Letraset - Creative Opportunities - Manga Contributor - Lisa Harald

Lisa Harald

My name’s Lisa “Lishan” Harald, and I’m currently going in high school in Gothenburg, Sweden. I’ve always been interested in art of all kinds – partly due to many of my relatives – but I have most experience with manga, which I have been drawing for now almost ten years. I started to try out the style when I was 7 and first saw Sailor Moon at TV, but it wasn’t until I was 10-11 that I got serious with my drawing. I usually get inspiration from the silliest things, such as the dirt on my socks, or how the shadow of my pillows looks. Now I’ve given “How to draw manga” classes a few times, and I am one of the more well-known Swedish artist at web communities. Me and a few friends, together being ‘Mangapingvinen’ – the Manga Penguin – are currently working on a manga magazine together, containing four different series. Since about two years back, I have also uploaded my artwork every now and then to my DeviantART site.
		Until one and a half year ago, most of my drawings were in greyscale. Many had recommended trying to learn how to colour digital, but so far I had no success. It wasn’t the same, not being able to actually hold the pencil while you’re drawing. So, one day, when going to the usual store to by new ink pens, ProMarkers caught my eye. After having a closer look, I decided to buy a few and try them out. The very next day, I came back and bought twice as many. Later I found out that there where different Japanese markers that were better, yet a whole lot more expensive. Trying them out, I decided that it was definitely not worth that much of a price difference, and continued using ProMarkers, which suits me perfectly.
The first tip I have for artist trying out ProMarkers is definitely to experiment. Try out new ideas and sudden impulses, even if they seem crazy, because in the end you might find out that this gave an unexpected effect that looks quite nice, or a technique unique to yourself. This is how I learned using my ProMarkers. Another tip is to combine different media with the markers. You can nice effects and results with colour pencils over the marker colouring, and use some kind of white ink to make the drawing extra shiny and maybe erase some annoying colour flood. Speaking of colour flood, this is one thing that I often hear new users complaining about, that it’s difficult to colour inside the lines at thin places. The solution to this is easy; make the ink lines a little bit thicker at those places. This gives the line more variation, as well as a professional look, while the colouring gets easier. My favourite effect using the ProMarkers is the ‘blended shade’. After adding the “base colour”, imagine yourself holding a pen rather than a pencil. Draw quick strokes from the shadow into the highlight. Then take a bit darker colour and do the same thing, although make the strokes a bit shorter. You can even use a third colour if you want. This gives a bit of a 3-dimensional feel, and is very useful when, for example, shading skin.