Manga Studio For Dummies E-Book

Doug Hills

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 491

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Love Manga? The newest features of Manga Studio help you bring your ideas to life! The tools available in the latest version of this powerful program make it easy to turn your computer into your drawing board, and Manga Studio For Dummies makes it easy to get started. Discover how to use Manga Studio to begin creating comics in manga or Western styles, add color to your creations, and share them with your adoring public. It's a breeze once you know your way around the program. Manga may have begun in Japan, but Manga Studio For Dummies is written in plain English, and shows you how to: * Build and use page templates * Rough in your comic with penciling techniques * Work 100% digital, or use a combination of digital and traditional tools if you prefer * Work with layers, rulers, and panels * Add speech bubbles and sound effects text * Ink your work and add tones * Prepare your creations for print or distribution on the Web Written by a working digital artist, Manga Studio For Dummies covers both Manga Studio Debut and EX versions. As an added bonus, it even gives you a peek into the world of manga and comics in general. With the help of Manga Studio For Dummies, you just might find yourself among the comic artists whose work populates the Web and gathers thousands of fans! Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Leseprobe

Manga Studio For Dummies

by Doug Hills and Michael Rhodes

Manga Studio For Dummies®

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2008 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2007926397

ISBN: 978-0-470-12986-9

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Author

Doug Hills has been drawing ever since high school. Originally influenced by the superhero comics of the early- to mid-1990s, his style has adapted towards his other favorite genre: manga. Learning and studying techniques from both the East and West, he’s constantly striving to create a style that can truly be called his own.

In recent years, he has taken that love and desire for comics onto the Internet with two webcomics: Place Name Here and Chibi Cheerleaders From Outer Space, which he works on with his wife, Stacey. His webcomic work led him to Ten Ton Studios, where he worked on a story for their book, Anthologica, and eventually became a member of the group.

Originally from Chatham, NY, Doug now lives in Logan, UT, with his wife of seven years and their three-year-old daughter, Brady. All told, Doug’s a pretty happy and lucky guy.

Dedication

To Ben Tassinari, who taught me what it means to live for today and enjoy life to its fullest.

Author’s Acknowledgments

Jeez, where to start.

Special thanks go out to my wife, Stacey, and my daughter, Brady, for their never-ending support and patience. To Mom, Dad, and my entire family for their support and always pushing me to do my best. To the guys at Ten Ton Studios — if it weren’t for you guys and your support (and pushing me in front of the right people), I wouldn’t have had this opportunity. To Fahim Niaz and the folks at e frontier for offering this project. To Jean Rogers and Steve Hayes at Wiley Publishing for their infinite patience during this whole project.

Special thanks go out to Jason Masters, Joe Brudlos, Lincy Chan, and Teyon Alexander for providing additional artwork for this book. I wanted to show how Manga Studio works for all different artistic styles, and these guys stepped up to the plate. Thanks so much!

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial,and Media Development

Project Editor: Jean Rogers

Senior Acquisitions Editors: Melody Layne, Steve Hayes

Copy Editor: Heidi Unger

Technical Editor: Sarah Vaughn

Editorial Manager: Kevin Kirschner

Media Development Project Manager: Laura Atkinson

Media Development Assistant Producer: Josh Frank

Editorial Assistant: Amanda Foxworth

Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case

Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Lynsey Osborn

Layout and Graphics: Stacie Brooks, Reuben W. Davis, Melissa K. Jester, Barbara Moore, Christine Williams

Proofreader: Evelyn W. Still

Indexer: Sharon Shock

Anniversary Logo Design: Richard Pacifico

Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies

Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher

Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director

Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director

Publishing for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher

Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director

Composition Services

Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Contents

Title

Introduction

About This Book

Foolish Assumptions

Conventions Used in This Book

How This Book Is Organized

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I : Welcome to Manga Studio!

Chapter 1: Getting to Know Manga Studio

How Manga Studio Differs from Other Drawing Programs

Debut versus EX: Which Is Right for You?

Getting to Know Your New Workspace

Chapter 2: Help for the Beginning (Manga Studio) Artist

Acquiring Useful Tools

Understanding the Essentials of Comic Creation

Chapter 3: Creating Your First Manga Page: A Quick-Start Guide

Opening a New Page

Roughing the Page Out

Adding a New Layer

Inking Your Work

Erasing Your Mistakes

Readying Your Panels

Adding Screentones

Adding Text

Saving Your Work

Reopening Your Work

Exporting to an Image File

Printing a Hard Copy

Part II : Roughing It

Chapter 4: Your New Page Awaits

Creating a New Page

Creating a New Story

The Save Button: A Vital Tool

Chapter 5: Importing and Penciling Your Rough Draft

Time to Import Some Art!

