Knowing your grades
The Prize: Everyone who finishes the challenge for their chosen discipline(s) will receive banners to go in their signature. This will announce to the world just how good of a Manga creator you are by displaying your discipline and the grade you have in it. If you complete the challenge for more than one discipline you will get banners for each. Later, when you complete more challenges and improve you will receive new banners to show your new grade.
The theme for this challenge: Totally free. That means you can create any kind of story. If your story is not PG13, please warn about it and use the spoilers tag to cover it (ask a mod or an assistant to help you if you are not sure how to do so).
Read everything below carefully and when you're ready to start PM a moderator. See the 'How do I sign up?' section above.
Once you send the PM you will have 31 days (1 month) to complete the challenge for your chosen disciplines. Your deadline will be PMed to you by the moderators.
*Important* Finishing this challenge on time is part of the grading system. Not finishing the challenge on time means that your grade will be lower for lack of time management.
If you have question please feel free to PM our mods.
Writer's Challenge
We want you to write an introductory overview of an original manga. This is to test your ability to get started on a manga, and produce it in a format that everyone will understand easily, whilst not being too demanding (as it is only the starting point). So here's a summary of exactly what we want from each of you:
- A short synopsis of your manga. This must be no longer than 500 words, but must attempt to get across the basic premise of your story, and the key characters involved. This is not a blurb, just to clarify, it is a summary of your story on the whole. We want an idea of the start, the middle and the end.
- 2 character summaries. One must be the protagonist/main character, though you're free to choose who to use as your second character. We want enough details so that both characters are well rounded and ready to get everything started.
- A page by page summary of the first 5-50 pages of your manga. This is not a script, but more of a write-up of what you want each page to portray. An example would be something like "Page 1 - Introduce the main character through an accident involving her and another student at her school". We expect a minimum of 5 pages detailed, but you're welcome to do up to 50 pages worth (I do not want 50 A4 pages of summaries, I want summaries of 50 manga pages as a maximum).
Please note we will not accept fanfictions for this challenge as we want to test your ability to come up with your own world, characters and story.
This is what we feel is the basic requirement to get started with a manga, and a great way to get an idea of what level you're all at.
Colourist Challenge
For this challenge we would like to see your potential at colouring your own lineart manga/comic panel. The grading will be focusing on the colouring of the panel rather than the drawing itself. So, here is a list of things that I would like you to do and include. (Note: This is for the colouring.)
- Find pre-drawn lineart from a manga/comic panel. I would like 3 pages as we do have a month for this to be completed within.
- Colour the panels to how you think they should be coloured.
Grading will be based on how well the image is coloured and how well it is executed in it's digitized format. Regardless of the style in which you colour/paint your panels, you will be graded on the following:
- Lighting and shadows. Whether your style is realistic, comic book or anime the principle of lighting and shadows are still the same.
- Keeping within the lines. Seeing colour out of the lines is sloppy and lazy. You will be graded down if you do not tidy up anything outside lines. (Granted of course that your panel even has 'lines' or if it is more 'organic'.
- Colours used. Colours are very important and they are often used as a way to keep a reader engaged.
- Backgrounds. Often there are white, empty spaces in manga but there is always something going on whether it be lines or some sort of texture or colour (in comics) to add effect and interest to the page. I am looking for interesting backgrounds to accompany the characters.
You do not have to include speech bubbles but if they are already present in the pre-drawn panel then that is fine.
Digital Artist Challenge
For this challenge we would like to see your potential at drawing and colouring your own lineart manga/comic panel. The grading will be split between the colouring of the panel and the drawing itself. So, here is a list of things that I would like you to do and include.
- Draw 2 pages of manga/comic panels.
- Colour the panels to how you think they should be coloured.
Grading will be based on how well the image is coloured and how well it is executed in it's digitized format. Regardless of the style in which you colour/paint your panels, you will be graded on the following:
- Lighting and shadows. Whether your style is realistic, comic book or anime the principle of lighting and shadows are still the same.
- Keeping within the lines. Seeing colour out of the lines is sloppy and lazy. You will be graded down if you do not tidy up anything outside lines. (Granted of course that your panel even has 'lines' or if it is more 'organic'.
- Colours used. Colours are very important and they are often used as a way to keep a reader engaged.
- Backgrounds. Often there are white, empty spaces in manga but there is always something going on whether it be lines or some sort of texture or colour (in comics) to add effect and interest to the page. I am looking for interesting backgrounds to accompany the characters.
You do not have to include speech bubbles but if they are already present in the pre-drawn panel then that is fine.
Traditional Artist Challenge
For our artist we want to see your current level with line arts, anatomy, composition, paneling and space management. You donīt have to worry for coloring or shading (unless you want to do so to keep your artwork more visually appealing, etc. Just keep in mind that we wonīt be grading those details here).
Here is what you have to do for this challenge:
-You will draw a minimum of 3 manga pages (that is less than 1 page per week so you have plenty of time). You can use your own story or to ask permission to any of our writers in Manga Forge to draw their stories. If you are not sure who to ask, contact our mods and they will find a good story for you to use as soon as possible.
-Aspects to be graded:
-Anatomy: no, you are not supposed to draw a hand perfectly, but as neat as possible. Depending on your level we expect to see good knowledge of basic anatomy, posing, clothes design (at least to make clothes look as clothes and not as paper bags )
-Linearts: we expect to see you use different levels of line thickness, this is used to emphasize shadows or delicate details in your designs.
-Composition and space: How good you represent in your drawings the different elements for every scene. And artist needs to learn and understand how to create a determined mood or feeling in their panels. Also how to avoid unecessary blank spaces in your compositions or to avoid a panel to look too saturated.
-Paneling: This are very important in manga creation. We want to see how good you manage the design of your panels for the different type of scenes. It is not the same a panel for a key scene than a panel for those that are secondary.
