New Manga Studio User!

[vegabros]

Hi,

I was just getting into making my own comics when I came across this wonderful app! Talk about great timing. I'm farely new to manga, but definitely not to cartoons in general. I've been using this program for a bit now and I have a few questions:

1) Not sure I understand what tones are. When I draw, I just use the paint bucket with a 10% - 40% black, have no clue what the tones in the "tones palette" are for. Not sure why someone would paste those when they could just use paint bucket (but I'm sure, there is a reason).

2) I set my page specs according to the tokyopop template. Is the main blue outline the actual printable area?

3) When doing a 2-page spread, I followed the pencilkiller tutorial and put the pages as close as possible. BUT, even then, the two blue rectangles representing the page area are not touching. So I'm not sure how to draw on it. I'm assuming whatever is drawn in the small space between the two pages will not be seen, correct?

I'm having a hard time understanding the "specs" of manga comics, like tones, page sizes, etc.

Thanks in advance for all your help!
Leo

[ouch]

1) Not sure I understand what tones are. When I draw, I just use the paint bucket with a 10% - 40% black, have no clue what the tones in the "tones palette" are for. Not sure why someone would paste those when they could just use paint bucket (but I'm sure, there is a reason).



You can use paint bucket instead of tone, but when export, it will automaticlly convert to tone for you, (in the case of you export it as monochome, in RGB mode, it will be flat gray.)

Do you mean the square tone pattle on the tool bar or the tone menu? For the square tone pattle on the buttom of tool bar, it just a display of what tone pattern last time you are using, more like a reminder and shortcut. You can double click the square, and the tone menu will pop right back to that tone.

And for the tone menu, it contains all the tone files there. You can drag and drop different tone on the drawing, instead using paint bucket with flat gray.

2) I set my page specs according to the tokyopop template. Is the main blue outline the actual printable area?


The blue outline from MS is the safty zone area:
http://www.pencilkiller.com/pic/printguide2.jpg

Tokyopop recommand people draw their balloon and dialog inside the safty zone, so it won't get trim off when print.;) As long as your important image is inside the safty zone, they will get print out right in the book.

3) When doing a 2-page spread, I followed the pencilkiller tutorial and put the pages as close as possible. BUT, even then, the two blue rectangles representing the page area are not touching. So I'm not sure how to draw on it. I'm assuming whatever is drawn in the small space between the two pages will not be seen, correct?


Hee, thanks for finding my site useful. :D
Those two blue rectangles are saft zone, just the reference for balloon and dialog. The small space between two pages will be seen and print when export and print in MS.
Here is the sample: (why I keep digging up my old drawing as sample... -_-!!!)


http://www.pencilkiller.com/pic/spreadsample.jpg

What it looks like when export as one page here (http://www.pencilkiller.com/mamd1819.html)

Hope it helps

[vegabros]

Thanks for the reply! And your site is definitely useful! :D

So if the blue box is the safe zone, then why is it when I make a new panel ruler layer, it just fills up to the blue lines. It doesn't actually go to the "trim" lines. Won't this cause me to have borders around my pages?

About tones, 30L and 60L I'm assuming refers to spacing between the dots, right? The dots seem much closer on 60L tones. Wouldn't 60L tones be the IDEAL choice for shading? Why would anyone use 30L, unless they want people to see the dots I guess.

Thanks again!
Leo

[vegabros]

Btw, nice artwork, very clean :D

I was wondering, do you tend to fill in your characters with white paint or just erase the part of the background that is behind the character?

[ouch]

So if the blue box is the safe zone, then why is it when I make a new panel ruler layer, it just fills up to the blue lines. It doesn't actually go to the "trim" lines. Won't this cause me to have borders around my pages?

You can expand and custom your own panel size. When the panel is expand to the edge of the page, it is beyond the trim and it won't show on the page when print.
Follow this guide:
http://www.pencilkiller.com/tutorial.html#panelexpand



About tones, 30L and 60L I'm assuming refers to spacing between the dots, right? The dots seem much closer on 60L tones. Wouldn't 60L tones be the IDEAL choice for shading? Why would anyone use 30L, unless they want people to see the dots I guess.

Beside use it as shading, different tone can evoke and emphasis different emotion. You can try it and see.:)

I was wondering, do you tend to fill in your characters with white paint or just erase the part of the background that is behind the character?

I used combine method. Sometime I will just erase, but other time when I'm not sure about the composition, I will fill it with white paint, so I can always go back and modify it.:o

[vegabros]

Thanks again!

I found out that you can manually select (using object selector) the side of a panel and move it as far as you want without it going all the way to the edge of the paper :) Pretty cool!

- Leo