What Happened?! (The Image Looks All Wonky)

The Pencil and Eraser Tools: Your New Best Friends

Treat Your Canvas Like You Would in the Real World — and Then Some!

Chapter 6: Layers, Layers, Layers!

The Benefits of Using Layers

Getting to Know Your Layer Types

Creating a New Layer

Adjusting a Layer’s Settings

Using Simple Layer Functions

Organizing Related Layers

Chapter 7: Panel Layers and Rulers

The Idea Behind Panel Layers

Creating a Panel Layer

Working with Your Panel Layer

Manipulating Your Panel Layers

The Panel Ruler Layer

Manipulating the Panel Rulers

Converting Panel Ruler Layers

Chapter 8: You Can’t Draw a Straight Line without a (Virtual) Ruler

What’s the Big Deal about Rulers?

Keeping It Simple: Using the Line and Shape Tools

You Can’t Use Rulers until You Make Rulers

Adjusting and Transforming Rulers

Time to Start Drawing with Your Rulers!

Chapter 9: Working with Selections and Selection Layers

The Basics, or Getting (Re)Acquainted with the Selection Tools

You’ve Created a Selection — Now What?

A Bit about Selection Layers and Why You’ll LOVE Them!

For EX Users: Quick Mask and Quick Select

Part III : Refining and Exporting Your Work

Chapter 10: Inking Your Work

Why Ink at All?

Scanning in Your Line Art

Creating a New Layer for Inking

Inking in the Lines

Filling Large Areas with Ink

Using Airbrush and Pattern Effects with Your Line Art

Chapter 11: Tone It Up!

Understanding How Tones Work

Knowing Why to Use Tones

Examining How Tones Work in Manga Studio

Time to Lay Down Some Dots!

Adding Depth to Your Tones

Computones

Chapter 12: Words Speak Louder than Actions: Adding Text to a Page

Adding Text

Editing Text

Avoiding Formatting Pitfalls

Creating Word Balloons in Manga Studio Debut

Creating Word Balloons in Manga Studio EX

Chapter 13: Printing and Exporting

Printing Your Work

Exporting Your Work to an External File

Additional Print and Export Settings

Optimal Settings for Your Work

Part IV : Advanced Tips and Tricks

Chapter 14: General Tips, Tricks, and Shortcuts

System Preferences Tips

Drawing Tool Tips

Tone Tips

Layer Tips: Coloring Your Work

Using Filters

Chapter 15: Manga Studio EX Only!

Understanding and Taking Advantage of the Manga Studio EX Palettes

The Gradation Tool

Spicing Up Your Work with Filters

Filters as Rulers: Using the Parallel, Focus, and Perspective Line Rulers

Putting Miscellaneous Functions to Use

Part V : The Part of Tens

Chapter 16: Ten (Or So) Books and Web Sites to Check Out

Drawing Manga

Drawing Characters

Inking Your Comics

Drawing Backgrounds

Using Tones

The Books of Scott McCloud

Closely Read Other Manga and Comics

On-Demand Publishing

The Joy of Webcomics

Online Forums

Chapter 17: Ten Ways to Improve Your Manga Studio Experience

Find the Right Place to Work

Purchase the Right (Digital) Tools for the Job

Create a Comfortable Workspace

Take a Break Now and Then

Don’t Overburden Your System

Take Advantage of Manga Studio Tools

Save! Save! Save! And Save Again!

Avoid Perfectionism

If All Else Fails, Try a Different Medium

Have Fun!

: Further Reading

Wiley Publishing, Inc. End-User License Agreement:

Part I

Welcome to Manga Studio!

In this part . . .

So, you either bought a copy of Manga Studio and picked this book up because you aren’t exactly sure where to go from here, or maybe you saw this on the bookshelf and would like to know exactly what Manga Studio is. This first part of the book gives you some understanding as to what this program is and what it can do to help you create comics on your computer.

