“The Lead Soldiers” is the name a team of DTU Graphic Design students who adapted the original story “The Girl From Yesterday” by Nguyen Nhat Anh into their first comic book, entitled “Lovesickness.” The cartoon was released on the Lead Soldiers fan page at “
https://www.facebook.com/truyentranhlinhchi” to allow young comic-book lovers to read it for free and interact with each other, also encouraging the team to follow up with some sequels.
Their first work inspires creativity
Team leader Nguyen Khanh Hien explained that the Lead Soldiers originally spent two months brainstorming and drawing, before announcing the availability their initial masterpiece on a non-profit basis. The team meanwhile worked on other projects, drawing storyboards for foreign films, and developing experience in flexible techniques on how to best express the psychological depth of their characters and how to convey the plot of the famous work.
The group also took on even more allied projects of character drawing and logo and poster design and ultimately, when they began work on the adaptation of The Girl From Yesterday, they felt more confident, flexible and creative, and hoped to quickly gain general acceptance of their work.
“Most advantageous was the fact that we had Nguyen Nhat Anh’s story to mine for material,” said Le Thi Anh Thi, in charge of writing the script. “So, it was easier to come up with ideas for the dialogue, the setting and character image building when we started developing the comic book version.
“However, there were some difficulties, because creating something based on previous materials, adapted from famous works, requires even more specialized experience to avoid reader boredom, while maintaining the soul of the original plot and conveying its ideas.”
Lecturer Nguyen Tien Viet (top row), group leader Nguyen Khanh Hien (far left), and the other Lead Soldiers
The ambition of the Lead Soldiers, besides adapting famous works into comic books, is to develop new creations of their own and they have just started developing a new comic book entitled: “The School Ghost.” They came up with it, wrote the script, and made the drawings all by themselves. The first pages have been completed and the Lead Soldiers will do what they can to publish it as soon as possible on their fan page.
The Lead Soldiers, bringing together young people passionate about comics
Through their love of comics, the group of DTU Graphic Design students came together and founded the comic book drawing group, then in-person design and drawing meetings inspirated them even further.
“The Lead Soldiers teamed up to create a healthy and productive environment where we could all learn and share our experiences,” said student Hien, recipient of the Student Work Trophy at the 2021 American Graphic Design Awards. “It’s not solely for DTU students because we want to include all the younger people sharing our passion in Danang.”
In-person design & draw meetings bring endless inspiration to the Lead Soldiers
Student Linh added, “We named our team the Lead Soldiers because everyone’s familiar with the character. The lead soldier evokes great courage and the willingness to stand up to adversity. We want to build a group that can overcome all difficulties to achieve our common goals and currently have ten members, each with a different responsibility, a team leader, an editor, a character designer, and a perspective designer. During our studies at DTU, learned much and developed the foundation that allowed us to realize our ambitions drawing for comic books, with a specialized skill set, including drawing by hand, in Photoshop, and a basic knowledge of shapes, color schemes and scenes.
“We also teach the basics of comic book drawing, about character creation, script writing, and so on, with the full support of Professor Nguyen Tien Viet, a lecturer in the Faculty of Architecture & Applied Arts. He’s also the one who inspired us to reach out to achieve our personal goals throughout our university studies.”
(Media Center)