Dragon Claw

[jia-art]

@UncleQ

I'm going to be blunt here, your personal opinion about what is a manga/who is a mangaka/whats allowed on this website, doesn't matter in this discussion.
Since the Admins of this website added a "User created" format tag, means they have thought about this matter and decided to include this tag.

I could stop right here, because this discussion is entirely useless, (Just take a look at the radiant comment section here on mangadex) but I want to address some of the things you've said.

How do you think I see this website? From your comment it looks like you think I desperatly want to be seen as a mangaka. To be honest, I don't care. I just want to tell and illustrate a story and I use the "medium/style" manga for it, because I personally like it more than the other styles (comic/webcomic/manwha). The word for someone drawing the manga is a "mangaka", so I use that.

It looks like we both have very different opinions on what/who is a manga/mangaka.

I was searching for a website where I can post my manga every month. First I wanted to create my own site, but I've been using mangadex before and when someone told me that you can upload user content here, it was pretty much instantly decided because I really like the layout and design of MangaDex.

It's very bold of you to assume I didn't do any of the key points you've mentioned. It's true that I have A LOT to learn, but I've been practicing all of the things you've mentioned for the 5 years since I started drawing. These points are also standard information for everyone learning storytelling and you can find them in pretty much every youtube video, book or forum post about creating storys.

I don't know how you could know that I don't follow these rules, when only 6 chapters have been released so far.

Point 4 doesn't even make sense because I'm not the one being angry here.

"Your drawings and writings right now are that of someone vomiting up all of the bland and derivative pop culture that they have consumed recently. It's shallow, and devoid of life and imagination."
It certainly looks like something made you really mad, but I don't know what I did to hurt you so bad.

"Think about it, you put your work up on a site that includes the work from professional mangaka that make a living doing what they do and volunteer teams that translation and edit an ocean of content from those professionals for free."
I thought about it and I have no idea what you are trying to tell me. My manga is also free and I don't make a living from it. I don't understand.

"So stop trying to reproduce the drawing and story telling style of a culture you know nothing about and have only read amateur translations of."
Why wouldn't I be allowed to follow a style that was created in a different country?

"Now, what you can become is a comic book/graphic novel author with your own distinct style and voice."
I don't remember you being the deciding force of what I will do in my life.

"Dragon Claw in it’s current state barely resembles rough story boards outlining an incomplete idea"
Well yes. I'm only at chapter 6. What did you expect? This is the first manga where I created more than one chapter. But you have to start somewhere right?
I'm also using a very slow "show don't tell" approach, It will take some time before I show all the worldbuilding and important plot points.

"Draw and write every day. You have talent but you still have a lot of room for improvement."
No, I don't have talent. What you see is the result of hard work every day for 5 years. And yes, of course there is room for improvement. Art is a never ending cycle of improvement.

"Quit squandering your obvious talent."
So I'm wasting my "talent" on... illustrating a fantasy story in the style of a manga? What is not wasting my "talent" then? Making a comic?

One look at the ratings shows you that most people are okay with the quality of Dragon Claw and thats good enough for me.
I'm going to continue to make people happy with my manga every month. As long as I follow the rules of the website I'm using, I don't see a problem.


I recommend you to come back in a year or something and re-read Dragon-Claw. Maybe your opinion will change when the story has progressed further.

 

[carnegiesgrave]

@jia-art

Man I just wanted to say keep doing what you're doing, it's inspirational to see someone's hard work come together like this, and I was stunned by the cool perspective action shots and aesthetic of your manga.

We only get one life to live and after this it's probably nothing, nada, zilch, it's just over. Wasting your talent? Literally almost everything art-wise is a waste, only the 1% of 1% of artists can make a living on it, this site hosts tons of amateur or beginner doujins sold at comiket by young Japanese people with beginner-tier art, almost none of those artists are ever going to make a living off their manga either, despite being from Japan.

So do what you want, I've discovered other awesome western manga-style artists on here like @holidayqk and her comic WisteriA. Personally I'm thankful they're on here because otherwise I wouldn't have gotten exposed to those artists and their work.

 

[Uberlad654]

This is shaping up to be really cool! The art style on this is what drew me in, and that is definitely fantastic, but I'm starting to stick around to see what our main character's story is like. It's intriguing, and I can't wait to see how it shapes up! Keep up the great work @jia-art

 

[GyozaBro]

Getting strong Avatar vibes from the world and characters and I love it! Art style kinda reminds me of Skullgirls and Helltaker just a little bit, very funky and unique. I'm very very concerned about that Tragedy tag tho. Whenever that tag is included it feels like any of the characters could die at any moment. Please don't kill off interesting characters for shock value man, GoT and TLOU2 both fell victim to that. Nevertheless I wish you success in this project!

 

[jia-art]

@carnegiesgrave Sadly there will be a lot of people who think this way and it's hard to change their mind. But thanks for your addition to that conversation. I will work hard and hopefully continue to inspire you with my story!

@Uberlad654 Thanks! There is a lot of interesting story on the way! I hope you stick around!

@GyozaBro "I'm very very concerned about that Tragedy tag tho." : )

 

[TsuguRaku]

@jia-art new reader here, I'm really impressed by the quality of your art, considering you said it's your first "big" project! As you said, MD has a "User Created" tag, so nothing prevents you from posting here; if people want to read your manga, they will, if not, nothing lost.