Chapter 1 goes over the basics of Manga Studio, including what you can (and can’t) do in the program, as well as a breakdown of the new workspace you’ll create your art in. Chapter 2 offers a bit of help to the beginning artist, with some suggestions on what you should buy to make your experience with the program a pleasurable one. I also discuss several comic terms that you’ll run into as you continue down this potential career path, as well as offer a few suggestions when you start to feel a bit frustrated at the whole “creating comics” thing. (It’ll happen; trust me.)

Finally, for those that are just chomping at the bit and raring to get right to work in the program, Chapter 3 is your quick-start guide. This chapter takes you from concept to completion, covering all the basic tools you need to create art and prepare it for mass consumption, either in print or on the Internet.

Chapter 1

Getting to Know Manga Studio

In This Chapter

Understanding what Manga Studio can and can’t do

Getting familiar with the Manga Studio workspace

Breaking down the functions of the Main toolbar, Page toolbar, and Tools palette

Explaining what the other workspace palettes do in Manga Studio

When you buy a new program, do you actually read the instruction manual? It’s okay. You can be honest — I won’t tell anyone. The problem with skipping the instructions is that sometimes you miss out on many interesting tidbits you didn’t know you could do with the program.

Well, you can think of this chapter as your Manga Studio cheat sheet — so you don’t have to go read the instructions. This chapter is your general overview of the program. I discuss how it differs from other drawing programs, and I do a run-through of the Manga Studio workspace, along with all the cool toys that you can use when producing your manga or comic.

And if you haven’t yet decided which version of Manga Studio to purchase, I discuss how the Debut and EX versions differ and which may be the one that best suits your drawing needs.

How Manga Studio Differs from Other Drawing Programs

In many ways, Manga Studio is similar to other drawing programs available, such as Adobe Photoshop or Corel Painter. Each of these programs is good in its own right, but because Manga Studio is first and foremost a comic creation program, it has a few functions that set it apart from other drawing programs — and that help make your life as a digital artist easier.

Artwork courtesy of Michael Rhodes, Teyon Alexander (characters © Merge Comics), and Jason Masters (God Complex © Brandon Thomas and Jason Masters).

Don’t let the name fool you!

The one critique I have about the program is that its name was changed from the original Japanese name of Comic Studio to Manga Studio here in America. I’m not really sure why the name was changed, aside from catching the eye of manga fans and artists. The problem with this name change is that when I talk to my Western-based comic book artist buddies, they think that the program is for the production of manga only. Far from it.

So let me reassure you — you can use Manga Studio to draw manga, superhero comics, or any other style or genre of sequential art. In the following figure, you can see three different styles of comics, all done in Manga Studio. The thing to keep in mind when using this program is that it’s a tool to create art. It’s no different than using traditional pens and pencils.

Finding out what Manga Studio can do for you

Over the years of producing art digitally, I’ve tried out a lot of different programs. Each program would get the job done for me in one way or another, but many times I would find myself feeling very frustrated while working with them. Don’t get me wrong, I think there are some flat-out awesome art programs on the market. The problem that I was having was while they’re good art programs, I didn’t find them to be very good comic drawing programs. As I experimented with these programs I could never find a good comfort level to create my work digitally from start to end. More often than not, I found myself working with multiple programs just to get a page done.

What I found when working in Manga Studio is that comfort level. It was the first program that I felt let me take advantage of the digital medium, while also having the “real world” feeling I normally had when working with real pencils and inks.

So, I thought I’d list a few features of Manga Studio that I found to be the most helpful to my work, and possibly will help you out as well.

Adding a personal touch to line work with custom rulers and guides

When using a program such as Photoshop or Painter, your ability to draw straight lines or custom curves can be a bit limited. You can always use the Line, Curve, or Pen tools, but because the lines all end up uniform, there’s definitely a loss of personality. What you need are virtual rulers that can guide you in creating and adjusting straight edges, curves, and polygons of any size and shape. Then all you need to do is draw on them, much like their real-world counterparts, adding your own personal touches to the line work as you go along.

Manga Studio provides such a feature with its Ruler Layers feature, which lets you create as many rulers as you need for your page. Straight or curved, rectangular or polygonal, you can make any kind of ruler you need. In addition, you can scale and rotate the rulers. Do you find that your curved ruler isn’t quite how you want it? Grab an endpoint and adjust it. It’s just that simple.

