ZLM_TokyoPoliceClub

At least you don't have to sit at the back of the chibivan.

Zero Like Me #180:
Tokyo Police Club


Easter Eggs: "Yale" in panel 2. Today's setting is not actually Tokyo nor a police club, but it is set in Japan, for what it's worth. Today's guest star is Umezawa. Today's title is a reference to the band Tokyo Police Club, who coincidentally has a song called "Your English is Good," which I'd argue's possibly their weakest song.

Fun Facts: Japan has a thing for light skin. It's undeniable. Lighter skin's best--from the ultra-white make-up of traditional Japanese beauty care to the depictions of their historical figures in ancient scrolls, you don't want to be dark. And yet when I came here, I discovered many Japanese people can be pretty dark! Like...me-level dark. Shocker given how much press light-skinned Japanese people get abroad. Being dark is a not a death sentence, but it's something of a dangit (for Japanese) or a novelty (for foreigners); the ideal is to be as light as possible.

Baa: I dunno. Is light skin is aesthetically more pleasing? I feel like I've been conditioned to think that. I read a ridiculously fascinating article a while ago about why there are basically only white-looking people in anime/manga. I wish I could find it again...but to put it roughly, it argued that Japanese people are so psychologically insulated that any drawings are made like how we westerners make stick figures, except the assumption is that unless otherwise specified, the person is assumed to be Japanese, if anything at all.

The article introduced the idea of a stick figure analogy. If I draw a stick figure what do you know about it immediately, with no context provided? It's male. It's white. Now if I draw that stick figure with a triangle-dress, what is it? It's female. It's white. In order for me to communicate this is a black man, I'd have to tell you that this stick figure represents a black guy. I'd have to go out of my way to make explicit the context of the stick figure otherwise it is assumed it's a white male, assuming you stop to consider what the figure represents at all beyond "this is a human."

And so it is, the article explained, with anime and manga characters: they're just humans, but pausing a second past that, they're Japanese if we must assume nationality. If we make the character pronounce our language weirdly, or dress him in ridiculobviously non-Japanese clothing, or otherwise make it painfully clear he's not from around here, then he's a foreigner. This then gets around to why all "Americans" in anime and manga are blond/blue/white people, but that's another discussion.

Wish I could find that article again...

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AV_anp.Febulous

This is our February ALT Poster. This month we highlight my favorite love songs, if you can call them that. From groups like Reuben, RADWIMPS, Fall Out Boy, and Motion City Soundtrack. Plus I teach Japanese kids depressing love-related words like "dump," "cheat," and "break up." Don't worry they prolly don't get it. Maybe.

These are some detail shots of our below the fold pages: A walk-through of how to feel like a loser on Valentine's Day when nobody in class gives you jack. And a close up of our music section.


And here's the progress shot of our anchor image. I really tested out my Copics for the first time. Man it felt nice to be semi-painting with those things! But color's a whole new dimension to work in, as usual...

March's poster's looking even Copic-ier, though...!

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Fun_ChopPink

Quick Chops for some kids I met on an Elemeno school visit!
They remembered me!!

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ZLM_EveryonesAVIPtoSomeone

What did I tell you about having self-esteem, loser?

Zero Like Me #179:
Everyone's a VIP to Someone


Easter Eggs: "Yale" in panel 1. Today's setting is Fukui-shi, in Japan. Today's guest star is Umezawa (last name) Azami (first name), humorless Japanese Teacher of English, Assistant-Language-Teacher Supervisor, and English Section Head. Today's title is a reference to an old classmate's stellar band's song of the same name (see and hear more Great Caesar here). Umezawa's costume is inspired by a design I saw on DA.

Fun Facts: Umezawa-sensei is yet another antagonist for Zero. She is icy and irritable yet she still heralds the undying Japanese devotion to cute and non-sequitor, for instance today she is wearing a silly outfit including a ridiculously happy hair clip that has nothing to do with her mood.

Baa: For the record, none of what's going on this "season" is intended to depict actual people, events, etc. Ya know?

Yeah....Ya know.

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Fun_hws.Supongi

Here's another batch of homework sketches. First, one kid asked me to "write" Supongi Bob. In Japanese, the word for "write" is the same as the word for "draw," hence the discrepancy. And it makes sense--it clicked when I saw a teacher writing on the board one day. From the side, it looked like she was drawing because to write in Japanese is almost like drawing since they have a pictographic written language! Neat.

