How I cheat draw on the PC – part 1
Hmm… is drawing on the PC cheating? I personally don’t think so. It takes me the same amount of time to draw on the PC like it would on paper. I can do my layout idea, make a new layer, clean it up, and then make a new layer and ink over it. With analog tools, it would just mean more paper and using a light box. What’s nice with paper though, you’re drawing a small size, whereas on the PC, it can be the equivalent of drawing a huge poster, in terms of arm strokes.
A while ago I was tagged to do a meme on LiveJournal, explaining a few chosen interests. One of them was “technique.” I love reading/listening to different creative techniques and tricks of the trade. Be it how someone channels their will to draw (hehheh) to business practices in the biz that I know I would never utilize—it’s still fascinating to learn! I ended up writing my own personal “How-I-do-it” while working on a page last week. It’s not really a tutorial, as there’s already so many of them out there, but I hope this will be an interesting read. (And much better than whining about my Dew addiction, right?)
My setup: Custom-built Windows XP PC with a 2.41GH.z AMD Athlon64 Processor, 2.75GB RAM, and Sapphire RADEON X800 GT video card . Wacom Intuos 3 9″x12″tablet. (Paper taped over it for a more pencil-to-paper sensation.) Crappy 19″ monitor.
The first time I decided to draw completely on the PC was for the Yuri Monogatari anthology back in 2003. (You can read the horrible, awful, cliched P.o.S. here) I used Painter 7 and 8 for it. I even made my own custom tone for Painter. It is HORRIBLE for comic work, at least my experience with it. It crashed all the time, or it would eat my save files. (I had to completely redraw 2 pages because of that.) Towards the end of drawing it, I bought the Japanese version of ComicWorks. What a relief! So much better. I used it for a few years all the way up to 2.0 MAX, but then Comic/Manga Studio’s perspective ruler won my heart after I figured out how to use it. XD Though, I do import CW’s tone into Manga Studio as I need it… They are both wonderful programs—they don’t use too many resources and are very stable.
This will not be a tutorial on how to use Manga Studio; a very complete and awesome one can be found at Lincy Chan’s site.^_^
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For Chasing Infidelity, I start with creating a custom-sized page as the submission guidelines demand it, but I make it 25% bigger for drawing and inking. If I were drawing with real paper and pencil, I would still want to draw and ink on a larger size to create more details. Minor flaws can be smoothed out when shrunk to print size. I usually stick with 600dpi, because my PC can’t handle 1200dpi within Manga Studio. (But ComicWorks was light enough to allow that!) I usually do a two-page spread because I’m trying to learn/attempt to make the story flow better and prevent the two pages look similar to each other. When finished, I will shrink it down to print size before I tone it.
I start by scribbling a very rough idea of how I want the page layout to look. I try to think of the panel(s) with the most impact, and make sure they’ll stand out. In this page’s case, the first and fifth panel I would think are the most important, so I try to make them big. I look at the preceding page to the left and and make sure they don’t look similar to each other.
Next, I make another layer and create clean panel outlines using the rectangle tool. The line size is set to 1.0. I try to keep it symmetrical, so the top half of the page isn’t too heavy and vise-a-versa. I make an extra layer to create the top-right half’s panel gutters. I duplicate it and move them around to what I want. (I’m lazy!) I merge them with the main panel layer and cut out the unneeded lines with the select tool + delete. I am sure to remember to name the layer “panels” before I doze it off and start drawing on it.
I select all of the rough layer and delete it.
Next—text! I want to know how much space I can work in with the word balloons, so I do these before deciding what to draw. I really hate Manga Studio’s text tool, but I use it anyway. If I need to warp the words in a particular way, I will export the image to Photoshop, do my text, merge it into a blank layer and delete the original art layer and import it back into Manga Studio. More on that another time. I have the text stored in a text folder. What’s nice, when the folder is closed, it rasterizes it so you don’t see those annoying box outlines and keeps the layer window less cluttered.
I try to balance the word block the best I can, I try to make it round as possible without being too large. Because Manga Studio won’t remember the last font settings I’ve used, I duplicate the text layer so I can just select the text and re-write it for the next one. (Again, lazy!) At this point, I stick the text in each of their respective panel and I will worry about their placement in the panel when I start the under drawing.
Speaking of which, I will talk more about tomorrow!
Tre :: Aug.31.2007 :: Nerd, overreacting :: 4 Comments »
