Manga Studio: Drawing & Importing Images Part II

By Rio

B. Drawing with Pencil , Pen & Brush

You have the option of drawing directly into Manga Studio. To do so, just hit one of the drawing tools in the Tools Palette and start drawing into the page. Here’s a list of the drawing tools you can use:

1. Line (Curve, and Polyline)
2. Rectangle (Oval, and Polygon)
3. Pen
4. Pencil
5. Marker
6. Eraser
7. Fill (aka Bucket)
8. Airbrush
9. Pattern Brush

Hit the arrow to quickly change the line size of the tool or in the case of number 1 and 2, choose another shape.

Before you start drawing, make a new layer, rename it and then choose your drawing tool and begin drawing. This way, you keep your pieces separate and if you make a mistake, one part of the drawing will not affect the other. Refer to page 5 to refresh yourself about layers.

Note: A new layer will be created automatically when you choose the Line or Rectangle tool so just watch out when you use the other seven drawing tools.

Most of the drawing tools have the same tool options being the ability to change the line width of the “ink” that’ll come out onto the page. Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll find in tools number 3 to 9 as marked in the previous page:

Size - the size of resulting “ink” mark made on the page, sized in millimeters. The higher the size, the bigger the line width.

Correction - this feature automatically smoothes out wobbly drawing lines. The higher the number, the greater it will smooth out shaky lines.

Opacity - use this to make the output as transparent or solid as you like. Drawing at 50% opacity, the resulting line will appear half-solid.

Pen Tool
G, Maru, Kabura, School, Brush, Gray Use - most of these specify a certain pen nib popularly used by mangaka or professional comic creators with preset sizes.

Pen & Pencil Tool
In & Out - this will create sharp points at the beginning and end of your lines.

Pencil Tool
Thin, Medium, Thick, Mechanical Pencil, Hard, Soft - these represent different pencil types you come across in real-life with differences in output and thickness.

Airbrush
Density & Dot Size - this will determine how thickly the “spray” will fall onto the page plus how big the individual “sprays” are.

Random Dots - always keep this checked to create as natural a spray output as possible.

Fill Tool
Allowable Error in Color - this tells the program at what point to let the fill override “colors” that aren’t solidly of a certain color.

Pattern Brush
The pattern brush has numerous patterns that you can “draw” onto the page from typical brush strokes to patterns such as stars, hatches, and hearts.

Interval - specifies the length where another pattern will start from the last pattern. The smaller the number, the closer the pattern will be to one another.

Click on Size, Opacity and Interval for more options.

 

The Line and Rectangle Tools have the option of becoming other shapes. Click on the tool to bring up their specific tool option as shown on the right.

As specified earlier, the Line tool can also bring up Curves and Polyline shapes whereas the Rectangle tool has Ellipses and Polygons. To toggle between them, click on the appropriate thumbnail image beneath the palette title. Doing so will bring up their specific options. Most of these have been explained in the previous page. The single difference is under the Polygon Tool which has a “Sides” box which you can use to control how many sides the resulting shape will have.

When creating a shape, just click where you want to create it. Then drag till you see the desired shape you want then click again. Now, you have the option of rotating the new shape. Hit the mouse again to set it permanently. If you messed up, hit the Undo button.

 

To use the Line Tool, click once to set the starting point of the line then keeping your finger down on the left mouse button, move your mouse to the point you want and click again to set the line.

Working the Curve tool is similar to the Line Tool except that after setting the end point of the line, you then have to move your mouse to the direction you want the curve to be. Click for a third time to set it.

Using the Polyline Tool is different from the other two. For one thing, you don’t have to keep your finger down on the left mouse button after setting up the starting point of the line. Just keep clicking at the points you want the Polyline to turn. When you’re done making the Polyline, double click and this will set it. If you made a mistake setting one of the points, press the Esc key and it’ll undo the last point.

As was suggested earlier, use layers to keep the lines separate. This way, should you make a mistake, the others will not be disturbed when you erase or delete the unwanted result.

When you’re done setting up all the lines to your satisfaction, you can merge all the drawing layers together to create one uniform set of lines which will be needed when toning (i.e. setting patterns).

<<Drawing & Importing Images Part I | Setting Tones>>



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