“Looking to hire artist for my manga!” - DISCUSSION

In fact it's quite rare to come across an artist who is in need of a writer in webcomic world because the art tends to speak for itself, even if you are bad at writing, you can still manage some dialog here and there. But I have seen quite a handful of artist seeking for collaboration on this forum and other forums I've ventured to. Some people are not the best at writing, and writing can really make a different in comic, so to have a good writer help you out would be very ideally!

It's actually not "write a story to tell me to draw" but more like here I have an idea but I'm not the best at writing, can you help me write out the scenario, dialog and I will handle the drawing part!

That would make more sense. That's actually how TV shows work. For example, Adventure Time and Steven Universe have singular creators - people who had the idea for the world and the characters in the first place, but there are dozens of writers who write the individual episodes. "I have an idea, but I'm fuzzy on some of the specifics, come help and someone will pay all of us" is more reasonable than one person going up to another and saying "I'll do one part of this and you do the other and you might be paid"

ah you see exposure is the timeless excuse to not pay properly an artist! do people think artist are afraid of making money?
I love me some money I get excited to get some!

I wish money tree existed!

I suppose it comes from not being a professional, but if a writter ever wanted to do do a collaboration with me, I'd like for it to be because they loved the art style. It would take me a lot to collaborate with someone I didn't trust, and I'd never want to create a story with someone unless I had a crush on their writting style. And yes, even if it's just illustrating a script, I still believe the artist co-createst the story, as much as a directors and actors co-create a film. A good writter/artist relationship is the secret to a great comic, and the reason why Iike webcomics so much (they are often the same person!) while printed, 'official' comics, sometimes feel flat and artificial.

I have a friend who is a manga artist. If you think his art is good, privately message him so he knows he's got the gig.
His art here19

Me? Err... probably not...

Mornin' spudfuzz,

I thought maybe I could provide some perspective from "the other side". I reached out for a manga artist about two years ago. I had real money, a real script, and a real idea. I did reach out on DeviantArt. I was attacked with many artists furious that they had to provide a free "sample sketch". I ended up paying almost 20 artists nearly $50-$100 for their samples, and every one of them could not do what we needed (it wasn't even close, and now a lot of them continue to email and badger me for more work.) I think most of them couldn't believe that we were talking about a 5 year, multi-page per week project. Eventually, I did find an artist. The first few months went pretty good, everything was paid for (very fairly) and the pages were late most of the time - but I could deal with that.

But then, 6 months in, he got burnt out, was very late, and we had to call it quits. After I spent nearly $1000 on his work (0 of which we use now). He's still a great guy, don't get me wrong - and he works on side projects for us now, things like promotional works, etc - stuff without a deadline.

So back to the drawing board, back to DeviantArt, back to asking (and getting attacked again). Found another artist. He was a really good communicator, but he was even more expensive, and his talent wasn't where I needed it to be. So after one page, he sputtered out as well.

Finally, we found our guy. He was very excited to do the project full time, and is more than happy to take our money. He had to re-draw the first 10 pages which took a long time, but it gave him a lot of good practice. We're about 10% done with the first season, and 2% done with the entire project, but he's doing a good job. However, I know that if he were to ever quit on us, we'd be out several more thousand dollars, and I would not try again.

I've since asked other artists for samples, asked for fanart, anything in the hopes that we could pay more artists for more help, but nobody steps forward.4 I do not know why this is. Reach out to me if you want to get paid for your work, because we are to the point where we are about to pay people for fanart with no previous samples. I'd love to talk about your struggles with this.

Thanks,

The Lunch Tiiime8 team

DA is not... a very professional page for any long term commitment I have to say. I think deadlines and all that jazz are also part of the reason I rather work solo on thing than find someone else to work with. I like working on thing on my own pace, I don't like it when people rush me, or there is a deadline hovering above my head I know it's gonna take a lot more work and effort for me to work alone on stuff, but at the end of the day I can feel proud and say, "Yes, I did all of this work by myself." Plus, I'm at no risk of anyone quitting on me.

I'm glad you were able to find someone to work with though and hope you guys can stick to each other till the end!

