Art Block Post #8

Konichiwa! It's time now for another one of my favorite Mangaka, Tite Kubo!

Noriaki Kubo, know more commonly by his pen name Tite Kubo, was born on June 26, 1977. Kubo-sensei is the son of a town council member in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima, Japan. He's always wanted to be a manga artist, and really got into it when he was interested in architecture and design. At the age of 18 Kubo-sensei submitted his first concept of his first manga series, ZombiePowder. It was rejected multiple times, yet many commented on his talent. Finally, at age 22 ZombiePowder got accepted by Shonen Jump, however it was canceled due to lack of popularity in 2000 with only 4 volumes.

Then in 2001 Kubo-sensei's second series began running in Shonen Jump. This series would soon become one of the most popular series running, and it's ranked number 2 in popularity. Yes that's right it's Bleach! As of October of this year (2011) Bleach has reached over 460 chapters, has an anime adaptation, with four movies, that has been running since 2004 in Japan, several video games, and even a musical in Japan! In 2005 Bleach was named a winner of the Shogukunkan Manga Award for its category. Bleach was first conceived from Kubo-sensei's desire to draw Shinigami (known as Soul Reapers in America), Japanese grim reapers, in Kimono. Kubo-sensei wishes to make Bleach an experience that can only me found by reading, and dismisses all ideas of creating any live action film adaptations of it. He also doesn't want to turn the series into a love story since he thinks there are more exciting aspects concerning the character's personalities. Also his characters use different languages to describe their terms, or abilities, he uses German for his shinigami rival, known as Quincy, and Spanish for the enemy monsters, known as Hollows and Arrancars, he finds Spanish to be bewitching and mellow.
Kubo-Sensei's Short Stories:
Ultra Unholy Hearted Machine (1996)- appears in volume 2 of ZombiePowder
Rune Master Urara (1996)- appears in volume 3 of ZombiePowder
Bad Shield United (1997)- appears in volume 4 of ZombiePowder and makes a cameo in Bleach as a movies "Bad Shield United 2"
In 2008 Kubo-sensei came to the US for the first time as a guest at San Diego Comic Con. His main influences are Saint Seiya by Masami Kuramada because of the characters all wear armor & have interesting weapons and Ge Ge Ge no Kituro by Shigeru Mizuki for the yokai, or monsters. In making battle scenes Kubo-sensei has rock music going while he imagines the fight with an empty background and then tried to find the best angle for it. He also tied to make toe injuries look very realistic in order to make the reader feel the character's pain. If he gets bored drawing a battle scene he throws in a joke or two to make it fun for him. When creating characters, Kubo-sensei first attempts to create the design and later decides on their personality. He considers every character to be unique and wants each to develop along with the plot of the story. To him characters come first over plot. For his characters' clothing he designs clothing that he wold like to have but can't find in stores.

Tite Kubo's 10th anniversary gift to Naruto

Read Bleach
Read ZombiePowder

Art Block Post #7

Konichiwa! Going away from painting media to enjoy some info on one of my favorite Mangaka (Manga artist) Hiro Mashima!

Hiro Mashima was born on May 3.1977 and grew up in Nagano, Japan. For as long as Mashima can remember he wanted to be a manga artist, so his grandfather would find discarded manga for him to read and trace.  His two main insperation manga are Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball and Yudetamago's Ultimate Muscle. Mashima wanted to go to art school after high school to refine his manga drawing skills, but he detested the idea and self taught himself the style instead. He has also never served as an artist's assistant. In 1998 Hiro created a 60 page manga called Magician, which won him the Amateur Manga Artist's competition. Then in 1999 he made his debut with his popular manga Rave Master, which he finished in 2005. Hiro's next big series FairyTail, is a spin-off in a way of Rave Master. His other works include Monster Soul and Monster Hunter Orange. Mashima was the notable guest at the 2008 San Diego Comic Con. Mashima's assistants often refer to him as Superman for his work habits. He is one of the fastest Mangaka in the field. The typical work for a weekly Shonen magazine artist is roughly about 20 pages of completed draft, 20 pages of rough, and maybe a colored page. Mashima's record is 65 completed pages, three of which were colored, within a week! Many Mangakas envy him for this and the fact that he still manages to get in seven hours of sleep a day! A fun trivia fact is that his main characters have been named after the seasons:
Rave Master: Haru= spring
FairyTail: Natsu= summer
Monster Soul: Aki= autumn
Monster Hunter Orange: Shiki= four seasons

