Here is a method if you are not the best artist.  We can all trace.

Get some friends together, dress them up and do some good old fashioned rotoscoping.

Dress friends up as your characters and use some good old fashioned cinematography and walla you can have a really cool anime.

It worked for Flowers of Evil

Just imagine the stories you could tell including some really cool slice of life anime.

 

I eat up everything I can to learn from the masters.  Just watching how they work can give you so many clues into how things work and how you can put it into action.

Here is one or a few of my favorite Behind the scenes looks at the making of anime.

 

 

One good way to learn how to create your own animation is to study others.    I am still trying to figure out how this director creates his animation but I kind of have a good idea.  It looks like he is using some cell shading and actual animation on the faces.

I think it is something like this

 

And this

Could you use something like POSER by Smith Micro?  Animate the characters and trace over the characters especially if you do not know how to draw as well.  You can trace?  Better yet…Poser 11 has a great new line tool that Brian Haberlin often uses.  You could do this for a manga or an anime as well.

What do you think?

I have been seeing some pretty great real time rendered CG films.

Check these out! And if you have more please share.

This one is cute!

Both are done in realtime engines saving rendertime.  If you are doing things yourself as a one man team, speed is important.

I know there are a ton of people out there who love anime and have so many stories in their minds ready to be told.     I’m sure the dream is to go to Japan, find a company they can submit to and have their stuff made into anime.

They wish they could make their own but lack the actual talent to do so.  Plus no money.  This concept is also the same if you are trying to make a comic or manga.  It is still a challenge for the person who can’t draw.  So what can you do?

Collab?  Nope folks won’t really collab with you.  I know.  I tried.  So what can you do?

Well you may have to spend some money but maybe not as much as you think.

Brian Haberlin showed a really cool way to make comics.  I posted here earlier about it using Poser.

This is a great way to make a comic/manga without knowing necessarily how to draw.

But what if you don’t want to use the standard Poser characters?  Hire someone to model and rig the characters for you.  Now I know it costs money for this but the cool thing is this.   You can find modelers out there who will work with you.   Start simple and work your way up.

Sketchfab is a great place to find some modelers.

I’m doing a search right now for my newest characters and my current comic.

 

 

I love 2d work very much.  I love it even more when both 3d is used to bring an extra upgrade in quality.  The other day I was checking out Mike Inel’s work.  I found this little video where Mike uses a type of mocap, rotoscoping and then tracing over the 3d work.  I’ll let you check out the process here below.

 

I noticed Otaking using a similiar process.  I think this helps take his 2d to the next level.

 

This should help you in your endeavors especially if you are not the best artist.    You could easily use Poser characters and trace over them in a 2d package.   Daz is free and you could do the same thing.  Go for it.  Make your own anime today.

 

 

 

I really like this method used by these comic book creators.  Poser may seem like a cheat but I’m really wanting to tell stories.   Noticed in this webinar that Brian said he can do about 6 pages per day.   This gives you speed and quality that you would not normally be able to get out of hand drawn work.

You can apply the same principals in this video for Anime or Manga.    I hope you enjoy this awesome Webinar.

 

 

Okay ya’ll.  I’ve talked a lot about creating anime and sharing links to other artists and their styles.  I’ve provided several ideas based on my research.  I have been looking for years on how to create my own animated series and to tell my stories.    I’m in the works for 3 different series.

I will be using the method used in creating Gantz to create what I call “Cinematic Comics”

I’ve dubbed the term. Here officially.  :)

I’m not the first creator of Cinematic comics but that is officially the name I’m giving them.

Currently the 3 I’m working on are in the categories of Zombie, Kaiju, and Furry.

Here is the cover of the first “Cinematic Comic”

It is called “Old Man Samurai.”  I will be sharing more information in the coming weeks.

Old Man Samurai