Japan celebrates Christmas, although the focus is more on spending the day with your lover than getting presents from Santa. A Christmas party is something that is celebrated naturally, be it students coming together or colleagues celebrating.
MeguNobu portraying a natural look of a Christmas party (they are themselves in this image, with their own hairstyles and expressions. Nobu is more of a lady and Megumi loves booze 8D):
‘Yankee’ is a term used for delinquents with extreme badass fashion style. They appear a lot in Japanese school dramas, mostly boys though, but sometimes girls.
MeguNobu portraying a basic image of Japanese yankee girls:
It may be weird for me to draw this within this project since Japan doesn’t celebrate Halloween, the Halloween-theme exists everywhere and Megumi is actually someone who really likes scary things. I think she’s kind of into this.
MeguNobu portraying their costumes at a Halloween-themed party:
‘Yukata’ are a special kind of kimono worn in summer. It’s lighter and thinner than a traditional kimono and worn to summer festivals, for example.
MeguNobu portraying yukata worn to a summer festival:
I wasn’t entirely sure what to call this style, but it’s not really lolita, so I went for Harajuku-style. Harajuku is a district in Tokyo where people can freely express their fashion tastes. Of course, they can express this in other places as well, but Harajuku is the kind of place where people with specific fashion styles come together to express themselves.
(Megumi is actually kind of into dressing up like this as a hobby)
MeguNobu portraying a kind of Harajuku fashion:
‘Kogyaru’ (a contraction of ‘koukousei gyaru’ (high school ‘gals’) is a type of fashion outfit based on the Japanse school uniform, but with a shorter skirt, loose socks and often dyed hair and extreme make-up. It is often used by girls as a kind of protest against the typical ‘beauty fashion’. Their make-up is so extravagant it can be seen as ugly.
Although I did not make it very extreme in my drawing, a more mild version of kogyaru as portrayed by MeguNobu:
MeguNobu is the coined name for my favourite fashion duo: Megumi and Nobu. They’re best friends and although Megumi is usually the one who’s more into fashion trends, Nobu is never tired of tagging along.
(For the record, Megumi is the one with the short purple bob hairstyle and Nobu is the one with the long blonde ponytail)
The styles I have covered so far are
The first drawing I made for this project is based on the first kiss between Kazehaya and Sawako from Kimi ni Todoke. I’ve been waiting for that moment so long ; – ; and in volume 17 (^^;) it finally happened!! \(T^T)/
So I turned the couple into Youhei and Chihiro. It was an easy choice to begin with, because Chihiro has the same hairstyle as Sawako :’) but in the actual picture, we can’t see Kazehaya’s face because his bangs hang before his eyes. Youhei doesn’t have long bangs like that, so I had to draw his expression x’D I decided to keep it basic, because it would be too cheesy if they both were blushing like crazy… from the result of it it looks like it’s not their first kiss .__.
Of course, some points are different. In the original version, Sawako is crying. But to not steal the whole concept, I changed it to a context within my comic c:
So here you can see the original pic versus my version (don’t criticize me too hard, I’m still an amateur xD)
I’ve started a new project in which I will feature my own characters from JnM in romantic scenes from existing manga 😀 I won’t leave the image exactly the same (no to plagiarism!!) and hope to gain more inspiration for cute stuff for the development of my story :3
Kazehaya and Sawako from Kimi ni Todoke -> ChiYou
Hayato and Hanayu from Mixed Vegetables -> MinaKasu
Yamato and Mei from Say I Love You ->YamiRiku
Naoki and Kotoko from Itazura na Kiss -> MeguKei
Here, I will be writing stuff about progress in the development of my own series, “Jinsei no Minna” (literally “Life’s Everybody”). I know that the correct way to say it would be “Minna no Jinsei” (“Everybody’s Life”), but I came up with the name when I didn’t really know much Japanese and before I knew it it was too late to change it. But in a way, “Life’s Everybody” is a good way to put it, because the main topic of my comic is not specifically the individual lives of my characters, but all the individuals that are alive. If that makes sense? It does to me.
A summary:
The year is 2036. In 2010, a remedy has been developed that enables people who die young to evolve into an alternate form and live out their lives and fulfill the dreams they could not make true before they passed away. It is a way to stop death in a unnatural way, and there are a lot of people who are against it. The remedy, created under a project called ‘ Yume no Tenshi’ (‘Dream Angel’) has allowed these alternate creatures to live amongst the normal people, with the same rights.
As the first person to have undergone the remedy, mysterious Yume-sama is now principal of the school she always wanted to build. ‘Yume High School’ is a school that is meant for students who have had a shocking/traumatizing occurence in their youth. The main purpose is that these students come to find each other and may develop even deeper bonds and friendships than they would have in a normal high school. The understanding of each other’s pain is what brings the students closer to one another.
“Jinsei no Minna” is about a group of friends who have partly known each other from earlier on, who all start in their first year at ‘Yume High’. Though it is difficult (I’ll admit it myself) to pick one particular main character out of the group of friends, I have chosen shy and socially isolated Chihiro Aoyama as a main character, mostly because what she has been through and the shame she still feels make her both strong as weak at the same time and I find that very interesting to write about.
I find it really interesting to look at people’s individual stories, things they have been through and how those events have made people to who they are today. I put a lot of my own thoughts and experiences into my story, and I have to say each character has one or two of traits that I am familiar with myself. I hope my comic will once be read by somebody (or more somebodies) and positively criticised.
A short summary of the group of friends (I will keep it short!): Siblings socially awkward Chihiro, weak health Kasuya, 10-year old genius Akane, childhood-friends-but-often-fighting Emiko and Takeshi, sweet Mina and her mysterious cousin Satoshi, always-frolicking-but-oh-so-dense Yura, and lonely-poor-parental-relationship Haruhi. The rest of the characters is mainly the rest of the classmates and the homeroom teacher.
When I started drawing “Jinsei no Minna”, I did not have much experience drawing a whole comic and so the drawing style is slightly unprofessional and not really eye-satisfying. Because I began to improve while drawing volumes 2 and 3, I’ve been wondering if I should re-draw the first volume. But on the other hand, there are several images in the first volume that I am really satisfied with. I’ve started drawing the first few pages again and really prefer the way I drew the second version. So, who knows, if I ever have the time, I will maybe make a ‘version 2 of volume 1′.
For an introduction to each one of my characters, click on the link below :
List of characters in Jinsei no Minna
I think it is already obvious that I love making up projects :3 I really dive deep into the backgrounds and individual stories of my characters, so I’ve thought of a new project called ‘Project Background’. See it as files for each character’s past, family history and reasons behind their characteristics.