Amin Abbas Dubai

Fatima J. Al-Lawati, also known as Faji or FJ on social media, is an Omani digital comic artist and illustrator inspired by Japanese culture style and character designer.

Al-Lawati said she did not have the opportunity to study arts, particularly the art of manga. However, her love and passion for this kind of art grew with her since childhood as she painted anime characters on the walls of the house.

Al-Lawati said: “Anime was my inspiration since I was a child as I was watching Sailor moon anime series on some foreign channels along with the Arabic dubbed anime that were aired in local and Arab channels.”

“Ever since, I was hooked on anime until I learned about Japanese manga through the internet. My favorite anime/manga so far include kuroshitsuji, Ao no exorcist, Kuroko no basuke, Sailor moon, and many more,” she added.

Al-Lawati said that she had never visited Japan, but she learned about the country’s culture through anime and “J-Drama.”

“[The culture] reflected on my daily life. I was always looking for Japanese foods, either through cooking at home or visiting Japanese restaurants,” she said.

Al-Lawati explained that she tried to learn the Japanese language and how to use it in her daily life. She also expressed her fascination with the traditional Japanese fashion.

The Omani comic artist started her journey of creating manga in 2004, where she loved to write fairy tales and novels then designing characters for these stories, in addition to turning those stories into short stories.

Al-Lawati said: “In that period, I learned about the art of manga through web pages where I searched for the art until I came to learn the basics and different types. I wanted to accomplish my dream first and I published my first book in 2015 under the name (Black Night Symphony). The book got a large audience and achieved success at the level of the Sultanate of Oman and the Arabian Gulf and continued on this path and issued my second book in 2017. I am now still walking in this step and I hope to issue an integrated series of manga that I work on. The concept of main manga story (Black Night Symphony) is based on magic theme and super natural story style with some comedian scenes.”

“Alongside the main story, I created a side story based on fairy tale little red hoodie with same characters of manga (Black Night Symphony) in 2015 and it was published as one-shot story,” she added.

Al-Lawati also worked on a full coloured comic book for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games at the request of the Embassy of Japan.

Speaking of the challenges she faced on her projects, Al-Lawati said: “Creating Black Night Symphony manga came with many challenges that went into three phases. The first challenge was how to write a proper story with aligned story rhythm. Designing suitable characters based on the story theme and looking for art supplies since I started to work on the project in a traditional way which I mean by that using pens and papers. After that I learned about digital art and started to work from scratches again. Buying digital devices was big challenge for me to afford those expensive tools since it’s not available in our country and I was still a student.”

She added that another challenge was what style of art she should go for.

“My art style during that time was still developing and every day I learn new techniques of creating manga,” she said.

“I also faced challenges after I finished the project when I looked for a publisher, since I didn’t find a good match to publish my book at a suitable cost,” Al-Lawati said. “It was a big challenge to look for good printing shops with good quality. After that, marketing my books was a huge challenge,” she added.

About her upcoming projects, Al-Lawati said: “My next project is continuing the publishing of volume 3 of Black Night Symphony manga. However, I have worked on a new project, which was supposed to be published early this year.”

Al-Lawati has won several local and international awards, where she won the first place in the culture and arts competition that was held in the Sultanate of Oman in 2012-2013, respectively.

She also won second place in the Behance Muscat Arts Competition in 2015. The first place in the manga production competition in 2017 and 2018 respectively in the Arabian Gulf, which was held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Moreover, she won the first place in Al Maraa Excellance award in 2018 in Fine Arts and it was an honor for her to be lady of the year in the field.