An unemployed person in their late 30s wakes up and roughly builds a model of a tower out of Amazon cardboard
I am making a manga. What kind of manga? Please refer to the elevator pitch I wrote the other day.
An immortal king, an 88-year-old gardener, and a genius musician raised in a greenhouse. A story about three eccentric people who have lived completely different lives, meeting due to a trivial incident caused by a mad scientist and becoming best friends.
It is a work that blends fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, romantic comedy, and buddy tropes. If you look at the title logo, I think you can tell that at least the presentation is solid.
The character designs are also starting to take shape. In manga, it is important for the author's art style to evolve during serialization to create a sense of groove, so I decided to start drawing once I had a decent enough image.
▼ You can see the rough character designs here.
Now all that's left is to draw
I thought about stopping if it seemed impossible during the scriptwriting or storyboard phase, but once I started, I'm the type of person who wants to see it through no matter what, so I feel like I have no choice but to draw and finish it. The original novel is 350,000 characters long, so even if I draw 80 pages a month like a professional serial artist, it will take several years. I have decided to take it one step at a time without rushing.
My recent problem as a laid-back person is a very specific one:“I can't draw a picture of looking up at a hollow tower from the inside with sunlight streaming in nicely.”I searched for various images on Google, and what I finally found was a photo looking up from the bottom of the "Pozzo di San Patrizio" (Well of St. Patrick) in Italy.
The atmosphere is very close. I thought, couldn't I just rip it off... *cough cough*... pay homage to it? But even if I try to use only the perspective as a reference, there are subtle differences in the interior, so my hand stops even while I'm drawing.
I only thought about it roughly when I wrote the novel, but I realized that if I don't rethink the settings of the hollow tower—what it was originally used for—it would be hard to incorporate into the design when making it into a manga... and that's another reason why I can't draw it. As I was refining the settings, I started thinking about things like,“I want to add a pointed roof like a European spire,”and eventually, I became completely confused.
When you don't understand something, it's better to go back, even if it takes time.
I decided to draw up blueprints for the "hollow tower" incorporating the changed settings.
I want to draw a tower divided into a basement, a ground floor, and a spire. Sunlight will stream into the hollow interior from a window opened in the roof. Another important point is that when you are inside the tower, it should look taller than it does from the outside.
This is the 1/100 scale blueprint I drew in Illustrator.
The image of the tower has solidified. Now I just need to know about the light and shadow, and the perspective when looking up from below. I can't do 3D modeling, and I don't necessarily want to draw a perfectly accurate picture. I just need to check the scale.
Suddenly, I noticed an Amazon cardboard box lying around.
Amazon cardboard is on the thinner side for cardboard. I have always thought it was just right for materials when I feel like making something. That was last night.
“I'll build a model when I wake up tomorrow morning.”I swore to myself, went to sleep, woke up, and started building the model 15 minutes after getting up... (rustle rustle)... about three hours later.
Done
The tower itself is important, but the cardboard box with a hole in it that serves as the base is just as important. I stick my head into this, set the tower over the hole, and snap a photo with my smartphone camera. I can't let anyone see me like this.
This is the image I took.
I've pasted paper inside with lines to emphasize perspective and black squares as a guide for the interior. I know. I know it's so rough that I worry if something like this is even useful.
When you start drawing, when you put pen to paper, it's better to already have the image in your head so you can draw without hesitation. You project the image in your head onto the screen of the paper and trace it.
Until you build up the image in your head, you search for materials from various places and create a collage in your mind. If the sizes and tones of the collage materials are all over the place, it consumes a tremendous amount of energy to process the image, so I find samples that are as close to the final version as possible; if I can't find any, I make them, even if they're rough. It is very important to have something real that is close to the image, even if it is rough.
Sometimes, when you actually build the real thing, you realize that the image you had in your head was almost entirely correct. That in itself is not a waste, as it gives you confidence in what you had imagined.
That said, while I was making the model, I kept moving my hands while wondering, "Why on earth am I so obsessed with something that no one asked for?"
No one asked for it. No one else is doing it. Because no one else is doing it, I'll do it instead. And since I'm doing it, I'll do it with all my might. I think that's probably all there is to it.
The release of the manga Escatologia will begin on Thursday, August 8, 2024, at 8:00 AM.
▼ I have posted the synopsis and main character settings.
▼ I have released the magazine.
I have compiled all my efforts to continue creating works into this magazine. If you find it even a little interesting, I would be happy if you could give it a like and follow.