The following is another re-post from the old SMDC blog, this one from November 5, 2008. It’s interesting for me to look back at these and be reminded of some lessons I’ve learned along the way. How soon we forget… Anyway, I hope if you’re an aspiring artist — or a language learner for that matter — that this topic will be relevant and interesting to you.
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No, this isn’t about manga, though I do think western artists could learn a few tricks from our Japanese fellow-cartoonists (and I’m not talking about just aping their style, which is what most non-Japanese “manga” artists do — but that’s a topic for another post). Today I want to talk about a realization I made recently: a lot of the principles I’m learning while studying Japanese can be applied to becoming a better cartoonist as well.
If nothing else, the Japanese writing system is a beautiful art form in itself. And learning any art form, I think, will help you develop as an artist in your chosen craft as well. But more specifically, here are some principles I am discovering from my language studies that can be put to work in learning the art of cartooning.
1. Repetition: My biggest struggle in learning Japanese is the HUGE amount of rote memorization there is to do. There’s just no way around it. One of the answers is, of course, repetition. This is especially useful in learning to write. There are literally thousands of kanji (those really complicated characters swiped from China) and it’s easy to get them confused. It’s also easy to get to a point where you can read some of them, but if called on to write them, totally drawing (no pun intended) a blank. But by repetition, you can get to the point where you can write them without even thinking about it.
Of course the same thing can happen in cartooning. Maybe drawing a hand or a foot or a car comes with great struggle for you, takes a ton of extra work, and some visual reference is needed every time. But with repetition, in time, it’s possible to get to a point where you can draw it without thinking. Then you’re free to be expressive instead of worrying about getting it right. So if there’s something you’re not too good at drawing, why not take some time and focus on learning to draw that one thing really, really well? Then you can move on to other things and enjoy yourself instead of agonizing over it whenever that thing comes up (or avoiding it, as we’re all tempted to do sometimes).
2. Context: I find that Japanese words and sentence structures stick in my head better when I practice them in context. Like, putting a word into a familiar sentence structure can help in vocabulary memorization. Or, instead of just trying to remember what a certain piece of grammar means, if I could come up with a sentence that means something to me (like, that I might use in real life) I’m more likely to remember it and actually use it.
In the same way, as a cartoonist, why not get in the habit of drawing characters actually, you know, doing stuff? Draw them interacting with each other, sitting or standing or walking in different settings, and so on — instead of just working on drawing the characters themselves, just posing. If you want to draw good comics, you need to learn to draw stuff in context, like you will in the actual comics. So practice that in your sketches too, and it’ll come more naturally when you hit the panel or page.
3. Learning and Re-Learning: I find myself, in my language studies, learning words and grammar, moving on to other stuff, and then forgetting the older stuff and having to go back and re-learn it. And if I don’t draw a certain character or thing in a while, I get a little rusty with that too. Sometimes you have to go back and re-learn to draw something, but just like in language, once you’ve learned, forgotten, and re-learned, you’re less likely to forget again. With each re-learning, it gets a little more natural.
4. Multiple Methods: In Japanese, as in other languages, there are multiple ways to say the same thing. In fact, in Japanese, because of cultural subtleties, it can get really complicated. But what this reminds me about in terms of cartooning is that there’s lots of room for variation, experimentation, and multiple styles. We don’t all have to draw the same way. We don’t all have to know how to draw “realistically”. But we do have to be good story tellers.
So experiment, find your style, try new angles, tools, techniques and perspectives, and most of all have fun with it. There’s no one right way to draw a comic.
