Where Dreams Begin (Manga)




Mini Intro

I've been drawing manga since the age of 11. I am currently 18 years old, and still love to watch anime, read and draw manga. Yet, I have so much to learn...
I believe that, by starting a webcomic, I might learn many things about manga, and how to satisfy my public through the creation of this wonderful art of sequences.
I also manage websites/forums, learn programming, design games, write stories, create pixel art, among other things.


Detailed Introduction

I should be introducing myself first, right? :)

Well, let's see...

My real name is Jessica, I am 18 years old, go to the university, and live in Puerto Rico. I am a geek, as you'll eventually notice. I got many dreams, and some of them involve acquiring all the knowledge and wisdom I can during my life, and pass it on to others who can then continue doing the same.

But let's go forward and enter the part of my life that should matter to you fellow artists:

Yes, I am just yet another manga artist wannabe. *Laughs* But I am also a writer wannabe, and what I enjoy doing the most is developing and writing stories. Therefore I believe creating a comic is a challenge and a great moment to improve my skills in various areas.

I started drawing manga when I was around 11, inspired by the few series I had a chance to watch without cable television or a computer with internet. I was pretty bad with the details, and had no idea why the nose was drawn like a small triangle in many cases. My skills with human anatomy were pretty bad as well, and they still are when I am sketching.
The first time I attempted to create a comic was around the age of 13. I made a whole chapter and had a lot of fun with it. But it was written in Spanish and again, body proportions sucked. Yet I wad already fairly decent at drawing manga, and my backgrounds weren't at all that bad. I was learning to shade and detail my works.
Later on, when I was about 14-15, I drew yet another comic. This one had a humorous concept, and revolved around my life as a new high school student and my freaky friends, who always made my days easier to bear with, making me laugh a lot. It only lasted one chapter, because I was so extreme at the moment of describing every one of my friends' strangest sides, and one of them felt very offended. (He was 16 and had a strange obsession with the pokémon Charizard... Plus I always thought he was very ugly.)

After those two attempts in drawing a comic, I just forgot about it. In my heart I always hoped that someday I could start my own manga and have actual readers, but never really tried to make it come true... until the past year of 2006, when I discovered how fun webcomics could be. That is when I finally started reading tutorials and practicing my drawing skills, after having a 1-year old artist's block. Let me rephrase this: it is when I finally got truly serious about wanting to improve, after spending about a year doing nothing but be depressed, for reasons I will not explain.

Now, I was also going to start a comic called Ethereal Fantasy during the months of August and September, and this was going to be achieved with the help of SmackJeeves. I had prepared a banner and a layout for the comic's website, but suddenly felt afraid of my skills and went away once more.

Finally, we come to 2007, in the month of June, when I said to myself: "I want to make a comic, and I WILL make a comic. Period. Off to draw!"

And here I am! About to start this, my first serious comic, 'Where Dreams Begin'.