If you would like to read more, you can find new comic strips every Wednesday at 3 PM on Webtoon Canvas or on Instagram.
More info:Instagram|webtoons.com|youtube.com|beacons.ai
This post may includeaffiliate links.
Throughout the day, I fill up the notes app on my phone with thoughts, songs I’ve listened to, poems, and phrases from others. I also take many screenshots, and pictures of what I read/watch. Some of these things will be untouched for days, months, years or may never ever see the light of day. Every now and then, when I am struggling for ideas, I will scroll through everything on my phone to see if anything I stored catches my attention. Once I pull an idea out of the hat, I begin doing thumbnail sketches. I do all of my thumbnail drawings and comics in a Moleskine sketchbook. One funny thing is I always lose my rulers so I use random objects to measure out my panels.
As a kid, like many other kids that had immigrant parents, my parents would work long hours almost every day. Many times I would be jealous of other kids that had their parents home all of the time.
Hamster can be a little dramatic, but who wouldn’t be for a sweet treat? It’s the only thing that can bring happiness in this bleak world.
The current strip I am working on is measured out using a Wiglett Pokemon card. Before, when I did my comics using thick 2mm 4B leads, it would take me hours to draw out a single panel because the lead was too dark to erase without smudging everywhere. In the past year, I have switched to using a mechanical pencil to avoid this headache.All my comic strips are traditionally hand-painted using watercolors after I ink my panels with a micron pen. It takes a lot more time than doing it digitally but the results are much more rewarding to me. I also like to physically hold each panel, so I think that’s cool too.
The current strip I am working on is measured out using a Wiglett Pokemon card. Before, when I did my comics using thick 2mm 4B leads, it would take me hours to draw out a single panel because the lead was too dark to erase without smudging everywhere. In the past year, I have switched to using a mechanical pencil to avoid this headache.
All my comic strips are traditionally hand-painted using watercolors after I ink my panels with a micron pen. It takes a lot more time than doing it digitally but the results are much more rewarding to me. I also like to physically hold each panel, so I think that’s cool too.
Red Panda struggles a lot with completing tasks and staying focused. Here Red Panda brings up solutions to this never-ending struggle of living in a world that measures people’s worth with their productivity.
My artistic style has developed the more I draw and the more I consume movies/shows, art, books, comics, and cartoons. I would say at this point in my art journey my tastes and my artistic style have been rapidly changing. This is apparent with how quickly the quality of the strips has improved. I think this is because this strip has allowed me to draw so much more than I previously had done. It’s important to draw a lot and digest a lot of whatever art there is out there in the world.
I go through moments when all I can do is sleep and other moments when I get no sleep trying to do the most with my days. Also, this is a Mac Miller (RIP) reference, if you haven’t noticed.
With my comics, I wish for my readers to understand that everybody is living such complex lives and many times it can be hard for us to empathize with the thoughts, actions, and feelings of others. I also hope this comic inspires people to follow their own passions, whether it’s painting, sports, or making music. There will be many obstacles when following your dreams, but please continue working on them. The world needs your voice and other amazing things that you can share with humanity. Another thing I want readers to take away from “Diary of Red Panda” is gaining a new perspective. Seeing life from many different angles is imperative to understanding other humans and forming meaningful connections with your community.
Red Panda is often shown expressing his anxieties and bitterness of the world. Rabbit gives another perspective on how the world treats its inhabitants. How do you think Red Panda feels about this?
I’m a big fan of horror movies so I had to express my love for them in one of my strips. If you watched the Scream franchise, this scene might be familiar to you. What caught my attention the most in Scream 2 was the sign “No Eating in Living Room”. The sign gets cut off with the composition for just a few seconds, which only makes the sign read “No Living”. Being a film major with a focus on animation, this small moment left a mark on me. This was a small detail that most people would miss out on but it adds to the eerie tone of the scene.
There is so much more I want to do with “Diary of Red Panda”. In the future, I plan on going more into what it means to be a Red Panda. This is supposed to parallel the lives of many other indigenous groups in the world and the difficulties that these groups face. I also will be getting into topics that deal with wealth disparity. I have been slowly fleshing out my characters so they can fit into certain stories I want to tell. There are also going to be lighter stories I would like to develop, like Red Panda becoming a volleyball coach, but that may take some time to build up. In the meantime, y’all will just have to sit and wait for these topics and themes to surface.
Rabbit is very knowledgeable when it comes to nature. The outdoors also acts as a safe haven from the stressful responsibilities that society pushes on the general population.
The concept for this was in regard to how fragile human existence could be. This relates to how a lot of Cham history is lost due to cultural erasure.