To me, the best part is that when the ruler is set, you can vary your line weight as you draw along the ruler. It probably doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a great thing if you want to be able to add a bit of a personal flair to your technical line work. (See Chapter 8 for the details on using the Rule Layers feature.)

Eliminating shakiness in line work

If you’ve ever tried drawing or inking in Photoshop at anything less than 200% zoom, I’m sure you’ve noticed you need unnatural steadiness to draw anything resembling a straight line. Even at your steadiest, you notice some wobble to your line work. The only way to remedy that is to zoom in close to the page, but you risk losing sight of the picture as a whole as you work.

Manga Studio provides the ability to set a variable correcting to the line work. What this means is that as you work, the line adjusts itself to reduce or eliminate shakiness. The setting is variable, so you can make the correction as strong or as light as you like.

If you like to work while zoomed out but have been unhappy with how your line work has been coming out, this function may be just the remedy you need. (I tell you how to use this feature in Bonus Chapter 1 on the CD.)

Having thousands of screentones at your disposal

Manga Studio comes preinstalled with thousands of screentones (patterns of dots or other shapes that are used in black and white artwork to represent shades of gray) that you can’t get with other drawing programs. In addition, these tones are vector based, which means that you can adjust the size of your finished page to any size you want, and the quality of the tones remains the same. This is something that even the Computones package for Photoshop can’t do. (Incidentally, EX users can use Computones in addition to the program’s main tones, so there’s another advantage.)

Chapter 11 covers all you need to know about adding screentones to your work.

Working with multiple-page story files

What if you could contain all of the pages in your story or chapter in one place, which you could then easily preview as you go along? Manga Studio provides that with its story files. Here, you can create as many pages as you’d like, and they’re organized in one location. You can then rearrange the pages, add new ones, or remove excess ones. And because all the page files are collected within one story file, all you need to do to view your story is just open one file, instead of several. Chapter 4 discusses how to work with these files.

Manga Studio EX users also can combine two consecutive pages into a spread — for those large action pieces you want to draw. (Conversely, you can split a spread into two separate pages.)

Knowing your page dimensions with print guides (preinstalled and custom)

Manga Studio includes page templates of various shapes and sizes that are useful if you’re planning on printing your comic. In addition, for several of those templates, a set of print guides is included.

The print guide helps you keep track of what areas of the page are safe and what areas are cut off by the printer when preparing it for the final book. It’s a very useful way to make sure any important artwork or dialogue isn’t accidentally cut because you didn’t keep track of where the cut-off points were. I go over the basics of the print guide in Chapter 4.

Creating custom word balloons (EX only)

Many programs offer the ability to add text to a page, but Manga Studio EX provides you the option of adding word balloons as well. These vector-based balloons can be squashed, stretched, and fitted to whatever dialogue you want to add. EX comes with a wide variety of balloon shapes to choose from, but if you don’t see what you’re looking for, you can always create your own! Check out Chapter 12 for more information on how the word balloon function works.

Knowing what Manga Studio can’t do (easily)

The one thing Manga Studio can’t do, at least as easily as other drawing programs can, is color work. That’s not to say it’s impossible to do, it just isn’t really as intuitive as your traditional digital coloring programs. The reason for this is simple — at its heart, Manga Studio was designed for black-and-white use. While it can convert a layer from black and white to custom colors, the intention is more to adjust your draft work color to differentiate it from your finished work.

You can do simple cell-shaded-style color work, as well as some airbrushing, to add highlights and shadows to a drawing. However, you can’t alter a layer’s settings like you can in Photoshop. This means you can adjust only the layer’s opacity; functions like multiply or overlay don’t exist in Manga Studio. The other thing to keep in mind is that each color has to be on its own separate layer. This can certainly bloat the size of your page file if you’re planning on doing detailed color work.

In Chapter 14, I go over how you can do some simple color work in Manga Studio. It’s a fun little trick that you can experiment with. However, if you’re looking to do some serious color work for your comic, this is the one area that Manga Studio lacks, compared to other programs.

Debut versus EX: Which Is Right for You?

Manga Studio comes in two flavors: Debut and EX. Choosing the right version for you comes down to what features you’re looking for in a drawing program, what ones you can do without, and (most importantly) how much money you’re willing to spend:

Manga Studio Debut is the introductory-level version of the program. There are no bells and whistles to this version of the program; it contains all the basic tools you need to create your manga from start to finish. Debut works as a fairly accurate simulation of all the traditional tools you would use for producing a comic, all in one convenient package.