Next, we had a kid who liked money, so she drew a money zombie, which I tried to riff on. We've also got a torii for someone and a character I invented called Jack. It was a riff on a doodle the kid drew for a King character. Clever right? Right.

And finally a creepy Totoro riff on a cute little Totoro doodle from a kid. She is probably the strongest English student in her class, so she aced the assignment and had time to study her little stuffed Totoro keychain for her drawing.

Dang.

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Fun_Torturiko

This was a birthday present for a cool little dude, drawn in my Campus Note.

It's after an apparently popular manga/anime called Toriko. The character names got my hopes up before I looked up what they looked like--Sunny, Coco, Zebra. Yet despite its admittedly interesting premise of flavor hunters seeking the ultimate meal, the series has some of the most disgusting art stylings I've seen this side of US hipster comics. The guy on the far right, Zebra, is particularly barf-enticing. Plus Toriko (the title character, not pictured) is an aesthetic rip off of Goku.

I'm not picking this series up any time soon.

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Fun_hws.Gekka

This is a special "full page" homework sketch for a student who drew a really inspirational doodle on her homework. She drew a little bunny and a moon and mini sushi, but the moon and rabbit got me (in Japan, they see a rabbit--not a man--in the moon).

So on the back of her homework, I drew a character I haven't drawn in a while, Kaguya, the main character from Tatsuya Endo's Gekka Bijin, a manga based on the Rabbit/Moon mythos. It came out pretty well for a "live" drawing--just red pen of course, no rehearsal or anything, just do it.

Tatsuya Endo is an incredible artist and her(?) art just makes you want to draw. Speaking of which...back to work!

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AV_wkst.MexiCant

I designed a worksheet for the jKids to practice Can and Can't on, where I'd have a drawing of some stooge and then ask if he can or can't do something, and they'd write their answers below the corresponding doodle (the style was inspired by the great JJ).
Example: I [_____] often have horrific self-confidence issues.

Take your time. Spelling counts.

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Fun_hws.NoDuh

Here are some more homework sketches.

A kid drew a sumo-ish hamster-looking guy, so I drew in a rabbit opponent. Next a kid wrote in that he wants to be a chef when he grows up, so a Sanji he gets. Natch.

Then a girl wrote about her favorite voice actor, the voice of the dude from Kiki.

After that is art inspired by a fascinating piece by a kid who adores Japanese culture's insistence that people wear masks when they're sick (or preemptively to prevent getting sick). This dude thinks they work and wishes he could wear masks "forever." For the record, my good ol' US-borne maxim "cover your mouth when lung-hacking, but don't cough or sneeze into your hands, and do wash your hands constantly" seems to have helped me escape the bug sweeping the nation aka my co-workers, mask-wearers, some of which are now in their second rounds of illness. Advantage Amurrca.

Anyhoo, one kid wrote about his or her love for badminton, so in that goes. And another kid wrote about her favorite manga, one I've been thinking about picking up, Magi. Her favorite character is Jyafuaru, but since I only had my iPoop with me, I didn't really want to expend the effort to figure out what he looks like for the sketch. So Aladdin it is.

Next we've got a pikachu for a kid who's favorite manga is Pokemon (probably too indie for you lay people). And finally a fan of the incredible Radwimps wrote in with some RAD chat, so he gets a sketch of lead singer Noda Yojiro and my first ever extended-effort note in Japanese! So excited I can even endeavor at such a thing! His note listed his favorite song "Cell Phone," and asked if I liked a particular song, and in truth it's actually not one of my favorites, but it leads right into a combo of their two best songs, the last two on their latest album (lead single here).

And that's a tangent if ever I saw one. No duh.

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AV_anp.NewToo

This is the belated second of our two January ALT News posters. It features similar information as last time, including introductions to Motion City Soundtrack and My Chemical Romance, but with some small tweaks. Is it a little too heavy on the wordcount for beginning English learners? Probably, but I don't care, I love talking about stuff I love talking about, and the diction is simple enough that I'm sure they can handle it if they take their time...they've got all month!

I had to scale back our anchor image because since the previous anchor took so long, there was no way to attempt something as intensive again and still hope to make a decent nigh-post-January debut.

