Welcome! Queenie Chan is a manga artist and graphic novelist who has worked with various International Publishing Houses. She is a writer-artist who has published a number of books, one of which has hit #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List for Graphic Novels, and she has also written many short stories, some of which can be read on this site.
I draw and ink all my pages by hand, and tone by computer. I usually pencil, ink and tone each page at a time, once I have the entire story in my head or a script. Working professionally, however, I’m usually required to pencil an entire section of the story, usually 60 pages, before I can be given approval to ink.
Paper: A4 Deleter Doujinshi paper (B5 paper) 110 ~ 135 gsm. This is much smaller than the professional 10” x 15” paper, but I find that the quality isn’t very different once shrunk on the computer. This kind of paper is still my favourite, because it (a) withstands a lot of rubbing and pencil marks, and (b) “absorbs” ink beautifully.
Pencils: 2B pencil to do rough drafts, and an HB to do more detailed parts. I sometimes use Blue pencils to do drafts if I can find any.
Inks: I like Deleter Black Ink, but I can’t always find it. It’s a smooth ink, which is a great choice for the Japanese pen nibs, but my second choice is still Windsor and Newton black ink, despite all its annoying qualities. W&N has shellack in it, which means it dries extra fast on the paper – which also means that it crusts up your pens and can dry too quickly. But this is the only ink that is widely available where I live, so what can I do?
Nibs: I use to draw almost exclusively with a Nikko maru-pen, but since then I’ve switched to the G-pen. I use the maru-pen for fine details like faces, and the G-pen for everything else. I use Sakura Pigma Microns for drawing backgrounds, and their size range from 0.05 ~ 0.5. I use the thickest for drawing panel borders, and the 0.1 for drawing most backgrounds.
Brush-Pens: I’ve been using brushpens to draw sometimes, and the most beautiful of them, hands-down, would be the Zebra FD-303 (Chinese Kanji Calligraphy Fude Brush Pen). It’s the only brush pen small enough to be used on an A4 sheet of paper, and while it has its disadvantages, to someone who works mostly on A4, it’s fantastic.
Toning: “The Dreaming” was toned in greyscale using Corel Photo-Paint, since it doesn’t take as much memory as Photoshop as has easier functions. However, since then I’ve toned almost exclusively in Photoshop, since Corel doesn’t have much support amongst publishers. I occasionally import tones from Deleter Comicworks to Photoshop, though I’m just as likely to have my toner Dee Dupuy help me, or do pure black and white art circa 2003.
Most Valuable Asset: Liquid paper. I’m actually a careless and sloppy inker; I don’t believe I’ve ever drawn a page without making a mistake. Thank god for the computer. Hurrah for the computer age.
Last Updated: 11th May, 2011