Art Block Post #6

Konichiwa! Talking this time about yuumei a well known artist on deviantart. Her real name is Wenquing Yan and she grew up in China. She is an art student at UC Berkeley. Yuumei's specialty is in digital art in an anime style, but he also enjoys traditional medias such as watercolor and sculpture. The main cause of her art is saving and preseving what's left of Earth's wildlife and environment. So she donates a large amount of her profits to a host of wildlife and environment organizations. Her deviantart page:http://yuumei.deviantart.com/

Spring Blossom by `yuumei on deviantART

Let There Be Life: Polar Bears by `yuumei on deviantART

Element Wolves by `yuumei on deviantART

Dragon Koi tattoo commission by `yuumei on deviantART

Art Block Post #5

Konichiwa! This post is about one of my favorite Manga Artist and Writer Hiromu Arakawa! (name in proper japanese: family name first then given name) Arakawa was born on May 8, 1973 and is a female Mangaka (manga artist) from Hokkaido. In her manga series her self portrait is of a cow with glasses this could very well be from the fact that she lived on a farm. At the age of 7 Arakawa was taking oil painting lessons then took off on her own when she was older to become a Mangaka saying that she wouldn't be back to her family's farm until she had made a life out of being a Mangaka! Her style shows how old school she can be with using a mix of ink and paint for her colored pages, manga art, and covers. Arakawa tends to have ink and paint flowing in the white margins of the paper that are normal cropped for the manga magazine publication of her artwork. She started her manga career with a one shot called Stray Dog in 1999 which was her first solo work. Then Arakawa hit it off big in 2001 with her most popular manga series, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi known to many around the world as Fullmetal Alchemist or simply know as FMA to fans! Fullmetal Alchemist won Arakawa the most prestigious award in the manga world, the Annual Shogakuga Manga Award in 2003. FMA also spawned not one but two anime based off of the manga: the first in 2003, with a movie, that did not follow the manga that closely leaving many fans angry & amp; the second anime, known as "Brotherhood", in 2009 which also has a movie attached to it. Next to FMA Arakawa has also worked as the artist for Hero Tales and has a new series call Silver Spoon.
Till next time~ FoxCat ya later (^o^)

Art Block Post #4

Konichiwa my fellow painters. This week's post is about an Eastern Asia ink painter hailing from Japan, Tensho Shubun (1418-1463).

Tensho Shubun was a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk and ink painter of the Maromochi period. Tensho was know for principally for his monochromatic Suibokuga ink painting, modeled after Southern Song Chinese painting. His other duties also included Buddhist iconic painting and sculptures. Tensho's most well known painting is Reading in a Bamboo Grove. He is considered to be the founder of Suibokuga ink painting. Tensho is also well known for the illustration and stylistic distinctive ink landscape painting school. The second painting shown is Landscape of the Four Seasons.

Till next week,
FoxCat ya later (^_^)

Art Block Post #3

Konichiwa! This time I'm talking about two of the most famous portrait paintings in the Huntington gallery: Pinkie and Blue Boy. These two paintings are often paired together in popular esteem, and some visitors often mistake them for contemporary works by the same artist. William Wilson, author of the book of California Museums, calls the pair "the Romeo and Juliet of Rococo portraitures".  

Pinkie is a portrait of Sarah Barrelt Moulton by Thomas Lawrene, 1794. She was one of the last acquisitions of Henry E. Huntington in 1927.

The Blue Boy is the most famous work by Thomas Gainsborough, 1770. He's thought to be a portrait of Jonathan Buttall, but that was never proved. Gainsborough already had something painted on Blue Boy's canvas, which is a fairly large canvas for a portrait being 48 inches wide by 70 inches long. Originally, Blue Boy had a dog beside him in the lower right corner, which was found when the painting was x-rayed. Huntington brought Blue Boy in a public outcry in Britain for $724,800 (182,200 pounds).

These two portraits hang across from each other in the Huntington gallery in the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA.

Till next time, FoxCat ya later (^_^)

Art Block Post #2

Konichiwa! This week's post is about one of my fellow artist on deviantART: known to those on-line as DavidDeb! David Desbois is a freelance artist from Canada, that specializes in TV show & movie related art. He uses a unique technique of watercolor pencil blended with marker. He also uses some other medias like oil paints, which he is classically trained in, and acrylics. David's movies include: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Twilight, Harry Potter, and various Superhero movies; and his TV shows include: Smallville, Heroes, Tudors, and the Stargate series. This is his paget: David's deviantART

Here's some of his pieces:

The Lost World -study by *DavidDeb on deviantART

Death isn't the End by *DavidDeb on deviantART

Love at War -autographed by *DavidDeb on deviantART

Arc of Blood by *DavidDeb on deviantART