Shopping Guide
Hi all! This is Akira Himekawa. Today, we’re starting the Manga Maker series. We were asked to explain the method in which we create manga. So, we will show you each process involved in making manga.
■Vol.5-1 Draft and the final cut
Himekawa-san created 15 pages of promotional Manga for the Hong Kong and Taiwanese version of “Ocarina of Time 3DS” in 2012. It was free Manga, you can view it here: http://www.nintendo.tw/zelda/#/
We will introduce the production process of how the “names” are revised become the final cut of this Manga in this volume.
■Vol.5-2 Draft and the final cut
**Picture of the [Finish]**
This is final cut of this Manga’s page 1 and page 2. This Manga’s introduction starts at Ganon’s Castle.
The next page starts with Link’s childhood in Kokiri Forest.
■Vol.5-3 Draft and the final cut
**Picture [A]: The first names / draft**
In this Manga’s case, we didn’t draw names like vol.4 of our Manga Makers series. We drew this Manga’s draft on manuscript paper and submitted it to editor.
This draft is same as Ganon’s Castle's in [Finish]. But this draft's viewpoint is more similar to the video game’s introduction. It's more bird's eye view.
When we submitted this draft to Nintendo, the producer Aonuma-san said "this draft is not so nteresting. This draft is not like your Manga". Yes, we knew, we noticed that… We replied, “but we drew this Manga after a 13 year break. And there are only 15 pages. We can't find a good way of making short promotional Manga from the long story that is the "Ocarina of Time". So, we made Manga to be a digest version of the video game!!.” It was an excuse. And we didn't say this excuse to him.^^; We drew all these drafts again.
■Vol.5-4 Draft and the final cut
**Picture [B] The second names / draft**
We thought, we must draw these pictures more dynamically and dramatically for this page. At that time, we got an idea of the scene of Gannondorf vs Link. They are face to face fight and bleeding. If this Manga were a longer piece, we could draw more pictures of moving to close-ups from wide viewpoints. However, this is a promotional Manga. It is necessary to attract the interest of people by showing video game’s key scenes instantly. So we drew characters’ viewpoints at that moment in the scene as a close-up.
■Vol.5-5 Draft and the final cut
**Picture [C] Drawing by pen**
We got approval for the name / draft which we submitted the second time, so we began to draw the Manga with a pen for the final cut. We described Link which we drafted in the left upper part of the manuscript paper using a viewpoint that zoomed up more again. And we slanted the composition of the picture. If we want to give a scene an active atmosphere or an atmosphere with a stressful feeling, we often slant composition.
If this were an animation or movie, this can move to [C] from the scene of name / draft [B]. But in Manga we must draw scenes which convey the most impressive circumstance in a single picture. If we had many pages for this Manga, we would have increased a little more the layouts and done more pictures in detail. However, we ended up having to use a layout which is better suited to a short series of scenes designed to lend a part of a story more impact. Japanese Manga creators are very careful with maintain the sense of tempo for readers of their Manga. We choose layouts and the direction so readers' feelings become excited quickly without disturbing the tempo, when the reader reads the Manga. When we make simplified layouts for the story, readers’ do not sympathize with the story of the Manga as much. We try to adjust the direction of this tempo of feelings going from [name] to [draft]. This work resembles the editing of a movie. After shooting all the scenes, in the case of a movie, the director edits it. However, Manga’s final cut is made when we draw all scenes. Therefore adjustment is difficult when we want to add or change layouts in the last part of creating the Manga.
■Vol.5-6 Draft and the final cut
**Picture [D]. **
A similar modified example. It is the second page.
There was a sketch of Gannondorf, and, after the dialogue scene, we were going to draw a big bold layout where they fight with swords in the next page. However, we decided that we did not need to make the layout any more detailed. ^^;
■Vol.5-7 Draft and the final cut
**Picture [E].**
So we ended up drawing it in this layout.
The first picture is Link's face and his lines. → The fight with swords. → the picture of Link's eyes. The picture expresses that Link’s feelings are triggering a memory.
We thought that there should be a picture which showed a raised sword between the picture of the face of Link and layouts of the sword fight, so we tried it. However, the center picture became small when we drew the picture with a raised sword, and picture's force disappeared. Therefore we gave up putting that picture in. It is very difficult which scene you choose when there are few pages in the book.
Please take a look at all of this finished Manga in the PDF.
■Vol.5-8 Draft and the final cut
**Picture [F].**
We used the good scenes from the first name/draft that Aonuma-san said no to for the last part for this Manga. We try not to throw away picture which we have drawn and use them as much as possible. Of course we give up on pictures which we think are no good and throw those away. However, we do copy & paste and use pictures which we judge to be usable where we can.
By the way, in the photos which we introduced in this vol.5, there is a picture with a layout different to the one we first showed. Did you find it?
The content of this article was taken from Akira Himekawa’s Facebook page with permission from the artists themselves and reorganized for publication on TOM.