If you’re looking for a straight-forward drawing and screentoning art program, you may want to consider this version instead of EX. At a lower price point than the EX version, Debut is easy on your wallet.

Manga Studio EX helps you take advantage of the fact that you are working on a computer. This version provides shortcuts and functions that you simply can’t do with traditional tools or even Manga Studio Debut. The EX version also allows you to work with vectors, which let you expand or shrink your artwork to whatever size you need, without any loss of quality. (The Debut version, by comparison, is raster-based only. This means that you will lose line quality if you try to enlarge the image.)

If you have the money to spend and would like a few shortcuts to help speed up and streamline your creative process, this may be the version for you.

If you haven’t purchased either version yet, be sure to pop the CD-ROM that accompanies this book into your computer. e frontier, the company that brings you Manga Studio, has generously included a 30-day demo version of Manga Studio EX. (You can also download the demo version from www.e-frontier.com/go/mangastudio.) It’s a good way to test-drive the program if you’re still on the fence regarding which version to purchase.

Getting to Know Your New Workspace

Provided you’ve installed your program (and if you haven’t yet, you probably should), you’re now staring at your brand new workspace (shown in Figure 1-1), with no idea where to start.

Figure 1-1: Time to get acquainted with your new workspace.

This is as good a time as any to familiarize yourself with the basic tools, functions, and palettes that you’ll be using in Manga Studio. You’re going to be using them a lot, so it’s best to get to know them.

This section is intended to be a general overview; I explore the functions in much more detail in later chapters. Remember, this is your cheat sheet; I can’t give you all the information right off the bat!

Recognizing the Main toolbar

Much like many other programs (both drawing and nondrawing) you may have used, the Main toolbar (shown in Figure 1-2) contains your basic file and clipboard buttons. You can save, print, cut, paste, undo, and redo pretty easily from here. As you can guess, this toolbar is pretty straightforward.

Figure 1-2: The Main toolbar.

The Main toolbar also has buttons you can use to hide and show the various palettes available. Because things can get pretty cluttered on your workspace when you have too many palettes open at once, having the ability to quickly turn them on and off is handy.

Table 1-1 lists all the functions on the Main toolbar.

* Available in Manga Studio EX only.

Adjusting your view with the Page toolbar

The Page toolbar, shown in Figure 1-3, contains general page-viewing and manipulation tools. These allow you to adjust on-the-fly without the need to constantly switch to different tools or palettes to do the same thing. Table 1-2 breaks the functions down for you.

Figure 1-3: The Page toolbar.

Accessing your core set of tools

Out of all the various functions, actions, and palettes that come with Manga Studio, there is one that I’m sure you’ll use more than any other — the Tools palette, which you can see in Figure 1-4.

This is your toolbox. Or more specifically, this is your art box. This palette contains all the drawing tools you need to rough out your page, cut out unnecessary sections, ink it up, and erase any mistakes you made along the way. In Table 1-3, I compile a list of the tools in the palette, along with short descriptions of what they do. I discuss most of these tools in later chapters.

Figure 1-4: The Tools palette.

You can access any of the tools from your keyboard by pressing the shortcut key noted in Table 1-3. As you go through the table, you’ll notice that some tools share the same shortcut. That allows you to cycle quickly through these similar tools by pressing the shortcut key multiple times. For example, you would press the P to select the Pen tool, press P again to select the Pencil tool, and P once more to select the Marker tool. To go back to the Pen tool simply press P again.

Exploring various palettes

While the Tools palette is probably the one you’ll use the most in Manga Studio, it isn’t the only one available. When you opened the program for the first time, you were bombarded with palettes and windows, as shown in Figure 1-5. It’s a lot to weed through at first, but as you get to understand each of the palettes in the program, you may find them as indispensable as the Tools palette.

If at any time you’d like to remove some of the clutter from too many palettes open at once, press the Tab key on your keyboard to hide them all at once. Press the Tab key again to make them all visible again.

Tool Options

Each tool in Manga Studio is customizable in one way or another. The Tool Options palette shows you all the options available with the currently selected tool. This allows you to tweak the tools to your heart’s content, until they’re set in such a way that they feel as comfortable to use as their real-world counterparts.

Figure 1-5: That’s a lot of palettes on the screen.

