My working digitally changed the way I make comics, from top to bottom. Before I got my Surface Pro 3 and went 100% digital, I drew and inked my comics on Bristol board, scanned them, and finished it up in Photoshop.
Now, I do everything inside Manga Studio 5 (aka Clip Studio Paint Pro which is the name of the the digital version on my Surface. They are the same program).
Here is the step by step process I went through for drawing, inking, and coloring this week’s comic, Multiple Choice Comics 2.
Mary the Time Traveling Bearded Lady is our subject today. At the top of the post is how she appeared in the finished comic. Well, Mary did not start this way. Not at all.
Sketching It Out
I’m a sloppy sketcher. It is what I do. I’m fast and loose. Some folks can pretty much draw their final image out of the gate. Me, I need a few passes to get the look I want.
Mary started out as a very rough blue pencil sketch (reminder: I use this Frenden Manga Studio brush set).
The Ur-Mary.
This is Mary’s basic shape. Or the idea of her shape. This version is more of a placeholder than anything else, so I can lay out the rest of the panel.
There’s Red On You
My next pass is more focused, and I use the red layout pencil (again, part of the Frenden brush set).
Stage 2 Mary.
I’m fine tuning the drawing here. I’m working on making this part as near the finished image as possible, so my inking phase goes faster. The biggest change here was Mary’s hair. I also slimmed her body down too (a large beard on a smaller body looked funnier to me. Contrast). I also changed her eyes.
I cannot stress enough the usefulness of the different color layout pencils in the Frenden set. In my pencil and paper days I only used blue lead and I ended up doing more fine tuning of my images in the inking stage, which really isn’t ideal (this meant more clean-up in Photoshop).
Thanks to Frenden’s red and blue layout pencils, I can see how the image started (the rough blue sketch) and build on top of it as needed (with the red).
Bring on the Ink
When I worked with pens and paper, my inking was a bit simpler: I only used my Micron pens, and the occasional brush pen.
In Manga Studio, my inking options are very diverse. The various Frenden sets alone offer dozens of inking options: simulated pens, nibs, and brushes of different styles and shapes.
I’m still figuring out which brushes/pens/nibs I like the most. For this week’s comic, I inked the eyes and face using the Technical Pen brush. This gave me a sharper line for the important facial features and the eyes.
Lines form on my face and hands, as the song goes.
For the bodies, I went with a thicker line, using a brush called The Natural. For the background stuff, like the buildings, I used a thinner line and a thicker line for characters and objects in the foreground.
Color?!
Both of my regular readers know I usually only work in black and white. I decided to break out of my comfort zone and go for color this week. Like inking, Manga Studio offers a bunch of pens and brushes for coloring. It all depends on the look or style you want.
Oh, hi, Mary.
I wanted to keep my coloring simple for now. I briefly experimented with watercolor brushes, but I need a lot more practice. Instead, I colored everything in with Frenden Art Marker brush (I think). I wanted a constant color without any layering or blending.
There you have it—that is how I drew, inked, and colored Mary the Time Traveling Bearded Lady in this week’s comic using Manga Studio.
