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 Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 9:54 pm
Sounds harsh, but I've finally come to a decision to make a thread about tips and tricks that manga-ka use to make their comics! Feel free to add your tips to this as well! ^^ (Anything in blue means i'm just randomly talking. lol.)
Intro
As you're all probably familiar, Manga-ka in japan normally have a deadline every two weeks or so and they have to meet a requirement of a # of minimum pages.
But not all manga are what they seem.
You're probably one of those people out there that drool at their works and wonder how they mangage to draw certain things or achieve certain effects with their works.
Well, what they don't tell you is that most manga-ka are cheaters. Why? Because they have a deadline to meet and frankly, they don't care what they have to do in order to meet those deadlines.
... Even their assistants can be cheaters. And so can you!
Cheats and Misc. Tips
This section is small now, but it will grow if people contribute. I'll continue to add things as I dig them out from different sources. (Please, try not to contribute things that are plainly obvious, such as "don't have distractions", etc. Thank you.).
Q: Wow! Their pages are so clean! How do they clean up those pencil marks without leaving a trace of them?
A: There are several ways of doing this. There ARE manga-ka out there that draw directly onto the paper and erase, etc. But if you're like me and you press down HARD when you sketch, that's not the route you want to take... unless you want to take the extra time attempting to clean it up on your PC. Here's another way of doing it and it's pretty point blank:
Trace. You might be confused because you have the idea in your head that manga-ka don't trace.
Wrong. Most manga-ka DO trace, for one reason or another. Why do you think humans invented the Tracing table? question We have all, at one point or another in our lives, traced something. (Don't lie! You know your sin! lol.)
Example:
I take a character or object I want to draw. Place it down on scrap paper and keep fixing it till it's the way I want exactly. After you have your comic page planned out, place your comic sheet over your drawing onto the area where you want the image to be and trace it with pencil. Once you have the entire sheet filled out and penciled, go over it with your pen of choice and erase the pencil lines.
Q: *stares at manga* Their lineart is so clean and detailed! I wonder how they do that.
A: Manga sheets come in various sizes from A2 to B5 and beyond. If you like to do a lot of detail work, get the larger sizes such as B4 or if you want REALLY big then something like B0 (There's probably sheets bigger than this).
Manga paper is like a double-edged sword. If you get the small, you have less space to fill in and less tones to use, but at the same time, you have to draw small to microscopic basically. And if you get the larger sheets, you have more space to fill in and more tones to use, but at the same time you can add a lot of detail and frankly, in my opinion, drawing things larger makes my life easier than it does trying to draw tiny people all the time.
As for really clean line art, these pages are shrunk down (obviously) and their small mistakes are minimzed to where they're less noticeable or not even present in the final product. Besides, there's always white ink to cover up the mistakes that are uneraseable. ^^
Toning Tip
Before I start, I'm pretty sure that some, if not most, of you know what screen tones are. For those that don't, Screen tones are black and white images printed onto clear sheets of sticky plastic (somewhat like transparencies) that can be cut and pressed down onto a comic sheet in order to create texture, shading, and background effects. Screen tones can also be added via your PC with certain programs such as Deleter's ComicWorks, or made in photoshop (and other art programs.).
There are a lot of manga artists out there that fill up to 50% or more of their pages with screen tones. In Japan, the variety of tones are very expansive. Even backgrounds, such as cities, etc. can be added to a page simply by toning.
So stop wondering how they draw those flowers so perfectly, or made that background have a motion blur, etc. All tones, baby. All tones. And if you live in the states, tones cost approx. the same here as they do in Japan. Kinda makes you wonder how manga-ka can even make a living, eh? Remember... buy in bulks if you do. It saves on shipping. @_@
Q: OMG. I can't believe I'm wasting all this ink just to make this ___fill in blank___ completely black! And it doesn't even come out as black as the manga pages do whenever I scan this. *angermark*
A: Ok... I went through this problem when I first started filling in large sections of images with black ink and was very frustrated because... well, I was new to the whole thing. You might be too. (Either that or I'm just a dumbass. lol.)
I was told by a friend that they use tone for this. Ok... after thinking about this multiple times and at every different angle I could possibly think of, I don't think it's possible to use 100% black toning on anything. Why? Because you can't see the lines through the tone then! gonk (If I am wrong, please tell me.)
First off... put away your pens. You DON'T want to waste the ink of those precious items trying to make a giant mass of black on your page. Manga-ka aren't limited to just pens. They also use paint brushes. I find it easiest if you have a bottle of black india ink in front of you and a small 0 sized watercolor paint brush. Simply fill in those areas with india ink. It doesn't have to be black black, as long as you get it filled in. Now, if you're going to scan it, be warned that it wont appear black. Most likely a weird brown color or something of that sort. Remember, just put it in your art program and set it to grayscale and adjust the brightness/contrast settings to your liking.
And if you're just going to make a photocopy of it, don't bother with that step. Just make sure the photocopy machine is a B&W copy machine (black and white) before doing it. (Beware of the color ones... they tend to screw everything up unless it's a colored image. @_@) The B&W copy machines will make everything nice and black and huggable.
Q: *envy* Their hands and feet are perfect! And their body positions are drawn so well.