Layers

Looking at the Layers palette, you can see a whole slew of layer types that you can (and probably will) use as you create your pages. The Layers palette helps to keep all the various layer types organized. This way, you not only know what layer you’re currently working on, but also keep track of the other layers and layer types you create. I go over layers in much more detail in Chapter 6.

Navigator

The Navigator palette works much like the functions available on the Page toolbar; you can zoom in and out, as well as rotate the page (or enter manual values for each).

You’ll also notice a miniature representation of your page, as well as a red rectangle. This allows you to move around the page, much like using the Grab tool from the Tools palette. All you need to do is click within the rectangle with your mouse or stylus and drag it around the preview pane. As you can see, manipulating the preview pane also moves the main page as well. This is a good way to maneuver around the page without having to switch to the Grab tool every time you need to adjust its placement.

Tones

The Tones palette is your repository for all the tones that come installed with your program, as well as any customized tones you create. Each type of tone available is filed into its own folder. All you need to do is dig into those folders and find the tone you need! For more information on using tones on your page, be sure to check out Chapter 11.

Layer Properties

Each layer type in Manga Studio has its own set of properties to go along with it. The Layer Properties palette shows you all the options available for that particular type. (Options you can’t adjust are grayed out.) Adjusting the properties can range from simply renaming the layer, to setting the layer-specific ruler properties. Chapter 6 covers the various layer properties available to you, depending on the layer type.

History

The Undo function in Manga Studio is a great way to quickly erase a mistake you may have just made. But what happens if you need to go back several steps? You could always undo a few extra times — or if you happen to own Manga Studio EX, you can take advantage of the History palette.

The History palette keeps track of a set number of previous actions (which you can set in the System Preferences of the program) in a list. You just look through the list to the action you’d like to go back to and click it with your mouse or stylus. Instantly, you travel back in time to the point you want to start over from. And you don’t even need a DeLorean to do it!

(Just a quick note to you Manga Studio Debut users out there — the rest of the palettes are exclusive to the EX version of the program.)

Gray (EX only)

The Gray palette gives you a bit more fine-tuning for the color of your ink as you’re working on a layer. Much like the opacity setting determines how opaque or transparent a layer can be, the Gray palette adjusts how dark or light a shade of gray you’d like to work in.

This is useful for those who like to work loosely and lightly with their pencils and then go back and refine the work with a darker pencil. If you don’t want to create a brand-new layer for the tight pencils, you can just adjust the grays as you go along. You can try setting the gray color to a lighter shade for your loose roughs. Then, when you’re ready to tighten the pencils up, darken the grays and start refining! It’s a great alternative to those who feel some “life” from their work is lost when traced on a separate layer.

Materials (EX only)

The Materials palette is your repository for all the various tools and samples that you can use in your drawing. These include:

Two-dimensional images that you can use with the 2DLT importing function (which I explain in Bonus Chapter 2 on the CD).

Three-dimensional objects that you can use with the 3DLT importing function (which I explain in Bonus Chapter 2 on the CD).

Custom Ruler shapes, such as French Curves, Elliptical and Circular rulers, and others.

Preset Layer Types, such as a Black Only Raster pen layer.

Word balloons.

You can place each of these materials on the page by clicking and dragging it using your mouse or stylus. In addition, you can save your own custom images, rulers, and layer types in the User folder. I discuss the Materials palette in a bit more detail in Chapter 15.

Custom Tools (EX only)

While the Tools palette provides all your important drawing tools, EX users can take that idea a bit further. The Custom Tools palette allows you to customize exactly which tools you want to have at the ready. Don’t want to have to hold down the Pencil tool in order to switch them? Add all the pencils you want right onto the palette. Want to quickly access functions without having to go through a series of nested menus? You can add those as well. There’s no limit to what you can add!

To help you organize things a bit further, you can switch between custom sets. If you’d like to have a custom palette of rough work tools and one with nothing but vector tools, it’s easy to set up and switch. This palette is yet one more way you can streamline the way you work digitally by quickly accessing to the tools and functions you use most frequently.

Actions (EX only)

Have you ever run into instances where you find yourself repeating the same series of functions over and over? It can prove to be quite tedious and boring if you have to export a series of pages one at a time, for example. If you’re an EX user, you may find the Actions palette can help relieve you of these doldrums.

Actions (or macros, as they’re often called in other programs) are a series of recorded commands and functions. What’s special about these actions is that instead of repeatedly going through a series of steps manually, you can use actions to quickly perform those steps automatically.

