Im the new kid on the block for now, and Im aspiring to get into a creative medium in the future as a career. Im 19 years old on a college course in Blackpool, doing media and animation. Im currently working on a hand drawn animation at this time (as a promotion for a book I have been writing for a few years now) and I was wondering if people here could give me ideas on things to work on.

Im very much an anime fan. Ive been reading manga since I was little and I specialize in that style. I can draw realistically, but not so much. If I was to give a rough idea of where my work sits, its somewhere between Tite Kubo (the guy who wrote bleach) and the Darksiders video games concept art.

I dont often use things like paint of computer colouring tools, though i do have a Wacom tablet I am experimenting with, and Im getting used to Photoshop Elements. I prefer hand done approach with my work and just edit with the computer since Im a it traditional over things.

Anyway, while I dont have a sketch pad right now, Ive been talking to some friends who were trying to get into the video game industry and one of them mentioned that anime and manga style drawings arent welcome in portfolio for clients, and that they only go for realism and life drawing to get an idea of what you are capable of. Im a little disheartened by this, but I would like to ask on what sort of things I should be working on to increase my liklihood of success. I can usually come up with highly details character clothing on the spot and faces are easy for me to draw, though I aint to good with hands and feet. In tools of trade I use copic markers, wax crayons, pencils, rotring pens and watercolour pencils. Paint isnt a strong point but Im working on that.