4 posts tagged “240z”
Well, my copies of Japanese Nostalgic Car have yet to arrive, but a friend not far from me received his copy yesterday, so he lent it to me to facilitate some drooling. I promised not to get it on his copy.
Man, what to say. So damn stoked. I was hoping the cover would be of a heavier stock, but otherwise I'm rapt. There are mistakes here and there throughout the mag, and one pretty big kerning cockup on the cover, but I've taken all of those things on board and I know they won't happen again. All in all, I think it's not bad for a first ever effort.
Here's some choice photos.
15,000 copies. Glossy pages throughout. 83 pages. All designed by me. Bring on issue 2!
Oh man.
As anyone on my facebook knows, I've been working hard for the past few months on the design for the first issue of the upcoming US publication, Japanese Nostalgic Car. It's the first US (or possibly anywhere in the west?) magazine to focus 100% on classic Japanese cars.
Here's a bit of a preview of what's to come. It's an 83 page magazine, professionally printed, perfect bound, and on good solid stock with card covers front and back (not unlike Freestyle magazine's covers). I'd tell you exactly what weight the card and paper is, but it's measured in some stupid US scale rather than in gsm, haha. Sorry! Suffice to say, it's all damn nice.
I hope those of you interested in classic JDM will consider buying a copy from http://japanesenostalgiccar.com!
Unfortunately it's not being distributed through stores - that kind of thing is damn hard and expensive to line up.
Learning and experimenting with markers. I really should use more appropriate stock; tracing paper may be good for setting up the drawing, but it's not much use for colouring on! It's got no bleed/absorption, so the marker ink just sits on the surface. If I try to do any shading, it just creates a pool of ink - even if I wait for it to dry! I have a solution in mind though, and I shall reveal it later. It involves the misappropriation of employer supplies. XD
Alright, the comic now has a name! I was aiming for something that embodied the silly, almost Engrish-like qualities of most Japanese manga titles - Initial D, Wangan Midnight, and Over Rev! being the standout examples in the world of car-related manga! Alas, I couldn't come up with anything, so I put it to the gang over at the JDMStyleTuning.com forums - my online home away from home. You'd think my online home would be some sort of art-related community, right? Ah well, my first love has always been things wot go fast, hehe.
After a lot of misfires from most folks, one of the members came up with Endless Spirit: Final Evolution Z. I just can't put into words how perfect that is! It means almost absolutely nothing deliberately, but at the same time it could mean absolutely anything I want to. That's perfect Engrish. I've put together a bit of an early concept for a logo, and it follows in the path of the Wangan Midnight and Initial D logos. As you can see, I am unashamedly ripping off every car manga I can think of!
The next sketch is the bad guy, with one of his slags clinging to him. I haven't got a name for him yet, and he's not technically a "bad" guy. You see, Alex and he were racing one night about 5 years back - before Alex got the Demon Z - and the bad guy had his younger sister in the passenger seat of his car. Something happened to Alex's car, causing him to collide with the bad guy's car. The bad guy's car went careening into a power pole after a couple of spins, and his sister wound up dead. The bad guy has sworn vengeance, and in the 5 years since that night, he's become quite the rough nut.
Anyway, that's the idea at this point.
So these two sketches will be combined into one piece, with the comic's logo mixed in somewhere too.
I hope y'all dig it!
Both of the above sketches, as per usual, are from photo reference. I can't take credit for the poses, only for the faces and the general cartoony style.