The preinstalled actions can range from automatically setting up the properties of an imported image to adding an outline to exporting your page for the Internet. What’s more, you can always record your own actions to use at a later time. When using the preinstalled actions — or creating your own — you may find these to be another way to shave a few seconds or minutes off of your production — time you can then use to focus on more creative things.

Chapter 2

Help for the Beginning (Manga Studio) Artist

In This Chapter

Purchasing additional RAM to help your computer while running Manga Studio

Purchasing a drawing tablet and/or scanner to help create your art in the program

Defining basic comic page terminology

Suggesting some storytelling tips

Offering additional suggestions for when you feel frustrated with the creative process

This chapter is aimed squarely at the new wave of digital artists out there who pick up this book. Maybe you’re the person who always dreamed about drawing comics but didn’t know where to begin. Or you could be the person who received this book and a copy of Manga Studio as a gift (if that’s the case, Happy birthday/Christmas/Kwanzaa/Chanukah/Festivus/or whatever) and aren’t sure where to go from here.

The chapter’s broken down into, I’d say, one-third useful computer hardware information to help you use Manga Studio and two-thirds (hopefully) useful suggestions on comics and manga creation and storytelling in general.

Acquiring Useful Tools

I’ll take the leap of faith and assume that you already have a computer running some flavor of Windows or Mac OS X (sorry, Linux users! You can always see if the program will run though Wine), or else you probably wouldn’t be reading this book.

However, there are a few pieces of hardware, both internal to your computer as well as external, that you may find useful to have. What’s more, you don’t need to go on a massive spending spree to get them.

You can never have too much RAM!

Appendix A to this book contains the absolute minimum requirements you need to run Manga Studio on your PC or Mac. It may run a bit sluggishly, but it’ll run. So here’s what I suggest you do to make your Manga Studio experience that much better:

Buy a new computer! (Just kidding.) The truth is, you don’t need the latest and greatest machine on the market in order to use Manga Studio.

Buy more RAM. This is the one piece of equipment that I consider to be the most vital upgrade for your machine. You can have the fastest processor possible in your machine, but it doesn’t mean much if you don’t have enough RAM. And because you’re working primarily in two dimensions (unless you have Manga Studio EX and are planning on using the 3DLT import function — see Bonus Chapter 2 on the CD), you really don’t need an expensive graphics card.

The system requirements suggest a minimum of 256 to 512MB of RAM in your machine. Some users also suggest that you have at least 1GB. Considering how relatively inexpensive RAM is nowadays, I suggest maxing your machine out with as much RAM as it can use. At the very least, I suggest boosting your memory up to about 2GB of RAM (if your computer can handle that much RAM).

You can purchase relatively inexpensive RAM at several Web sites. I happen to like Newegg (www.newegg.com) for my computer purchases, but you can also purchase from RAM manufacturers such as Crucial (www.crucial.com).

Time to create some art — But with what?

The most important tool to have when working with Manga Studio is your computer. The second most important tool is what you use to create the artwork in the program. If you’re thinking of drawing with the computer itself, you’re going to need something other than your mouse (unless you’re really really good). If you’re thinking of finishing up the work you started on paper, you’re going to need something to get the drawing to the computer, and then when you’re done, back out of it.

A drawing tablet, scanner, and printer are three tools that I think are just as important to your Manga Studio experience as the program itself. The following sections explain why.

A drawing tablet

Drawing with a tablet is much easier than drawing with a mouse. However, whether you need a drawing tablet depends on what you plan on doing with Manga Studio. If you’re going to scan your pencil or ink work into the computer and you’re using the program solely to add screentones and do some touch-up work, you can get by with just your mouse. But unless you’re adept at drawing with a brick, I wouldn’t suggest trying to use a mouse for drawing anything. You’ll find it much easier and you’ll get better results if you draw with a tablet.

If you’ve never used (or even heard of) one before, a drawing tablet is a means of reproducing natural drawing on the computer. It actually works like a mouse, except that you use a special pen on a drawing surface that’s connected to your computer. Unlike a mouse, the pen has pressure sensitivity. (That is, the line size and/or opacity of the line you’re drawing increase and decrease, depending on how lightly or heavily you press the pen tip on the tablet.) So when you draw with a tablet in Manga Studio, the pen and pencil lines should look like what you’d draw with a normal pencil and paper.

