Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Shōjo Manga: Overlap panels and place figures breaking through the frame lines
- Type
- Set in Shōjo Manga's manner (Let hand lettering and monologue run into the white space outside the panels), and let Webtoon (Vertical-Scroll Comics)'s lettering (Dialogue does not have to stay inside the frame, so push it into the blank. Separating narration from speech that way pulls the narrator apart from the character) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Shōjo Manga's material (Make light by layering screentone and cutting out white); bring in exactly one thing from Webtoon (Vertical-Scroll Comics) (Assume full colour throughout and let the background colour of the gaps set the mood of an episode. Pour a repeating image such as rain or a falling body through the blanks until the edge between gap and panel dissolves).
- Colour
- Build on #FFF4F6, #D58BA7, #332934 and admit one accent from #EDE6CA, #354751, #FFFFFF.
Where they fight
These are already listed as related entries, so the join should come easily.
Caution
- Shōjo Manga Borrowing the eyes and the flowers ends in mere signs. The structure of the panels is what carries the emotion.
- Webtoon (Vertical-Scroll Comics) Stacking print page layouts one under another turns the blanks back into meaningless slack and disables the pacing mechanism that sits at the centre of the form.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Shōjo Manga (style, 1950s–) and their accent from Webtoon (Vertical-Scroll Comics) (layout, 2003–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Shōjo Manga exists for: drawing the flow of feeling in space rather than in time, or letting inner monologue share the page with the image. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Shōjo Manga - Figures and panels that cross the frame - Flowers and light streaming through the background - Eyes drawn large and worked in detail - Monologue spilling into the margins Composition: Overlap panels and place figures breaking through the frame lines. Type and lettering: Let hand lettering and monologue run into the white space outside the panels. ## Accent comes from Webtoon (Vertical-Scroll Comics), used sparingly - Panels line up in a single vertical column, with nowhere for the eye to move sideways - The blank between panels runs longer than the panels themselves and holds background colour, falling rain, or dialogue - A single panel roughly eight times taller than it is wide, needing several scrolls before it can be seen whole - Full colour from the outset, drawn to one fixed width matched to the screen Let one material quality come from it: Assume full colour throughout and let the background colour of the gaps set the mood of an episode. Pour a repeating image such as rain or a falling body through the blanks until the edge between gap and panel dissolves. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #FFF4F6, carry the structure in #D58BA7 and #332934, and let a single accent come from #EDE6CA. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: intimacy, exhilaration, play. ## What goes wrong - Shōjo Manga: Borrowing the eyes and the flowers ends in mere signs. The structure of the panels is what carries the emotion. - Webtoon (Vertical-Scroll Comics): Stacking print page layouts one under another turns the blanks back into meaningless slack and disables the pacing mechanism that sits at the centre of the form. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Shōjo Manga 1950s– / Style / Illustration Styles
A field that built its own grammar for translating psychology into space. Panels are broken open, flowers and stars scatter across the background, and the inner voice runs out into the margins. The large eyes and the overlaid panels are devices for drawing the flow of feeling rather than the flow of time.
- Webtoon (Vertical-Scroll Comics) 2003– / Layout / Reading on the Web
A comics layout that grew on Korean portals and runs down a single column. The blank space between panels stops being a mere break and becomes the material, because its length carries elapsed time or a change of scene while it also takes on background colour, falling rain, and even the dialogue lifted out of the frames. Since the reader cannot glance ahead, the act of scrolling becomes the passage of story time.
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