Influences (Patreon)

Here is a collage of tall dark and handsome characters that I plan to draw fan art of and share with you but also my response to comments spamming the same accusations.Grave was inspired by characters and people like this (the chinese historical figures are real because back then tall, fit, asian men who didn't cut their hair existed and still do exist). There are more but I think you get the point. This look has been around for a while but no matter how often I explain this to people.. I keep getting the same comments often from the same people.

 If you can have many brown haired female protags... why not more men with long dark hair?

Yakuza or Japanese gangster stories have also been around for a while (the oldest i can think of was published in the 80s) and new romance manga with this theme continues to get published but unless you keep up with Japanese media you may not know that. Though that's not what I was going for.

The inspirations for my writing vary widely from personal experiences and real life to anime like Cowboy Bebop, Avatar the Last Airbender, Death Note, movies, video games and so on.. It's difficult for me to explain my story to people because it's super long and a ton of crazy stuff happens, so that's why I'm doing the story in simple black and white. If it does well then I'd like to revamp it in full color someday but like I said it's super long.

I want to share this on webtoons but the policies say you cannot upload other people's images so I may create a text post and link to this on social media or an image site. What do you all think?

Characters In the Collage -

Top left: Byakuya Kuchiki from Bleach 

Top middle: Yan Qing from Fate Grand Order

Top Right: Seungho from Painter of the Night

Middle Left: snake, chrysanthemum and Spider Lilies (symbol for death in Japan and common in anime- here are more in depth videos about it 1 and 2). if you read the story towards the 2nd half then you'll understand why Grave chose these tattoos. the only flowers that have appeared in my story so far are plum blossoms and spider lilies.

Middle: Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender

Middle right: China's historically most beautiful men Ji Kang (224-263), Pan An (247-300), Wei Jie (286-312), Prince Lanling (541-573).

Bottom left: Ashina Sun from Chang Ge Xing

Bottom Right: Brandon Heat from Gungrave..the main inspiration for his name. this anime was the first I've seen (from 2003) that deals with mafia and a tall dark and handsome protag but my story is completely different. I highly recommend it though. Lots of action and a heart wrenching story.