One of Kalwa’s first color illustrations in her swimsuit. Honest answer, when I initially designed her swimsuit in chapter one I was kinda going more for tone, I didn’t really think about the full on color. I think I initially thought of it as blue, but that didn’t really show off her outgoing personality. So I went with magenta to keep in line with the dark color seen in the original toned chapter.
So I said a while ago I’d be looking into doing a studio tour. I guess I’ll start here. So my general studio is basically a single large room of which I have books and entertainment around the room.
Today I’ll be showing off the anime side of the entertainment which you can see right here. Of course Kalwa and a lot of my work is anime inspired so I try to keep anime playing on the Blu Ray Player whenever I work. This isn’t everything anime I own. It used to be until more series started getting added. This shelf you see here is actually becoming anime SERIES while movies are being added to the regular Blu-Ray and dvd shelves. What ones remain are only to fill out space until more stuff comes out.
So my collection is arranged by two patterns , dvd to blu-ray and oldest anime to newest (or at least most nostalgic.) Dragon Ball is of course a favorite that everyone has probably watched, I own essentially the entire Dragon Ball series except for the new Super series which I’m not all that interested in unless it gets like a super pack similar to what you see below. Unlike probably everyone else in this world, I actually like the original Dragon Ball series over Z as I feel it’s more creative and has much better storytelling, though I confess Z has better characters and fights. Ruroni Kenshin is brand new to the collection, I initially watched it as a kid at a friends house and am growing quite fond of it. It’s also giving me some great story feeds for the upcoming Japanese arch!
Full Metal Alchemist was the first anime I seriously collected as a kid, in fact volume 9 was how I spent my first ever paycheck. Despite the fact that these individual volumes take up more room than a more compressed pack, I can’t get rid of them as I am emotionally invested in them, plus they come with awesome booklets with exclusive art and character profiles. Brotherhood was just picked up and I’m still working on getting through it. I didn’t really like the first 13 episodes because they were just a rushed and more poorly executed repeat of the first series, however I’m getting a bit more on board as it starts to go it’s own path. Digimon is my personal favorite anime from a nostalgic point of view, with season 1 and 3 being my favorites. I kinda regret not getting season 6 and not forming a real opinion.
Finally we come to the blu ray section which is where most of the all time favorites reside. If I like the anime enough I always like to get it on Blu-Ray. Mostly recently I’ve added the first half of Dr. Stone which is objectively my favorite anime without the use of nostalgia. I’ve already ordered the second half and eagerly await it this December. Soul Eater, Outlaw Star and Death Note and One Punch Man (season 1) all rank within my top 5 as well. So I hope this little tour has given you a little insider of what’s going on in the studio while making these comics.
A page back from chapter 8 featuring a bit of Bridgette’s history. I do intend to further explore this scene in the future. The flashback versions of Rachel and Bridgette were actually made on the spot without any prior design. I actually really like Bridgettes design without the hat, and a little more emotion in her face.
So I decided it was time to show off my “cell phone collection” and give you a little more of a behind the scenes look. Now before anyone points fingers I am not a phone collector, however I find them rather difficult to draw with all their buttons and tilted ends. So early in the comic I realized that I needed some reference, and since my family had a bunch of old phones just lying around I decided to use them and I’ve sorta gotten myself a collection right now. The phone Kalwa uses is actually based off the red phone in the middle, though I actually use the silver phone in the bottom left as reference for thickness and color. I actually just got the phone in the bottom right today after saving it from recycling, so maybe I’ll work that phone into another character in the near future.
The young Kalwa comic strip has finally returned after a long break. For those who aren’t familiar, these are NON-CANON gag strips featuring Kalwa from her youth, and it’s essentially an alternative timeline where she found the phone when she was just a kid and it’s completely free of any of rules and boundaries established in the main story. Initially these comics were produced whenever a chapter finished on Webtoons and we needed to fit the time. However I kinda stopped doing them after I kinda ran out of ideas. However this October actually gave me some more inspiration, so I finally got a new comic out. These won’t be regular releases, just when I get a few ideas. There are a few more from webtoons that I’m looking to make a section on this website for. But in the meantime, enjoy this special Halloween mini comic of young Kalwa.
So yes, it’s been a little while, since we had something new here on the website. But I am proud to present after quite a while of work, this large bathhouse illustration. I got the inspiration to work on this after watching the Naruto Bathhouse episode, which was actually a prelude to Road to Ninja. I kinda had the idea to do a large scale illustration that featured numerous Kalwa characters in a bathhouse, similar to the large pinups that you see in Shonen magazines. You could kinda consider this a tribute to how far this comic has come. There’s some more stuff coming in the near future so stick around everyone for what’s ahead.
An old call back to some of the fairly early days of Kalwa around this time if the year!!!
It’s been a bit busy for me these last few days, but I’m getting back to work on illustration work. I’m still working on writing for the next chapter, but I’m also working on big illustration projects like this one. Sometimes illustration is enough to launch creative juices in the brain.
Kalwa fights David. This was kinda a breakthrough page, it’s was supposed to have more panels signaling out the actions individually. But I got some feedback saying to use less panels to make the page and visual narration flow better (as well as save some drawing energy), this resulting in what you see today!
An adventurous manga series about a teenage girl and her time traveling cell phone 