Hamster loves to talk about her time at work, what else can I say.
Volleyball is to “Diary of Red Panda” just like how Calvin Ball is to “Calvin and Hobbes” or ice skating is to “Peanuts”. In “Diary of Red Panda”, volleyball is used to share my personal experience with sports and other experiences that people go through.
This is a love letter to all the people that feel insignificant and also to the creator of “Calvin and Hobbes”, Bill Watterson.
I watched a supercut of Frankenstein references to find a bunch of different compositions for this strip. Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” had a huge impression on me when I was in grade school.
There was a time in my life when I lived in the hometown of world renowned artist Keith Haring. There was a fitness court dedicated to him but I noticed that they kept out many details about activism in his life. The world loved his art but they failed to share the messages that he wanted to put out to the world.
As a teenager, I was much like Pup 1 in regards to his studious behavior. There’s nothing wrong with doing great in school but sometimes you need to take time to be a kid.
See Also on Bored Panda
I feel like I can never express exactly what I want with language. However, I find language funny since people can always misconstrue your words. I tend to do this a lot and take what people say very literally most of the time.
The frustrations that a lot of artists go through can be heard in a lot of rap songs. It’s no wonder that a lot of rappers can be seen as arrogant/cocky when they have overcome so many obstacles.
Being a substitute is my day job and seeing the interactions of the youth is pretty hilarious. Many days can be mentally exhausting, though.
This is based on when I wrote an essay on the Ancient Kingdom of Champa in middle school. The teacher gave me a failing grade on it because she didn’t believe it to be a true civilization. It was pretty traumatizing and many of my friends couldn’t really understand the pain that came with it.
Hamster is a native Spanish speaker and Red Panda is just trying his best.
Music is life, music is love.
This is the first comic strip of “Diary of Red Panda”. The comics originally started as pencil comics with watercolors and slowly progressed into fully inked strips. I have fond memories of making this after going through so many job interviews and submitting so many job applications to no avail. Who would have guessed that I would still be working on this after 2 years? Who knows, maybe one day I can catch up with the amount of “Peanuts” strips that exist. Sometimes quantity can be just as impressive as quality if the quantity is big enough.
Hamster loves birdwatching, so you’ll see some interactions she has with these feathered friends.
This strip was drawn without any pencil sketching so if I messed up a panel, I would have had to redraw it. Some of these panels took hours to make despite how simple they look.
I often write a lot of my scripts in the notes app on my phone. Many times these scripts stay on my phone for a couple months and even years. This is mainly because I don’t know what I want the characters to do with the script or even which characters would fit in the script. A lot of these times my scripts are written without any characters in mind.
If I can make enough money with my art, I would totally become the unemployed friend at 2PM on a Tuesday.
Modal closeAdd New ImageModal closeAdd Your Photo To This ListPlease use high-res photos without watermarksOoops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.Not your original work?Add sourcePublish
Modal close
Add New ImageModal closeAdd Your Photo To This ListPlease use high-res photos without watermarksOoops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.Not your original work?Add sourcePublish
Modal closeAdd Your Photo To This ListPlease use high-res photos without watermarksOoops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.Not your original work?Add sourcePublish
Add Your Photo To This ListPlease use high-res photos without watermarksOoops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.
Add Your Photo To This List
Please use high-res photos without watermarks
Ooops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.
Not your original work?Add source
Modal closeModal closeOoops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.UploadUploadError occurred when generating embed. Please check link and try again.TwitterRender conversationUse html versionGenerate not embedded versionAdd watermarkInstagramShow Image OnlyHide CaptionCropAdd watermarkFacebookShow Image OnlyAdd watermarkChangeSourceTitleUpdateAdd Image
Modal closeOoops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.UploadUploadError occurred when generating embed. Please check link and try again.TwitterRender conversationUse html versionGenerate not embedded versionAdd watermarkInstagramShow Image OnlyHide CaptionCropAdd watermarkFacebookShow Image OnlyAdd watermarkChangeSourceTitleUpdateAdd Image
Upload
UploadError occurred when generating embed. Please check link and try again.TwitterRender conversationUse html versionGenerate not embedded versionAdd watermarkInstagramShow Image OnlyHide CaptionCropAdd watermarkFacebookShow Image OnlyAdd watermark
Error occurred when generating embed. Please check link and try again.
TwitterRender conversationUse html versionGenerate not embedded versionAdd watermark
InstagramShow Image OnlyHide CaptionCropAdd watermark
FacebookShow Image OnlyAdd watermark
ChangeSourceTitle
Community Panda
