First off, go welcome ^ctJemm as your new Manga/Anime gallery moderator! She is awesome so go say hiiiii!

Hello hello thar! How is everyone doing this fine random Wednesday aftermorning? Me, my brain is a bit tapped On that topic I want to apologize for my lack of activity as of late (what, like... a week? ). This also has to do with my non-existent art production. Why though? Well, like every new year work starts off with a bang and I have been mighty busy there. Also, I have had *Miss-It-Girl over for a few weeks recently and I am spending my time with her when I can. But (in all seriousness) the biggest reason I am probably not making any art as of late can be attested to... Disgaea 3 It has been YEARS since I have been this addicted to a game. I think the last one I was truly addicted too was FFIX o_O So that should give you an idea. It doesn't happen often

That being said you can expect some Disgaea fan art from me soon

Naturally this update is not about my busy schedule or Disgaea 3 since they have no impact on the Manga and Anime category No sirree bobski! This update is something that I feel that I need to address once again: Vectors.

Ever since starting my Thursday's thumbs articles I have had the hardest time finding non-fan-art vectors in the Manga/Anime galleries. That news feature probably would take 20-30 minutes if it were not for the struggling to find non-fan-art vectors (as well as the pictures not being vector as well). I wrote a similar journal back in September so lets re-hash shall we?

Like I said back in September, they were something that confused me as well. I just thought that any ole' cell shaded piece of art was vector cause, well, it looks vectored. After reading *vbu's journal on the topic I was moar enlightened.

What I found out was that a vector uses paths and points to make an image look so nice and clean What is truly great about vectors is that they 100% scale-able because they are points and paths. Basically you could up size and down size to infinity..._{and beyond}

Even though a cell shade "looks" vector doesn't mean that it is vector. Like I just said up there, a vector has points and paths. A cell shaded picture can be brushed in and/or filled in (I commonly use both techniques). This does not make it vector though because it will not scale as clean and crisp as a vector.

Sometimes I find pieces that are quite lovely and clean and beautiful vector works but can't use them for my features. Why? Cause even though the whole piece might be vectored (character, background, etc etc) the second you add a raster element to the picture it is no longer a vector. Raster is raster and vector is vector. Combine the 2 and you have raster (at least this is what I have been told). So if someone adds some cute little blushing using a nice soft brush to their awesome vector work it is no longer vector s... ]]> `Damaged927 http://Damaged927.deviantart.com/journal/23300368/ http://Damaged927.deviantart.com/journal/23300368/ Fri, 20 Feb 2009 04:35:31 PST

Why hello thar peoples of the Manga/Anime variety How are we all doing today? Me? I'm still sick and a bit doped up on cough medicines so bear with me. So what shall we discuss in this edition of the Manga/Anime news? Today we will be talking about Manga/Anime > Traditional Media > Mixed Media But first...

=orangefruits asked me to ask you this and actually, I am pretty interested in the answers as well. So, go vote in their poll here. Here is why they are asking (copy paste AHOY!):

"This is for my uni course, and i need to do a quick poll to get some basic figures to base part of my anime portfolio around, so i need to know if you anime fans out there like to be called an Otaku, or if you find it derogative or such.

Thanks so much for your help, this will really help my first person research."

So, what is "Mixed Media"? The gallery description for Mixed Media is:

Traditional manga and anime art created using using more than one medium, such as watercolours and pencil crayons.

This means you would submit here if you drew a picture and decided to color it using acrylic paints and decided to add a splash of water colors and perhaps added some marker work (for example). It only needs to be more than 1 medium to be submitted here.

This is the reason I decided to write this update. The most common misconception is that Mixed Media means Traditional + Digital. That is not what it means at all. If you painted something using water colors and decided to touch it up in photoshop that does not make it mixed media. It is still a traditional painting. So, that being said, let's use a few examples shall we?

For this I am going to use a few example scenarios to show what mixed media is

Q: I drew this picture with a pencil and I inked it with a pen and then I scanned it in and colored it in Open Canvas. Is this mixed media?
A: No. This would be Digital Media > Drawings because most of the work is done digitally and it looks digital.

Q: So I was in my art class and we were learning to use charcoals and colored pencils together. So I drew this wicked cute anime cat girl using both of these. Since it was so big I took a photo of it and I cleaned it up in Photoshop. Is this mixed media?
A: Yes! Cleaning up a piece is more than acceptable and it still looks traditional. Especially if you had to take a picture cause it was so large (this is probably encouraged actually).

Q: So I was doodling in math class and decided that I liked what I made and decided to turn it into a full piece. So I redrew it on a nice piece of Bristol paper and I inked it with a sharpie and I colored it with some nice water colors. I then scanned it in and made a nice digital BG with Paint Tool Sai for it. Would this be mixed media cause I have both trad and digital?
A: This is a tough one, but no. It really depends on what YOU decide it looks more like. In this case where the work is 50/50 (trad/digital) you can decide which one it fits into more. Its either going to be Traditional Media > Paintings or Digital Media > Paintings but not Mixed Media since you only used 1 traditional medium in it. In this case it all depends on what it looks like more: Traditional or Digital. That's your call as the artist.

^Pyrochan-dolls - Dolls
^cmptrwhz - fractal
^joannastar - 3D
^shebid - vexel
^yingjunjiu - icons
^Platinus - fractal

^zerocomplex - general photography
^bQw - street photography
^kkart - animals, pla... ]]> `Damaged927 http://Damaged927.deviantart.com/journal/21480504/ http://Damaged927.deviantart.com/journal/21480504/ Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:01:40 PST