So we have a New Years dragon again, but this time co-mingling with a character in a fancy New Years tuxedo number, like the roaring 20s in New York or something. Emphasis on the "or something."

But this was the fun part. After last poster's experimentation phase, I was able to click into how to make a fun Duel Masters display using my ragtag team of markers.

And no sooner do I drop the bombshell on these little dudes that Duel Masters is actually a US game made for Japan, than does Wizards of the Coast drop the megaton blast on us all that Duel Masters is officially coming back (kinda...sorta).

Anyway, back to the poster, to compensate for the colorless anchor image, I markered up a special Bronze-Arm Tribe for this one, but I also made sure to include some more insider-y creatures like Hearty Cap'n Polligon and the even more sneaky Iron-Arm Tribe WITH Mode Change. Yeah. Try getting that one, kids.

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Fun_hws.Jammin

These are some homework sketch-jams I kinda-sorta did with some students. The left is a sketch a kid drew for me (haha!) and my response. Please note their original version, before they turned in their papers, featured no underpants...

Next at center is a "famous Japanese picture." as the student wrote me, consisting of various Japanese hiragana and katakana characters: he, no, mo, and ji. Inspired by their initiative, I accessorized their drawing.

Finally, I notice a few students like to doodle on their papers (and desks!) and then promptly erase them before authority figures can spot them. But if the drawing is still legible after the erasure, I try to ink it. So that's a kid's drawing, inked by me. They sometimes randomly end their compositions with "thank you" because they get graded on the raw number of sentences they write. Cheaters.

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Fun_BreakMeOff

Having finally decorated with various ink maneuvers the piece of paper a student loaned me, here is its result, the follow-up to this piece. No time for markers, but come on, man, you're getting three and a quarter characters--inked--here. We got Zolo, Sanji, Nami, and little Chopper, even, if you squint hard enough.

Okay? Ok.

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Com_Srs

A srs commission.

For reals.

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Fun_hws.DreaminJapan

Here are some recent sketches I did on some jKids' homework, or, "homework sketches," for short.

Going clockwise, on an assignment about what family rules the kids'd make when they get older, one kid basically wants his kids never to sleep. Next, a kid named Torii gets a torii. Clever, right?

A kid wrote about a famous guy named Miyazaki Hayao. You've probably never heard of him, no big deal. One kid, who's always falling asleep in class, wrote about wanting to make a friend in high school so she could have someone to talk anime with. So she gets some famous emblems of anime, including a nod to her favorite show, plus a big ol' robot. Their English is limited, so I wonder if that means she doesn't have any friends at present! jTears.

Starting our clockwise ascension, we've got a doodle commiserating with a kid who says he sucks at basketball. Then a kid who's family rules will include the stipulation that his children are never to play tennis indoors. Good to know.

And finally we end with a kid who wants to join a famous soccer club in Spain. Really cool aspiration. Never give up on your dreams.

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Fun_hws.VeryEasy

I recently corrected this writing response (to the prompt "What will you do when you become a high school students [sic]?"), which I thought was quietly beautiful. Sometimes I like to sketch in an illustration to whatever the jKids write about, these are very easy, and so I DID.

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AV_anp.NewKid

This is our main school's January ALT "News" poster. It ate up a huge chunk of time, but I finally wrapped it! This one's special because, as there's no real holiday hijinks in January (and New Years' is nowhere near as big a deal as it is in Japan), I got to talk about whatever I wanted to after covering the New Years' basics. So I added a section on Motion City Soundtrack and My Chemical Romance. But there's also a super special section in there, too, more on that later.

This is what I call our "anchor" page, the main theme page. We've got a meeting of the US symbol of the new year, a top-hatted baby, and the Japanese/Chinese emblem of the new year, a ball-bearing dragon. Because we didn't get the full month to work on this due to the winter break, I didn't have enough time to add colors, but use your big-boy imaginations, okay? Okay.

Here's a close up of our anchor image. I wanted to hit a Saturday Evening Post sort of sensibility with the baby, and also to have it feel like they're both dumbstruck by the other upon their meeting. Easier to hit that with the baby, of course, but I actually like how the dragon turned out. I studied Shishizaru's gorgeous Jugan, the Rising Star, for an Asian dragon model, even.

These are the pencil lines...took foreverrrrrr! Not really, but I just kept getting interrupted with other tasks. Still, I'm pretty okay with how it came out.