A scanner

If you aren’t planning on doing any digital drawing (or are planning on scanning in one stage of the process and finishing the rest with a drawing tablet), a scanner is the piece of equipment (outside of the computer itself) that you need to own. It’s the only way you’re going to get your pencil or pen work into Manga Studio.

A printer

I think that if you’re looking to create a physical comic book for your family and friends to read, the easiest and simplest method is to print it, fold it in half, and staple it together. In one of the more obvious statements you’ll read in this book, in order to do that, you’re going to need a decent printer.

Odds are that you probably already have a printer. If you don’t, you can get a relatively inexpensive one from your local office supply or electronics supply stores. Because Manga Studio produces black-and-white art, you don’t necessarily need to worry about the most photorealistic color printer on the market. But you should look into a printer that prints at a high resolution. (That is, the more dots that can fit in an inch, the sharper the line art looks.) You can purchase good quality laser or inkjet printers without putting a large dent in your wallet at your local office supply store.

You also need to look into paper that doesn’t cause the ink to bleed together, resulting in a messy looking page. Fortunately, most regular typing paper should work just fine.

Understanding the Essentials of Comic Creation

While the following subsections can apply to Manga Studio, they cover the art of manga and comic creation in a more general (and abbreviated) sense. I guess you could call this section Sequential Art 101.

Basic terminology

Over the course of the book, I throw around a lot of comic terminology. Some terms you may be familiar with, others may be new. I even try to throw in a few terms that I think you should be familiar with in general, as you’re going to encounter them as you go along on your artistic career. (And you’ll definitely encounter them as you work in Manga Studio.)

Panel: Where the magic takes place. These tiny (and not so tiny) boxes of various shapes and sizes contain all the action and dialogue of a scene. (See Figure 2-1.)

Gutter: The white (or black) space between panels, columns, and the inner margins between two facing pages. (See Figure 2-1.)

Bleed: A panel that extends all the way to the edge of a page. (See Figure 2-2.) When the pages are cut after being printed on, any art extending into the bleed is cut off. This makes the panel extend to the edges of the finished pages.

Figure 2-1: Manga and comic pages are comprised of panels and gutters.

Trim: When you work on pages that will be printed by a professional printer, consider a small area around each page disposable. The trim is the area that is cut after the pages are printed — anything past the trim is lost.

Safe area: The area of the page that’s in no danger of getting trimmed by the printer. It’s suggested that you keep all of the dialogue and most important artwork inside this area.

Spreads: Art that spans over two pages in a book. (See Figure 2-3.)

Layout: Usually a very rudimentary sketch placing what you want on the page, including the number of panels and the basic action you want to show in each. (See Figure 2-4.)

Figure 2-2: A bleed panel extends all the way to the edge of a page.

Figure 2-3: You can really get your reader’s attention with a two-page spread.

Roughs: A term for the unrefined pencil or pen sketches that you use to get a “rough” idea of how you want the page to look. Roughs tend to be more detailed than layouts but can still be pretty messy, compared to the final work. (See Figure 2-5.)

Loose pencils: Very rough pencil sketches. You aren’t worried about the sketch being clean — you’re more focused on getting the general “feel” of what you want to draw on the page. (See the leftmost image in Figure 2-6.)

Tightened pencils: Cleaner, more refined pencil work. These tend to look more refined than loose pencil work. (See the middle image in Figure 2-6.)

Screentones: Tiny dots that are used in black-and-white artwork to depict shades of gray. (See Figure 2-7.) Screentones are featured quite heavily in manga and some independent comics.

Breaking the border: This refers to panels where a figure or object “breaks” beyond its borders. This causes the illusion that the figure is “popping” out of the confines of the page. (See Figure 2-8.)

Figure 2-4: You use layouts to get a basic idea of the page down on paper. And I mean basic.

Figure 2-5: Roughs add some detail to the layouts but can still be pretty messy.

Figure 2-6: The difference between loose pencils (left), tight pencils (middle), and line work (right).

Establishing shot: A panel that depicts where the scene you’re drawing is taking place. It gives the reader an anchor of sorts. This can be a city skyline, a country meadow, or the exterior of a futuristic spaceship flying through space. (See Figure 2-9.)

Figure 2-7: Screentones are heavily featured in manga.

Figure 2-8: A character popping out of a panel is “breaking the border.”