I want to point out some details that bugged me, I'll try to be as constructive as possible(this is just my opinion, I'm not a professional or whatever). First, I feel like the story was a bit rushed, but since you said you'll redo the pilot chapter, the future will hopefully prove me wrong. Second, I get the impression that the characters' faces are always 'hyper'. On one hand, it makes the fighting scenes look great, but when they're chatting, it's a bit unnatural to see them with those faces.

That being said, I'll stick around and I'll be looking forward to the next chapters!

 

[jia-art]

@TsuguRaku Really helpful feedback! Thanks!

So, what exactly made you feel like it's rushed? Because the new chapter 1 won't really change asato's story, It will add to the world of Dragon Claw overall. What would you personally change/what do you dislike about the current "rushed" start? I'm interested to hear more if you have anything! : )

Most important, what would you expect from a "better" chapter 1? I'm still working on the new chapter 1 and I can still rework some things if I get good feedback!

Yes, the face thing is something I need to improve at. I've never been someone that draws a lot of faces, and when I did, I drew them it was some action scene. So I have to learn to give the characters more natural faces when they're just chatting or something.

Thanks for reading!

 

[azuremirage]

Honest to god......

Not bad my dude, keep getting it poppin.

 

[SoulOverCaos]

pretty interesting and the art is really good, i love the dynamic poses
one thing that could make it better could be improving the shading
(also, just a personal preference, Asato always has a dark skin tone, but the lighting in page 13 of chapter 2 looks way better to me. Probably the dark skin is because she mostly stays in the shadows but i feel it's kind of overly used, like in the bottom of page 8 chapter 4 a brighter look would be nice)
keep up the good work

 

[TsuguRaku]

@jia-art

Spoiler

Chapter 1 shows us Asato's village, and we can see the architecture, the townpeople's usual clothing, the cool-looking samurai militia, the wall, and Asato's powers. Clearly, the effort spent into the worldbuilding shows. However, there's only a single page that shows Asato and Jin's past. Of course, you don't have to tell us everything from the start, and the dialogue shows us that they're childhood friends, that they had a match during the 'tournament'(of which we unfortunately do not know the purpose yet). However, I can't quite understand their relationship from that alone. So in chapter 2, when Asato runs away, I couldn't really empathize with them being sad. For a "better" chapter 1, I would have liked to see them when they were younger, since they apparently have a strong relationship. Asato talked about feeling 'in shackles' in the city, so it kinda bugs me that we don't know why. Basically, I feel like the first chapter should explain the main characters' objectives, and how they're related.

On the other hand, I have to emphasize that I really like the worldbuilding so far, since for action manga, the general setting is what's most important for the first few chapters.

Anyway, keep up the good work, I'll be rooting for you ^^

 

[Ragu_Jostar]

I'm here because I actually care enough for the manga to listen to the author saying where to read it at

 

[jia-art]

@Ragu_Jostar Thanks! I respect your effort to support my work! I hope you enjoy your stay here.

@SoulOverCaos Yeah I'm still working on the art style, I personally like how I did it in chapter 8, where I color them in grey, but I show where the light hits them. They also haven't been in full sun light yet, so the lighting for that will change it too.

@TsuguRaku It has a lot to do with my style of writing a story. I don't tell you much at the beginning, I will reveal stuff here and there. It might be slower, but it feels more rewarding to learn about the characters and world that way. Especially for Asato, I have to keep her backstory vague for now, because it would spoil some stuff I want to keep secret for now. Don't worry, you will get a ton of backstory for each important character sometime in the future : )
However, I think that chapter 1 doesn't really explain the world they live in that well. I'm currently working on a new big double chapter 1 with a better introduction into the world.

Thanks for your comments and support!

 

[TsuguRaku]

@jia-art Duly noted, I'll be looking forward to discovering more about each character.
Thanks for the chapter, it was real neat !

Spoiler

That plant thingy looks really badass, I hope the fight will last even longer so we'll see Asato show off her moves too ^^

 

[Kibobik]

YOO THIS SERIES IS EPIC AF! I swear ill donate to ur patreon once i got a job, this pandemic got me jobless.

 

[thedestroyership]

Epic! The art style is really explosive and dynamic!
Only 2 criticisms:
1. the story is moving really fucking fast and
2. the cover art under sells the actual product

Keep up the fantastic work!

 

[jia-art]

@Kibobik I'm always wondering how people will react to the later parts of this series, when I see how excited they are even now at chapter 8.

@thedestroyership Thanks! Don't worry, the story will slow down, but for now its supposed to be really fast and hectic.
Funnily enough, I'm working on the cover art for volume 1 right now.

 

[CBFlap]

Really great work, If I didn't know this was an amateur work, I could totally take this as some big company manga. Kudos to you !
I suppose this will probably be very subtle in the story but I ship Spear guy and Asato so much now, Am I delusional ? I can totally imagine it already <3
I already commented something more in-depth on the last chapter(8)
I hope we get more, I pray for the success of this manga, and keep strong @jia-art, this is great so far.

 

[jia-art]

@WhiteEkans Don't worry, this story is here for the long run. And one thing I forgot to add to my other comment, none of the tags are lying. If I included it, that means it will be a part of this story : )
Thanks for reading!

 

[Justamoldycheeto]

I am really looking forward to seeing where this series goes. I love the art style and world building so far. Although I wonder if those dragon things work like ants? Like the common ones are workers and the bigger ones are hunters or something? If so I wanna see how the king or queen would turn out. Keep up the good work

Edit: this does have a romance tag so I really hope that’s for the thunder spear guy and...... asto? (I’m real shitty with names don’t Judge me)

 

[Kibobik]

Ey author, u doin good right? i mean u havent updated the series and it makes me worries that this series will drop. @Jia-art