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In 2002 Gez Fry decided, that he wants to make a living out of Japanese style illustration - without being experienced in drawing. Locking himself up in his bedroom in London he studied big masters like Masamune Shirow and developed enough skill and an astonishing portfolio to jump into the big market - within only 2 years. Here are some of his comments about how he draws, develops characters and why the Japanese Manga market is so tough.
1. Gez, what made you want to be an illustrator in the first place? I heard you actually studied languages before?
My original plan was to be a diplomat - that is why i learned languages - but I realized that I then could only be living in Japan for four years. I really wanted to be in Japan with my future wife and thought that freelancing in art would allow me to live wherever I want.
Wow! So you threw away your life of being a diplomat out of love and decided to become an illustrator instead!?? I never hear that before. And you really have guts to try your luck in Japan: that is about the hardest country when it comes to competing with other very skilled illustrators!
2. How do you survive in Japan? You call it artistic mecca, but don’t you get eaten alive in this competitive market?
Basically, I get a few jobs from Japan but most of my jobs come from the States and England. There are not that many people who can do animation style or Japanese style outside Japan and it’s quite hot right now. But what I really want to do is to break into Japan, but therefor I must work a lot harder…
3. Photoshop versus paper drawing
How do you draw? Do you need a lot of sketches or do you go straight to the computer?
I do pretty much everything in Photoshop.
Many people do, but I think that 99% of the Japanese illustrators still start on paper. If you have that ability to do a good drawing on paper, there is certainly a material satisfaction to it and it feels a lot nicer to have something solid. All I have is a paper print out - that is it. Doing everything in Photoshop has a lot of advantages, though and more and more people do the same.
Ghee - I can’t believe it is all Photoshop! How do you do it?
I design a rough in the computer (pretty small), then I blow it up and have a proper go at it. There are tons of advantages in using Photoshop when you draw: you can zoom in really close, you can flip the picture to get a new view on it and see if the composition still works, work in layers and move things around afterwards…. all that stuff is nearly impossible with a pencil drawing.
And the downsides of Photoshop?
Since I learned how to draw on the computer using the pallet - I feel really uncomfortable drawing without it, so I always have to take a laptop with me.
Another thing is, that you tend to get too trigger happy with the undo-button and can’t decide on anything. If you try to keep your hand away from that button - it usually turns out better.
These esthetics really look like a pen or a brush… Or some lines could almost be vectors… Is there nothing else you use?
If you work with high resolution, you can really get a pen or pencil look. I sometimes use Painter which emulates natural painting. You can get brush stroke marks and that kind of stuff - and then take it back into Photoshop. Sometimes it turns out really digital - so you have to just try it out.
4. How long does it usually take for you to finish a drawing?
Well that depends on the client, really. This one was for a Japanese car magazine called Hot Version - they write about drift cars and that kind of stuff. They knew exactly what they wanted: a girl standing on the left, cars… I put it all in the rough and they liked it right away. After that we went back and forth, because I couldn’t really get the colors right. From start to finish it took several weeks, but the actual drawing time probably took me two days: one to do the lines and another day to do the colors.
5. What would it be like to draw a whole Manga?
I am trying to make a story where each of these will be a page, but it is not very structured and more of a visual thing.
Doesn’t it scare you as an illustrator to see, how Mangas are consumed here every day? Like flipping through a telephone book, reading in a glance and then: garbage! I suppose that must break an illustrator’s heart…
I think that there are big fans out there who buy the whole collection of a particular Manga artist, but the majority of the pieces don’t get collected, that’s true. But I think that this disposable mentality is one of the reasons why Japan’s comics market is so healthy!
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