This is the super special section of the poster wherein I'm officially challenging the jKids to play me at Duel Masters and/or Magic. I've been given the green light to use card games in school to help teach English communication, as it has already helped me learn some Japanese, in fact. So I drew up a quick little model of what a Duel Masters set-up looks like (starring Hearty Cap'n Polligon and Bronze-Arm Tribe) along with a brief overview of the game, complete with the bombshell that--gasp!--DM is actually a US-made game! Hopefully I get some challenges. Oh, and what is Duel Masters? Just the hottest thing since Yoshi Trolls. Need I say more?

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Fun_hws.SnowBlast

It is snowing like insanity...

Driving is kinda terrifying...

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AV_Sonny

This is another postcard in my postcard series. Past combatants have been a girl in red, a boy in blue, a man in black, and a thing in almost nothing. This is actually a gift to an enthusiastic fan I met, but I'm going to double dip and use it in class before I deliver it...yeah.

These are the pencils. I drew it at my desk, but I inked it on top of a mountain, in the snow. I was going to marker it up, but I tested out erasing the underlying pencils and coloring over the inks but both led to horrendous smearing, so I just went heavier on the details in ink to compensate. Hope she likes it!

Also, I'm not Canadian. I just found Canadian postcards in my desk one day.

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Com_CatWrap

A colorful commission.

Fun_Chopic

One of my favorite students requested a One Piece joint, so I decided to go beyond just a quick sketch and draw this in her notebook. I got some Copic markers in addition to my regular Zebras and gave them a test run on this Sakura/Staedtler Micron-inked Chopper.

She and her partner rock because they're always super gung-ho about English, which is ridiculously energizing. So I'm eager to draw the dude's One Piece request; I'm thinking Sanji or Zolo for maximum coolness...In any case, it better be better.

I-I-I know what you want,

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AV_SlimAndShady

Against my will, this monstrosity haunts an elementary school somewhere deep in the outskirts of rural Japan.

It's not even accurate--the artist totally got my crippling insecurity wrong. But my lazy eye is dead on, though. Idiot.

Also, where my extra chins at?!

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Com_BigSal

This was a mammoth commission of a noble salmon doing what he does.
Easter Eggs: "Yale," Harkness, the "Lighthouse," the Rod of Asclepius, ZLM, and more (some are only in the paints, and some are a little too personal).

Fun Facts: This is the biggest traditional fine drawing I've done and the biggest digital painting I've done yet!

This is what the sketch looked like, by the way.

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Fun_TenTonCrusherFicon

If it weren't for the war, who knows what she'd be. Who knows why she'd be.

--Counter-Sniper Biku, Master Precisionist

Phoenix? Bring me her corpse on a pyre and then we'll see.

--Dream-Extinctioner Ballak, Avarice-Bloodchief

One day I'll find my father and together we'll end this pointless war. But until then, I think my victories speak for themselves, Daiki.

--Ten-Ton Crusher Ficon, Phoenix Rising

Myriad-Cr0ss: Awaken the Buster Generation

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AV_anp.Eetaa

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! YEAH! PUMPED!

But sleep deprived...

Just so you know.

I do it for you,

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Com_TwoGuysWalk

An Apollo-ready commission I did a while ago.

These are the lines. In case it isn't obvious, the piece's actual text has been omitted.

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AV_anp.MistleDuo

Those crazy kids are at it again--a mite more stylish but a tad too childish. Outlandish and wild-ish, while this's the mildest stylist of modern love bandwagon Try-Thists, she insists this's a love-anihilists' scheme, what brings dings to these scenes destroying what clean wings beguile us all the while it's steam-wrings of torn jeans' seams, but it's no thing so they quiet us, and we're denied us our dream things, or so it seems to me.

Anyway, these are the pencil lines behind the piece. Speaking of which, if you want some lines to pick up chicks, try this one: I stay in my room divorced from reality for as long as possible as I draw all day meanwhile the world carries on without me, my grip on truth subsequently slipping ever constantly due in part to this and my understated general apathy towards that assumed font of value that would exist in any case. See how that works out for ya.

Fun Facts: jPeeps don't know about mistletoe! So I had to explain it. It was fun, particularly the part about how creepy guys hack the system with the ol' mistletoe in the pocket move.

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Fun_Chopz

I've heard that the key to success is to underpromise and overdeliver.

So here's to an okay new year.

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