It started with me buying Ghost In The Shell on DVD just to see what Anime & Manga was all about. Impressed by the very well made movie, but not that impressed with the story, I continued looking around and stumbled over Neon Genesis Evangelion. That one's well made & has a very good story. My latest favourite however - all categories - is Battle Angel Alita. Girls with guns - say no more. The have a certain allure that I cannot resist :) After I saw the anime I went out and aquired all the graphic manga novels.
While surfing the 'net in search for some good sites about Evangelion I stumbled over Solace and her Manga tutorials. They are simply great if you're interested, and the idea occured to me - why not?
Equipment
Basically the same as I use for sketches for pencil work. Additional things are a pair of pens i picked up at my local art supply store, it happens to be a pair of Pigma Micron pens from Sakura. I also have a couple of Letraset TRIA markers in different grey colours for shading work. One important thing to look out for if you decide to use markers for shading is that the pens must be water proof when dry! Otherwise your carefully drawn outline will smear when you apply the shading.
What can I say - I think we all start here don't we? Don't remember when I started drawing, but I have early memories of me & my father drawing astronauts & spaceships on big engineering-style papers. :)
Equipment
Nothing especially fancy here - a set of pencils of different hardnesses. More or less anything will do, I use Derwent Graphic and Staedtler pencils ranging from 8B to H. You don't need all the ones in betwen, and I would recommend, say 3 or 4 pencils in the B range and one 0.5mm mechanical pencil with HB leads for groundwork. I also have a few 'paper pencils' who goes by the name Stompfs hereabout, but I have no idea of what they might be called where you live. Anyway, it's a cylindrical, pen shaped piece of tightly rolled paper used to smudge lines and to get even, smoothly shaded surfaces.
The paper I use is a pad of F6 sized 140g/m2 woodfree papers from Dekorima for better drawings such as airbrush originals, but otherwise I use whatever I get my hands on - usually regular printer paper.
I don't remember what made me by my first airbrush actually - I think I was just intrigued by the little thing and wondered how you used it. It was long ago anyway - I'm not sure, but it was back in the late 80's.
I can tell you a secret: The airbrush is a demanding lover. It takes a lot of time and patience to master it, but I'm now pretty confident with it as a tool. It was a long time ago I made an 'brush-only' painting - the results when using the airbrush is just too damn good!
Equipment
I use Windsor & Newton acrylic colors on Schoellershammer 220g/m2 extra rough / acid free papers in two sizes:
The rationale behind my choises are not as rational as I would have liked it to be. :) I started out with acrylics from the beginning by acquiring a Windsor & Newton Acrylic color starter set, one of those with
The reason behing my choise of Schoellershammer is a little better :) - I needed large sized paper and they were on sale at my favourite art supply store. I really liked them and have just kept using them since then, from having used all kinds of papers. The nightmare of them all was the Giverny 240g/m2 acid free paper from Carson - might be a very good paper for brush-painting, but is a pure nightmare for airbrush. It is glossy and smooth and absorbs absolutely nothing. I thought that those properties would be good, but nope - at least not for me.
By the way, some time ago I saw an interview with Luis Royo that he uses Schoellershammer as well, so they must be good ;).
As for hardcore technical thingies, I use a Badger and a Paasche airbrush, the Badger being my current workhorse. The air is supplied by a Silentaire compressor, a blessing compared to my old noisy Werther One.
Computer Generated Images. The airbrush gives you good results, but 3D CGI gives you fantastic ones - with a lot of efforts! But it has one wonderful feature: the UNDO function. Ain't many of those in airbrushing... My latest acquintance in the world of art, and a good match too - I'm somewhat of a computer nerd, and it helps I can tell you. I have tried a lot of different 3D software throughout the years, and over the last couple of years I have begun really trying to do something good out of it. Practice makes perfect - as always, there are just three ways to get better at these things; through practice, practice and practice.
Equipment
Not much to say here, I have worked mostly in Kinetix 3D Studio Max for the 3D modeling and Adobe Phostoshop for all 2D work. I have also tried MetaCreations Poser for humans, it's fast but in my opinion you get no good control over the geometry. So I much rather whip toghether a figure in 3D Studio MAX and be in total control over joint bending and such. And besides - I'm more proud over a figure I've done myself than one made from a tweaked template.
Lately I have aquired quite a few hours in Alias|Wavefront Maya. Quite a cool program to say the least, and I can see why the movie industry has picked up this one as their baby.
I use no other fancy external gear like digitizers and such, just an ol' Primax flatbed scanner.