Manga Artist - Bridget Wilde

I have been drawing for as long as I can remember - mostly in school! I have never liked to have my fingers still for very long, and my habit of doodling in the margins of my notebooks turned into a full-fledged passion for drawing. I discovered anime watching Robotech and Speed Racer as a child, and shortly thereafter fell in love with the manga-inspired work of Wendy Pini.

I attended the Illinois Math and Science Academy for high school, which I suppose is an odd place to develop one's ambition to be a professional artist - but I found that the friends I made there and the stimulating environment made me a more active artist. I used to sell my friends sketches for a buck or two apiece, and before graduating had made my first submission for professional publication. (It sadly resulted in my very first rejection letter!)

I started out college at the University of New Orleans as an art major, but soon found that their art department leaned very heavily towards the abstract rather than illustration, and in frustration I changed majors and then schools multiple times, finally ending up at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where I earned a BA and an MA in Japanese Literature. This was also where I was reintroduced to anime and manga, soon becoming an avid fan of the newest imports from the East.

My odd career journey came full circle a few years later with the birth of my second child in 1999. As a new stay-at-home mom, I was getting a bit bored, and after seeing someone's drawings of catgirls online, I decided "I can do that!" and put my first art auctions up on eBay in April of 2000. Much to my surprise they sold, and my new career was born. I soon opened up my website, the Wilde Home for Wayward Catgirls, and also branched out into the fantasy and anthropomorphic genres. (I also upgraded to three children, currently ranging from 3 to 13.

Since then, I have expanded my sales to include prints and merchandise on my website, and have been sending artwork to fantasy and science fiction conventions across the US (and sometimes abroad). My first solo manga story, "Trickster," was published in Tokyopop's inaugural Rising Stars of Manga compilation, and I have several other manga products in the works - I am just waiting to see what bears fruit first!

The Letraset products I have used most often have to do with manga tones. I have used both the manual screen tones and (more recently) Manga Studio. I love working with screen tones by hand - I'm a hands-on kind of gal - but I have had some issues with my wrist and arm that make the procedure of applying screentones very painful. I have been working with Manga Studio for a while now and I adore it! It has been a challenge translating some of my favorite screen tone effects (etching and layering in particular) to Manga Studio but it's also been very fun. I do very little artwork on the computer - really just touching up scans - so it's all new to me.

I also use markers, and after some disappointments with other marker brands am switching over to Tria. Pretty much every one of my complaints with other marker brands (ink supply, nibs, etc.) has been addressed by Letraset with their Tria line. I also really like the wide selection of colors available. I use markers as an essential step of my color illustration â€" my final coloring is generally in pencil, but I lay down markers as a base tone for many shades and use them for nifty background effects. I think it gives my colored pencil work a richness that is absent when I work with pencils alone.

I started using screen tones in 2002 or so and moved on to Manga Studio in 2006. Tria Markers are exciting and new to me in 2007! The Letraset brand has always been synonymous with quality in my mind.

As far as toning goes, I think it is important for an artist to consider the final venue for their work. If one is going to be printing the final product, you need to make sure the toning is done at print size to avoid moire effects. (I learned this the hard way!) For webcomics, you have a bit more flexibility, but need to be careful in converting the art for the web that the tones don't resize funkily. Either way, your choice of dot size and density can be very important.

For all products, I'd recommend experimenting with your materials as much as possible - try different papers, try different approaches, and see how things work. Trial and error can often provide new inspiration and new and exciting techniques.

For artists who want to be WORKING artists, it's also important to develop your time management skills, in order to meet deadlines and produce at a rate and level that will support you. (This is not unique to Letraset, but very important!) Be sure to keep some time for yourself in there! I've found the greatest boosts to inspiration come when I take a little time to draw something for myself, not just for my latest job.

One thing I like to do with markers is oversaturate my paper with color and then use a lighter color or a blender to make shadow effects. I use absorbent Bristol Board as a base, and lay down multiple layers of marker color, and then take a blender (or a much lighter color) and draw designs, making sure to get the paper very wet within the designs. The wet blender soaks up the darker color and it wicks to the edges of the designs, creating a neat bas-relief effect. This is especially interesting if you layer different colors - you never know quite what you're going to get!