Comic Fiesta 2013 – Panels Coverage
Comic Fiesta 2013 Panels Highlight
Hello everyone, Happy Holidays! I hope all of you are having fun. As you all would know by now the pre-Xmas weekend was the advent of the biggest ACG event in Malaysia aka Comic Fiesta 2013 and with it comes a boat load of special guest appearances (too much for us to cover actually even with our media passes). Anyways, starting our series of posts, let me give you a slice of the Comic Fiesta 2013 experience, which saw huge growth this year, particularly the VIPs that graced us with their presence. In this post I will cover some of the panels that were conducted during the 2 day event, specifically Redjuice and VOFAN’s panel in detail, so here we go.
Redjuice
First up, the creative powerhouse Redjuice returns and this time he gave us a live demo on how he illustrates his artwork. While he illustrated, fan questions were answered and lots of interesting tidbits were revealed. To start off the demo, he rough sketched an original character and proceeded to outline it. He revealed that he doesn’t have a specific set of brushes but customizes them according to the artwork. The most eye-opening information revealed on this panel is the fact that he uses a highly customized PlayStation controller connected to a Wacom Cintiq. Why a controller, you may ask? Well, this controller has been heavily modified to suit his drawing needs; all the buttons and analog sticks perform adjustment functions and navigation, which makes his drawing process twice as fast. Not only that, he also has a modified dial connected to his tablet for zooming functions. This man is a beast!
Highlights:
- He dislikes the outlining process when illustrating so he usually doesn’t talk; however, this panel was an exception.
- For him, the challenges when designing an original character is to come up with the right character background and personality to attribute to the said character before proceeding to rough sketches. The challenges decrease over time as he sketches.
- He usually spends 20 to 30hrs on a piece of illustration. He even illustrated for 16hrs straight before and had only 2hrs of sleep.
- For his 3D work, he takes his textures from CG websites. He prefers to render and start directly in 3D but due to time constraints this time, he started in 2D.
- When chasing deadlines, he listens to tense and fast-paced music to keep himself on his toes.
- He loves Pacific Rim and gets inspiration from the movie concept art books. He uses a lot of reference for military designs.
Click on images for larger version. Full album can be found on our page.
Throughout the demo, he worked at a steady pace but sadly despite the 2 hours panel length, he ran out of time halfway through painting and detailing the character. He said he had intended to show the audience how he combines his illustration with 3D rendering but alas, time was not on our side. (I for one, was incredibly saddened as I wanted to see how he uses Soft-Image.)
This concluded the Redjuice panel and live demo. It was a pleasure seeing him illustrate in real time, and seeing him work his various self-modified tools of the trade. If you are interested in seeing more of his works, follow him on Ustream, deviantArt and Pixiv.
VOFAN
For the second panel, we have an illustrator hailing from Taiwan, who worked on one of the crowd’s favourite series of recent memory: VOFAN of “Monogatari” fame. His presentation mainly dealt with light and shadows usage in illustrations along with a live showcase of his painting skills. He kicked off the presentation by revealing the fact that he’s actually an avid photographer and the experience he gathers from photography has greatly enhanced his illustration skills. He explained the fundamentals of lighting on illustration and how it breathes life to them and then enlightened us on his preferred lighting methods when it comes to artwork.
VOFAN’s pro-tips:
- The most basic lighting style is from a 45 degree angle, it is a safe approach but if used too often it becomes bland.
- One of his favourite lighting methods is backlighting. As it is very dynamic, it can portray visual attractiveness or feeling of loneliness and melancholy. Secondly, he likes using lighting from the top as it gives off a heavenly feeling. Thirdly, lighting from window blinds, as it gives off a feeling of calmness and nostalgia. (See screenshot)
- He likes using lens flares to give his illustrations more depth and using the evening light to show a contrast of warmth and eeriness.
Click on small images for larger version. Full album can be found on our page.
After the presentation, he drew an original character for the live demo and answered some fan questions in very amusing ways. One particular question on illustrating and painting boobs had him telling us challenges of painting flat to moderate chest. And soon he deviated to opinions about boob sizes in artworks but he stopped short before going anywhere interesting as he recalled something similar happening during one of his panels in Taiwan, when he went into too much detail and later realized that there were kids present… In his words, “As long as the face and boobs are done right, nothing else matters.” VOFAN is a troll!
He mentioned that he used to draw guys and mecha before, but as he grew older and better, all he ever drew was cute girls; he personally doesn’t know how it ever came to this. He admits that despite how some of his illustrations look risqué, it is part of his job description and not his true desire to draw that way. He prefers to draw pure girls in summer dresses. Finally he revealed that he has been working on “Monogatari” for eight long years and has become quite attached to the characters. He is sad to see it ending but is sure that NisiOisiN-sensei will do a good job in closing the series. Later he admitted that, he knows how it will end but could not say more as its classified information. Similar to Redjuice’s panel, VOFAN ran out of time and was forced to quick paint his artwork.
That is all for the VOFAN panel. It was amusing to see that he has a quirky sense of humour. His presentation was insightful and the live demo although short, was a joy to see. Be sure to check out his Pixiv for more of his artwork.
Livetune
There was also a Livetune panel, however it turned out to be a Fan Meet & Greet. There was a 30 minute Q&A session but that’s about it. You will learn more about Livetune and other special guests by looking out for interview posts coming soon to Metanorn as promised! That said, his Livetune’s DJ concert was awesome!
I hope this coverage post managed to help aspiring artists and let enthusiastic fans learn about their favourite artists. I had a fun time in the panels and enjoyed writing this post for all of you. Thanks for reading! (Photo credits goes to a good friend of mine KuroStereo Productions.) You can visit Metanorn fanpage for all the Comic Fiesta 2013 photographs compiled by Toori and I, which will be updated along with our upcoming posts.
—————————————————–
// About TK Takeru: I’m a Type-Moon fanboy and a massive Touhou-fag. Known as an avid procrastinator and appreciator of Heavy Metal. Loves the horror mystery genre and sometimes animes that makes no sense. You can find me @ Twitter, Google+ & dA.
About Guest Writer
We welcome our Guest Anibloggers with open arms to share their take on fandom including Convention Coverage, Editorials and even sought after Recommendations.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Nice coverage, TkTakeru. Whoa, Redjuice is a badass and thanks to this, I’ve gained a huge amount of respect for him. A Playstation controller, of all things to help his work. And he’s a fan of Pacific Rim. So much envy for me not being there. I’m eager to see which future animes he’ll be involved in.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 151 comments
Thank you! Yeah, Redjuice is a certified badass. The man’s engineering prowess and overall talent is intimidating, not to mention he used to surf too.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
He used to surf? Awesome.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 151 comments
Oh by the way, the photos of the illustrations are not true representations of the final artwork itself. As the place was dark, camera settings have to be tweaked so certain colors turned out far stronger than it should.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
So they were unfinished products.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 151 comments
For the live demo illustrations yes, but what I meant was that the actual color and contrast for these illustrations have changed slightly due to camera settings.
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
…but as Vofan grew older and better, all he ever drew was cute girls…
I guess that explains why people say that Araragi was never depicted by Vofan in the Monogatari novels.
An animation supervisor came up with his design instead.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 151 comments
You’ll get to know more about VOFAN soon, as there will be an interview post about him. XD
POWUH: iLurker with 1 comments
[…] hope you enjoyed and learned some new things from the panels post and an upcoming interviews post compiled by T.K and I, on which we spent hours. Now here I am again […]