Lunching with Dor

Got Dor out for lunch at NYP today, another of our little catching up after months. It's our usual place to hang out for some cheap food and chat and sketching (missed the food there actually...). Seems like she's waiting for the scholarship application to open, her plans of going to Kyoto to study and draw her own manga; a five years thing. Meanwhile, she's working on freelance work for some money and get by the time.

Somehow, I didn't feel very comfortable about the entire idea, kind of like a dream surrounded with many 'what ifs?'. We chatted long, get into depressed mode with the reality checks, jumped back to the mangaka talks, jump back to depression and again and again. It's like... the previous meet we had in nyp months ago, we were chatting the same stuff, and now, we're still standing in the same place as we had talked about the last time. One thing for sure, is that she is still hoping to fulfill her dream of drawing comics. She hopes to get to a uni in Japan and know how manga is done, and draw her own comics and publishing them.

I told her about the people in school, a few of them had already taken their first step to being a comic artist. One preparing her doujin for convention, Beryl is well on her way to publish her own comic, Shawn has already been there done that, is on mobTV and well working on his next. All have similar goals as her, but I wonder why is she still stuck at dreaming? Could it have been she was thinking too much, or she rot too much at home, or just some bad experiences with the art industry that she just don't dare to make the first move in the local comic scene? True enough that probably Singapore isn't the best place to cultivate all these manga stuff, but dunno, I just felt that she's not making a move to be heard totally. Thought the comic competition might help in gaining some connections, seeing how my fellow ntu friend is doing, but it just went by despite her knowing it. Somehow, I wonder if I was pretty de-motivating saying 'we have nothing'... not a single comic or book published, no background, and to think of gathering some fame in a place that is already saturated with manga artists and all, it's just... still a dream (accounts, oh accounts.... what have you done...).

Anyways, jumping away from this depressing topic, we thought maybe this year's EOY, we might give it a miss. I thought it would be good for her too, maybe just rest this once and check out what others are doing. Somehow, I wonder should we start thinking about doing doujin first? Just a couple of pages, for the fun of it. I'd better start thinking about the 'Flower' calender there... having settled the style I want. Hopefully, we might go for SOY. Haha, one question that kinda hit me from her, why did people buy such stuff? Somehow, if one wants to be critical, there are several good artists whose stuff just doesn't sell, yet there are half-hearted pieces that are just selling so fast that one wonders what so good about it? Audience and trend, I guess... but it came to a point where I asked myself if I'm killing too much trees... Lol?

That's about the important stuff we talked about... the usual 'show your artworks!' session there, and we say what we feel about them. I kind of just shoot what I thought and saw, no good no bad, just what is consistent in the works. Guess the art history classes kind of helped? Haha. I wonder why Wendy would say that she has no color sense back at scrawls? Pretty harsh, and doesn't fit very well for her case... or am I too lenient...? Coming to my own stuff, it feels like it's all pretty experimental. I realised I had an easily bored mind these times, needing something new in terms of style or techniques in my works to keep me going. Is that why I shun digital... or just too 'in my comfort zone'? One thing for sure, they aren't for portfolio....................... oh shit.

Looking at her thinking too much kind of reminds me of myself... What ifs and what ifs. Thinking of step 4 when I'm not even at step 1 yet. Probably the chat became a slap in the face for both of us as I began to wonder why did I stop thinking about becoming a mangaka. Was it the SPH thing that i realised manga isn't really what I thought of? I'm empty when it comes to stories... the thought of collaborations crossed my mind. Shawn wanted to rope me into his group of colorists for his upcoming book, but I had been wondering if I was up to the job. Think after this chat, maybe I just check out what he's up to...