Baa!

Tonight was Open House/Fall Festival at school. Whilst meeting with my art teacher I was asked to show my Parents my Sketchbook. Upon opening to the first page, which contained an Angel (see previous posts), my Mother (The Artist) remarked something like 'Ah, an angel. An Anime angel; but still an angel.'

I brushed this off at first as simple criticism of an unusual art style.

But then in short time she said in a discussion with my teacher that they (My teacher and Her) would have to ween me off of drawing anime!

That is the single most unsupportive thing anyone has ever said to me! Atleast when people say 'You Suck' it's aimed at my abilities as an artist, not my ideas. My characters are Manga Characters, I think of them in those terms, they act in those terms, it's who they are. I often imagine what a movie of my stories would be like, what music they would use, what the voices would be like, et cetera. And NEVER do I think of it as being live action.
Anime has a charm to it not found in western art. If you draw Western, you have to follow certain guidelines. If you draw to exagerated then you become a sunday morning comic cartoonist. If you manage can to have skills and style, you can be a Super Hero artist and work for DC or Marvel churning out trash written by other people. If you are absolutely fantastic, you can get a job illustrating books, doing novel covers and political cartoons with slightly offenisve characatures of people in power.

I want to draw what I want to draw; Wars, Angels, Knights, Magic! That is my world. I'll just become better, maybe if I'm a good enough artist then I'll be more than a Japanophile with a Pencil and Paper. Then no one can say that I should change. Brittany didn't, she's still making awesome art and she was the best artist in the school. Her Manga was THAT good, no one could deny her talent. Why don't my hands work?!