17 September 2013

Behind the Comics XV - Lai Tat Tat Wing

'Behind the Comics' continues with an insight into the work of š! #14 'Sports' contributor Lai Tat Tat Wing.

Lai Tat Tat Wing // *1971, Hong Kong. Lai Tat Tat Wing is one of the most prolific Hong Kong comics artists. He’s been published over 20 conceptual and experimental comics books in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and also in France. Recently Wing devotes his energies to theatre and animations for television. He loves sports and goes swimming 2-3 times a week.

Wing: Hello, I am a 41 years old comic maker from Hong Kong. Crazy about doing comics already when I was very young. I used to bring my hand made comics to school and share them with my school mates, most of the stories were about fighting between animals and silly things happening on the school playground. One of the strangest stories that I remember was a little boy who always picks up food which was left on the playground by his school mates and puts it into his mouth. How I love strange stories!


My handmade comics at the age around 10 years old
Like most comics makers, when I do a new story for a comic, the first thing I consider is the number of pages and the size of the artwork. Because of the "space and time" of the comics, my preference was a longer story and small artwork, so that I can tell my story very slowly and make many details in it. I always love to work in an intensive work space. I will make my workspace smaller and smaller, even though I have a big table. And I love to be surrounded by my reference books CDs and DVDs.


My workspace surrounded by CDs and DVDs

The second thing that I considered was the research . When I have a title or idea, I will spend a lot of time to do related research. If I have 3 week to finish my new story, I will spend almost 2 weeks to do my research and leave 1 week to do the artwork. I believe that information can tell a story. And during the research, the information will take me to many different directions from the original idea. Like this time I was working on the short story for š! #14 'Sports', my original idea was many different sports played in the swimming pool in order to make funny action with the water. But during the "sport " research I found out all the sports wear and gear is very beautiful and sexy.  So I came up with a new idea - "if I was an extra-terrestrial who wants to do some "research" on earth, sports wear might be a good start".



My research on sport, and some deleted pages

As for the tools, all I need are simple tools, since I mostly do B/W comics. I love using 2-3 B pencils to do my layout and first draft, because it is easy to erase. When I finish my artwork, I will use "uni Pin" 0.1 to 0.8 to ink my comic. At that time I need more than 5 pin pens in my hand. I always love different thick and tine lines in my work. I believe that makes my work more lovely.



My simple tools for my B/W comic


Finishing my artwork


Two of my pages printed in š! #14 ‘Sports’

Ok. Thank you for your time to see my report. See you next time !! Hope you enjoy my story in š! #14 'sports'!! if you’re interested in my work, you can go to https://www.facebook.com/Laitattatwing or www.issuu.com/tattatwing to look for more comics. There are 7 publications for free to watch or download.


Many thanks to Wing for giving this great insight! Next week 'Behind the Comics' will continue with Inés Estrada!

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