I think the main problem is that in the topic and the doc, you were asking for fanart for free with the promise of little promotion here and there? No where in them says that it's a pay job. You can try to commission people on DA to draw fanart for you, or catch another talented artist on this forum that has free time to spare to request a drawing. It's just that people on this forum are mostly creators themselves, and it can be hard for them to find some spare time out of their busy schedule to draw something else for free for someone unless they really love the series.

Fair point - I don't know any place better than DA. Business is deadlines, I don't know what else to say to that... I have to write it (and as I've read on this forum, have it totally complete) before some artists would even consider me. You are absolutely right about everyone here being a creator, that's true. I just figured a few were looking to practice, and get some exposure. Silly me...

Regarding your second point - as I have said, I have spent nearly $1000 on "fan/promotional art" - black and white sketches, and most of it is nowhere near the quality of the artists' prospective portfolios. Every page of Lunch Tiiime is a paid work by a very talented artist, who was happy to give us a free sketch or two to show his interest. He loves his job dearly and we pay him well. Don't you think that was worth it for him, for a few minutes of his time? He certainly thinks so. Many, many artists reached out to us with demands. He reached out to us with a sample of our characters he did for fun. He's been gainfully employed by us since. Maybe his talent was so high, he was very confident. I'm not sure.

I just don't see what the big deal with a 5 minute sketch is - and I'm an artist myself. I should probably mention that - I'm not some big fat cat sitting on a mountain of money. I work my butt off making my own style of art to supply my Patrons with what they want, and almost all of it is turned around to support other artists (primarily manga artists.)

There are talented artists on here that takes freebie just for the fun of it. You can catch them before their slot filled out if you have good timing

Where are you looking for these commissioned art? I don't commission much, but if I spend the money for a specific set of art from an artist, and the art does not meet the artist's usual standard, I will be sure to talk to them about that and not just let it slides. I were once pretty active on DA, so I have a list of trusthworthy artist that I usually commission.

A 5 minutes sketch to me is a half-hearted sketch. I don't spend 5 minutes on my sketch, it usually takes me 15-30 minutes for a sketch, and those are the characters I'm already familiar with. I'm not sure about other artists though. If you are talking about fanart from people, I can only say you keep doing you, if people like your work, fanart will come naturally, you can't just make/or expect people to take out the time in their schedule to make you a piece of art, even if it's only for 5 minutes, imho.

I.e: This is something I received recently, out of someone that I didn't even know, purely because I somehow inspired them. And it means a lot to me.
1

Artists are really underestimated and exploited for some reason. I have worked as both a freelance artist and a freelance programmer; and while looking on sites for jobs, I've found somewhere near half of the listers looking for artists will offer "percentage of possible profit," or "pay later" as their "compensation." Programming jobs almost ALWAYS offer up front pay; even though an experienced coder may finish something very quickly, whereas an experienced artist may still take a very long time working on their individual piece for a client.

I normally don't bother with wanting pay when doing a commission because I to be honest can't do much with a couple hundreds, I just stick to a normal job for pay.

Wauw. Really? I'm starting to think "animeatru" is a bot or something. This is a freaking discussion, not a freaking job offer – sorry.

Anyways. It's true that artists feel annoyed by writers constantly bombarding them with unpaid requests to draw their manga. And I'm sorry, I'm one of those writers! I've read many writers' work, and honestly they can't all be the new Dan Brown. Again, very hypocritical of me to say, everyone thinks they're the best, right? XD

… Ok, I've actually read some good stories out there, too …

But here's the thing. When I sent my question out there, it wasn't to insult any of you incredibly gifted artists out there. Of course it takes a huge amount of effort for an artist to come up with what they do, and I respect you all for being just so amazing at what you do, and for keeping up your spirits to continue with what you do. The reason we writers ask for artists is exactly that; it's too big an effort for us to even try, and so we seek experts to partner with.

I was once an artist myself, I once had the spirit and everything to keep me going. But I felt I was a gag artist. I never thought good of my work even though the friend I drew these comic characters for loved my art. I mean, sure, my art was of a good enough quality that I could call myself an artist, I had nice proportions, I thought in 3D, made a mistake once and accidentally discovered an awesome way of doing shading… but because I was the one drawing, I also knew exactly where I lacked of my discipline to go all out with every detail of the character. There would be areas I'd do just quickly, or try to hide behind something else because I couldn't be bothered.

