Letraset - Creative Opportunities - Manga Contributor - Jodie Azhar

Jodie Azhar

Information about myself: I'm a UK based comic artist and animator with a love for art and music. I spend a lot of my time drawing, mostly traditionally, although sometimes with a digital touch. Since an early age I have read both Eastern and Western comics and graphic novels, and even though I didn't take my art seriously 'till my early teens, my style has been influenced heavily by this. Among these was Neil Gaiman's 'The Sandman'. After reading the series, it brought me to realise that I wanted to tell stories using art and share them with the world.
Manga has always seemed the most suitable way to express my ideas, since it focuses on story telling and character development. My inspirations in manga include the Japanese artists Kaori Yuki, Naoko Takeuchi and CLAMP. I studied art and graphic design at College and was lucky that my art tutors were not only familiar with manga, but encouraged me to be creative with it and to develop my own style. I was exposed to the work of a lot of different sequential artists at this time and from there started to develop my own comics. Now I've gone on to study Computer Animation at the NCCA (National Centre of Computer Animation) in South England, where I'm able to further develop skills into other areas. I love working in 3D (and 2D) character animation, as I can take characters off of the page and bring them to life. With my traditional work, I predominantly use markers. I find that they give a high quality, consistent finish and work especially well with bleedproof marker paper. I've used Letraset products for the past three years and use ProMarkers in almost all of my colour work now. I've recently started using the Letrajet Air Marker as well, which allows me even more diversity when colouring with ProMarkers as it provides a very different effect with the same palette of rich colour.
	Currently, I run a biweekly webcomic called Handrawn Zoo, which features on my website Tangentine, alongside a range of my artwork. I also try to create full colour illustrations whenever I can, and work on several short comics, which I exhibit and distribute at comic and manga conventions in the UK, which I try to attend as often as possible. Just recently I was one of the winners of the Manga Jiman competition run by the Japanese Embassy in London, with a six page manga comic called 'A World turned to Dark'. I hope to keep pushing forward with my work and achieve a lot more in the future.
Tips and Techniques: I think the number one tip is practice! Keep drawing all the time, everyone has to start somewhere and unless you work at something you'll never improve. The more you work with a material, the more familiar with it you become and gain a better understanding of how it works. This makes it easier to control and get it to do what you want. If you are just starting out with markers then it is often a good idea to get a few commonly used colours first. Lighter colours are good because you can layer them to create darker shades and they blend well together. Letraset Comic Art sets are good to start with as they provide useful colours for experimenting with.
When you use markers, practice before you start working on the final image. Depending on the paper you are using, colours may appear slightly different and the ink may dry faster. It's a good idea to create a colour chart if you want an accurate idea of what the final colour will be, though remember that you can make colours darker if you wait for the ink to dry and then draw another layer of the same colour over the top. You can also blend colours by layering different colours while the ink is still wet. Smooth paper such as bleedproof paper is good for this.
If you want to create strong shadows in a piece then try drawing in the shadows first using a range of greys and then put the colour over the top. The alcohol in the pens will blend the colour with the grey a little, but keep your shadows strong. If you want to create softer shadows, try blending a light grey of pastel blue in the shadowed area. If your light source is cool (i.e. in Winter) try Warm Greys for your shadows and if the light source is warm (i.e. Summer) use Cool or Ice greys for your shadows. Subtle shadows can be achieved by having several shades of the same colour. Blending these while the ink is still wet will give a smooth finish. This works best if you put the darkest colour on first. If you wait for each layer to dry before putting the next layer on, you get a much higher contrast between colours, which is good for a more cell shaded look. This works best if you put the lightest colour on first. Remember that you don't need to just stick to one material when drawing. You can draw over your marker pieces in coloured pencil or other non-alcohol based inks to give a different look. See what works for you!