A: Manga-ka have a lot of reference items, ranging from books to photos, miniature Model Dolls, and even mirrors. (Disney uses Mirrors, so it's not just the Japanese. lol.)
In Japan, they sell reference photo books for artists. Trust me. These come in handy. You can get these online, and if not, just start taking photos or study yourself in a mirror. Easy, yes? Even I do it! ^^;
Manga-ka also take certain elements from different photos to combine them to come up with unrecognizeable backgrounds. This even applies to real life painters.
So don't think that you need more practice in order to draw everything perfectly without references. Perfection is something within the mind, and honestly, nobody cares how you do it, as long as you don't trace it off of a picture that you didn't make yourself. Even your editor wont care. *nudge nudge wink *
More tips will be posted later (hopefully)Questions
If you have a question about how manga-ka do certain things or where to order/buy a certain item, etc. Send em in and I'll post them here and try to answer them to the best of my ability. And if I can't, then at least it'll be up so someone else might be able to see it and give you the answer. biggrin Supply Links
Don't know where to buy Screen Tones? Pen nibs? Manga paper? Or those rare alcohol-based markers? Try one of the following links! (Feel free to contribute links! Just make sure they're virus free!) whee
Akadot Retail
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Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 10:33 am
~You wrote alot but it's very helpful n_n
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Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 10:48 am
Why thaanks for the info. The more different ways you learn how to do somthing the better.
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Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 4:13 pm
This is useful. I'm going to the Tutorial list.
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Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 9:02 pm
Ubla This is useful. I'm going to the Tutorial list. Thank you. ^^; But I feel that I can add a lot more to this. But everytime I have it and begin to type... I forget. lol...
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Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 10:27 am
you wrote alot about this but its good info. its great to know that there are easier ways to do it.
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Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 8:01 pm
Thanks. It's great to know that even the pros take easy ways out. I'll keep these tips in mind...
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Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 8:39 pm
Ah, very helpful. And Akadot Retail was my favorite site to buy manga supplies before the comic shop in my town was, er, suitable for habitation... sweatdrop *cough* Er, I thought of a few more tips. They mostly just expand on what you've said, but...
- A fairly famous comicker has piles and piles, books and books of blurry photos. He uses them for pose references. If you need a specific pose, here's an idea: get a buddy and ask/make/pay them to strike the pose for you, take a quick picture or two, then draw off that. Even if the pose is of a guy laying dead on a flight of stairs. People will stare at you, but it's worth it. It's also good for people who don't have enough cash for photobooks or need a pose they can't find in any.
- Try using these if you're background-challenged. Copy-right free backgrounds for artists. They work as references and as cut-and-paste backgrounds. A downside may be that they wouldn't as easy to apply as screentone, and you'd have to copy them as not to run out of them shortly after purchasing them. For a digital artist with a scanner, however, that wouldn't be much of a problem. Just don't buy them at that store, because you'll pay your weight just in shipping! They ARE stocked at Akadot. Same price, faster and cheaper.
- Don't feel comfortable with that? When you draw a background, make copies of it and use it later when you're drawing a similar scene.
- When using a ruler to draw lines, stick something to the bottom of it so that it is elevated above the pen nib so it won't smear. Just make sure what you stick to it doesn't stick out and cause more of a problem.
Oh, I just remembered something! The notes in the back of Love Hina have tips in them. @_@ That's where the second background tip is from...
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Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2005 6:52 pm
could you also use a light box, the original sketch, and another piece of paper, and then trace it over in pen so it looks like one draft? i keep the original sketches though
^^;
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Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 9:50 pm
You learn something new every day! Wow, that was quite informative. Thanks for posting the info. Here's an idea, not professional or anything, but it's an idea for those making their own stuff for fun...
My prossess: I do large drawings on printer paper, the cheap stuuf you can find anywhere in bulk. Scetch, then trace (what Yuki seggests, it's definently a good thing to do), then ink and paint in the area.Heck, I'm so cheap, my materials consist of printer paper, (I don't have large sheets of paper, and this prossess works just dandy on 8 1/2" x 11") and I usually just use sharpies and big felt-tip pens for the large areas. mrgreen When I've got all of the pictures done, and have a layout in mind I hit the scanner, and make the pictures all nice and pretty with this ingenius device.
I then set all of the pictures up in some progam, I use Macro-media Flash, in the layout I had in mind, and size it down from there. Tah Dah!
This can definently be a time consuming task, but I have found that it works really well for my hobby.
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Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 10:22 pm
Wow, this is wonderful. Thank you bunches!
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Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 10:02 am
That tracing thing makes a LOT of sense now. Not only should I start tracing but I should also tell a friend of mine to start doing that too.
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Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:51 am
I'm really confused as to why you would call these techniques "cheating". Of course you do it this way, how else? confused
Maybe I've just been doing this longer or something, but all this seemed really obvious to me. You've clearly helped others though, so good post. *thumbup*
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Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 1:51 pm
I luffles youuuuuu! heart
thankya for this!
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Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 8:54 am
Lisa in Wonderland That tracing thing makes a LOT of sense now. Not only should I start tracing but I should also tell a friend of mine to start doing that too. Tracing is used A LOT!! In Kouyu Shurei's Alichino, a lot of the pictures are reused! Seriously, the only thing that changes is the zoom or angle, which makes me believe she uses CG's for her manga.
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