Eventually, I started watching anime and reading manga, shortly after I stopped drawing. I fell in love with this new style I had discovered, and after studying these Japanese stories and art styles on a deeper level, I contacted my old schoolmate from 10 years back and asked if he still drew manga – oh, yes he did! He told me to watch Bakuman, and suddenly I had found a new spirit, the same spirit that let me to the discovery of Tapastic. I wanted to become a mangaka with my artist friend! We were like Mashiro and Takagi. I wrote the story (taking his inputs), he did the (concept) art (as of how far we actually got with the project). He was so ready to create something for a contest. And, being completely honest, not to insult any of you talented artists in this topic, he had the art style of a potential contest winner. I haven't seen any art style like his, and that's also why it's so sad he lost his spirit after something happened on his path in life.

As for my writing at the time, this was just half a year ago, it wasn't exactly a winner story, looking back. I personally think I'm good at evaluating myself, and I do see a whole bunch of flaws in just my recent work. But not being a total self-hater here, I do believe I've moved a lot in just the last couple of months. I've learned to push myself and step out of my comfort zone, actually writing something successful and with a deeper meaning behind all the entertaining layers. And I am confident that I can win a contest with one of my stories, given the right amount of effort and soul into the creative process. But of course, my art discipline has never been high, thus my art experience stays with just drawing Disney-style cartoon dragons for my friend, and drawing complex hand poses when I'm bored. Yeah. So I do need to somehow pop the question somewhere, if I really do plan on submitting one of my stories to Shueisha's amateur manga contest and win a place in the Shonen Jump magazines.

Adding to the discussion:

• What do you artists suggest I do in order to show up with a finished manga to a Japanese editor? Don't worry about the distance, I'm European and moving to Japan soon anyways. Do I just wait till an artist falls from the skies into my lap? Or do I take action towards accomplishing my goal, seeking an artist somewhere?

• And if not amongst professional artists like on Tapastic or DeviantArt, where then? Meeting artists in real life is an option, however not that easy after my experience. But I'm open for any advice.

• As I'm not really suited for making "small" projects only designed for showcasing my abilities as a writer – how would I go about attracting an artist's attention, and potentially start my manga career? Do I write a full comic script beforehand? Because some artists prefer being involved in the creative process of making a story, especially if it's for a contest.

I mean, judging by your other thread, you seem pretty knowledgeable on what you need to do to accomplish your goals. Unlike some writers that expect the artist to do everything and bend to their every whim, you clearly want to at least pitch a hand in some of the 'grunt' work like inking, lettering, etc. Unfortunately, I'm not too familiar with the publishing process in Japan and whether or not it differs than how publishers pick up comics in the US. If you take action, at least it shows you care about your story

The thing with asking people on Tapastic is, as you can guess, most of us already have our own projects we want to work on. Manga is quite obviously an intense industry with very little free time, so not a lot of people on the forums would be willing to drop their own personal projects in order to grind away in an industry where the negatives usually outweigh the positives.

There's lots of places on the internet where artists gather! As annoying as it sounds, you just gotta keep digging until you find the one person who'd be willing to work with you (or has a common goal, such as winning a place in shonen jump!)

You can always just make sure you know where you want the story to end or how you want it to end! As well as have certain things you want to hit within the story. Basically, the more you know about how you want the story to progress, the better chances you might have for convincing someone to join your team. I know personally, as an artist, I'd get frustrated if someone pitched me a story that piqued my interest but when i ask more about it I either get a vague answer or an "I dont know :)"

Especially for long form comics, you need to know at least roughly how you want it to end so the journey there can be relatively smooth. Otherwise it's just wasted effort for example if you draw a scene but the writer is just like "actually, I don't think this scene would be very fitting"

There's always room for adjustment in a story, you never know if the person you're collaborating with will have a better idea on how a scene can play out! You just have to be willing to make changes and not have an iron grip on the story, since that can drive off potential artists.

Thank you, and not to be kidding, I'd even help on drawing the hand poses if necessary!

I'll keep digging for an artist with a common goal. And true, manga is a tough business. I think that is why some people in the beginning thought I didn't know what I was getting in to, but I certainly do. Thanks for understanding!

