I would suggest a tutorial book like this one, which is a really good series and which I've used many times in teaching Photoshop. They have changed the cover design for the new editions, which threw me at first but I'll probably get used to it.

I hadn't really thought about it, but I could include explanations in this blog about the software programs we will use to do our manga. Like mini tutorials of techniques that I learn and like. I hate it when I do something really cool and then next time I try to do it I can't remember how. Maybe writing it here would prevent that somewhat. I'll think about it.