We were lucky to catch up with Shav’ae (Zen) Johnson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Shav’ae (Zen), thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I’ve begun drawing since late elementary school early middle school, I believe. I don’t remember how I learned how to draw other than observation and inspiration from things I enjoy, like Disney Fairies. I made my first comic in 7th or 8th grade I think, and I believe around that time I discovered what manga was. My imagination was so active that I guess I just kept drawing and figured it out myself!

In my Junior or Senior year of high school, I decided I wanted to study Sequential Art at college and that’s when I begun to learn the craft. One of the first people who made a big impact on my knowledge of how to create manga was “My Mangaka Life” aka Lizbeth R. Jimenez on Youtube! She’s has an EOL Manga, or an English Original Language Manga, called “Sacred.” I watched her videos all the time. She talked about her experiences, the tools she used and how to use them, tips and tricks for drawing, and even the business side of publishing her own work! Her Youtube channel was like my bible when starting out my journey in creating manga.

Around that time I also began watching the Youtube channel “Whyt Manga”, aka Odunze Whyte Oguguo, the author of “Apple Black” and co-founder of “Saturday AM.” It was nice watching his videos because I got to see other ways of creating manga. He made videos about working digitally which was new to me since at the time Lizabeth mainly worked traditionally.

Other than Youtube, I also got how to draw manga books from my public library. Looking back at it, a lot of them were not great! However, I appreciate one book called “The Complete Guide to Drawing Manga” by Sonia Leong. I used to have it checked out ALL the time. I didn’t explore the entire book when I was in high school though, so it was surprising looking back at it in college and seeing how the book covered things that I learned in college.

I had obtained many resources to learn how to create manga, especially nowadays with the internet, how I have a bad habit of only focusing on one subject in my studies for a very long time and that means everything else falls to the side. For example, when I was in high school, I focused on drawing people, which is normal. however, I rarely tried studying and practicing things like backgrounds, animals, nature, objects, etc. I believe that is part of the reason why I still struggle with those subjects and it’s still kind of an issue now, but I’m working on it! Time really does move very fast!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Shav’ae Johnson, but I also go by Zen or Zen Kitsune! As of right now, I’m currently a senior at the Savannah College of Art and Design and I am in my final quarter of college! I study Sequential Art and I minor in Business Management & Entrepreneurship. My aim to become a manga artist and illustrator!

Right now, I honestly still think about what space I want to take space of in the industry, but I like to create fantasy or slice of life works. Light hearted stuff! However, I want to try to create works that are a bit edgy and have darker or serious things because that I consume that type of content too! It will be a challenge, but art is all about exploration.

I just want to draw stories that myself and others can escape to. I feel like 90% of my life was just me escaping from reality. Whether that was healthy or not, the media I consumed helped me do so, especially manga and anime.

One story that I was really proud of is called “Lazy River.” It’s about this busy office lady named Resin finally getting a day off and she goes to her favorite place- the lazy river. However, it’s at a waterpark and unfortunately for Resin, summer break is on and the wild school kids are out having fun! The kids disrupts her peace and after an incident, Resin meets two other adults who resonates with her struggle and they form a team to get back at the kids. You can read the rest on my website zenkitsune.com! This was a 6 page comic I made for class in the summer of 2023 after visiting a lazy river for the first time in years and I have very annoyed by the amount of active kids swarming around me as I tried to enjoy the lazy river! This was a comic that was silly and I hoped that others can relate. It was very fun to make!

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

This is not really the typical “resource,” but I wish I knew more indie or small published artists and works earlier in my studies. It’s so easy for me to fall into the mainstream of media and I just get stuck there for such a long time. When it comics to indie or small published works, it feels more raw and relatable to me sometimes. It can also feel more experimental or free. I have trouble with taking risks and being experimental and I kind of wish I somehow exposed myself to more of that earlier in my career so I can begin to know that 1) it’s okay to do and people are successful doing whatever they want and 2) I can feel more comfortable drastically changing the way I work when I get burned out.

In addition, I wished I bit the bullet and started using Clip Studio Paint earlier in my studies because that would’ve saved me a lot of time! I began using it the summer of 2023, right when I became a senior.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

So far, the most rewarding aspect for me is getting smiles or nice comments about my comics and sometimes my illustrations. Sometimes when I finish a piece of work, I second guess it a lot. “I spent all this time on this, is this really good? Would people get it?” I get scared sometimes because other than class, I’m not the best when asking for critique in the middle of a piece. So whenever I get a nice comment or if it makes someone feel happy or people can relate to it, I feel satisfied. Maybe that is also why I feel comfortable making more light hearted works than serious works.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.zenkitsune.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zen.kitsune/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zenkitsune/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/zen_kitsune
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVZ0jXOZrLnmUCXsn_D7fOg
• Other: Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/zenkitsune