I'm slowly becoming more open to letting my ideas out on the internet, judging by how many other writers who does the very same thing. I'm thinking of uploading my story setting, plot/progression and ending to my DeviantArt galley, that way I can refer artists to that and see if they're as hooked on the idea as myself. However, it would contain the highest amount of spoilers, so SPOILER ALERT GUYS, haha.

My old partner and I never got to draw the first scene as we spend months on figuring out the general plot first. Even when I wrote the first chapter in text, it still wasn't interesting enough for the reader, so we stayed at the level of drawing concept art. Now my story finally is taking shape.

But generally, thank you for an awesome read and some constructive feedback that I could use. Free hug to you!

I am a writer first and an artist second and when I first started out I hired artists and paid them as much as I could which at this moment is only 45$ a page. I never had any grand idea of being super popular but I did have a dream of leaving my mark on the world. As I learned more and more about what I takes to be a creator and how much time and money is spent I narrowed my goals more and started taking things more serious. I want to eventually have my series pay for itself in the future and to do that I have to build an audience that will support it finacially. Which is why I started looking at courses that would help me buisness wise and I found an amazing course called The Comix Launch Course.

Once I learned what it took to make this a reality I got a little disheartened because its a lot of learning and a lot of staying in contact with the audience through email which I was horrible at in the begining and using google analytics with everything I do. which I still have no clue how to use. Mainly cause I have not gotten to that part in the course.

I also learned that no matter what if I want to make this more cost effective I need to learn to draw on my own. I have been teaching myself for a year now and have some great art teachers to give me tips. I want to one day be able to draw my own comics. But until then I will continue to work with great artists to continue producing comics that I cannot produce on my own.

I see a lot of people that hate the writers who have these grandios ideas of what they want to do and acomplish and what they expect from artists but honestly I see why they think that way. Especially when they are new. They see the finished product and go "That's easy I wanna do that." everyone has ideas and passion to make a story come to life but not everyone has the grit or the steel to really take it serious. Hell in my 3 years of doing this I thought I was taking it serious. I was absorbing as much knowledge as I could on the subject and working on my writing to meet the standards of the artists I was working with but it seemed like I was throwing money at something that would not have any returns because the harder I worked the more I realized that I knew nothing and that to be great I would have to really work hard at learning even more than I do now.

Being someone with an vision is hard especially when you start with no understanding of anything. I am still learning to write properly because I ignored most of my middleschool and highschool english classes. When I started 3 years ago I barely knew how to use puncuation and I constantly ignored contractions. if you see even now when I type normally I make a lot of errors. I always respected art though but I never thought I would be spending a ton of money on it now.

I was very stubborn and self consious and very paranoid that my ideas would be stolen if I did not copywrite them imediately. All rookie things to worry about but it was a real fear for me when I started. Later in life I realized that all ideas have been created in one way or another and that even if an idea is stolen the execution will always be different.

I know a few writers and even artists that want to get free help from other artists or writers with the bright eyed idea of making it big one day and yea its completely naieve but its a start to something that might be better with time.

When I see a writer that wants to get free help I roll my eyes a little but I also think man that use to be me. Before I knew how much of a meme exposure and free help was. I was spouting the same thing when looking for artists I did not realize how bad it really was until later. I now always pay artists when they do projects for me unless they tell me I don't have to. But I figure a paid artist will stick around longer than a non paid artist who could miss an opportunity for some real income.

I get that its funny to make fun of writers who ask for free help or say they will pay in exposure and yea there are bunch of writers who do it on pourpose for some free art but there are also a lot of new writers who don't understand that its usually not okay to ask artists to work on projects for free.

instead of shaming them or making fun of them we should try to inform them politely about why they might want to look at hiring someone instead of asking for free help. Or even give them tips on what they could do to pay artists back for their time if they can't do it monetary maybe they could do something else. Kind of like an art trade but from writers.

I am going on a rant now and I understand people will tell me "Well we mean buttheads who do it on pourpose or are rude when they are shot down." I get it I really do but egos are tough to get over and new creators and even some old creators including myself have a hard time with that sometimes.

anyways there is my two cents. o.o