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Mastering Manga Studio 5
Mastering Manga Studio 5

Mastering Manga Studio 5: An extensive, fun, and practical guide to streamlining your comic-making workflow using Manga Studio 5

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Mastering Manga Studio 5

Chapter 2. The Right Tools for the Job

In this chapter we're going to explore the different drawing and painting tools in Manga Studio and make custom ones. Many Manga Studio 5 users are sharing their custom brushes on the web right now, and after completing this chapter you'll be able to share your tools with them.

This chapter will cover:

  • Benefits of making your own tools
  • How to make a pencil tool
  • Making an inking brush
  • Creating a paintbrush that mimics the traditional medium
  • Explanations of the custom drawing tool options
  • Importing and exporting your tools

The benefits of using custom tools

Manga Studio 5 comes equipped with some great tools, pencils, pens, India ink, watercolor, and oil brushes, just to name a few. But knowing how to make custom tools can help speed your process along, especially if you find yourself doing repetitive tasks that could be left to a custom brush instead. An example of this is putting leaf texture on a tree. Instead of doing this by hand, you could customize a brush to create the effect for you. A few tweaks, a custom texture, and your tedious task just became a whole lot easier.

You can also create custom tools to mimic a huge number of traditional art mediums. If you like to sketch with a non-photo blue mechanical pencil, then do your drawing with charcoal pencil, and finally paint over the whole thing with acrylic paints. All of those steps can be mimicked using Manga Studio's coloring engine. It takes some patience, and some tweaking, to make your own tools. But once you get the hang of it, and get...

Making a custom pencil tool

In the following section we're going to make a pencil tool to use for sketching. It will give you a traditional pencil look, just like the following screenshot:

Making a custom pencil tool

In order to make any custom tool, the process to start is going to be the same. Since we're going to create a pencil in this exercise, click on the pencil tool in your Manga Studio toolbox (so that when we're done, our custom pencil will show up as a sub tool for us here, rather than being somewhere else, like the inking or painting tools). At the top of your tools menu is the icon to open the Sub tool menu, to which the arrow in the following screenshot points:

Making a custom pencil tool

Click on it and then select Create custom sub tool from the menu.

The following dialog box will come up:

Making a custom pencil tool

Enter a Name text for your new tool. In this case we'll go with Sketching Pencil. The Output process dropdown tells Manga Studio what you want this tool to do. For most of these, we'll be using Draw directly, because we...

Making a custom inking pen

Manga Studio has excellent inking tools right out of the box (so to speak!). The default tools under the pen mimic several standard inking tools very well, including the very popular G pen which is a standard for many manga artists. It also has a calligraphy and a mapping pen, any of which might fit your style of inking very well. But let's say that we want a pen tool that reacts more like an inking brush instead of a pen. So we'll want to make a custom tool that has a bit more to give and maybe a bit more texture to the edges, so that we get the look of inking with bristles. Plus we'll want a lot of flexibility between the thick and the thin strokes.

Making a custom inking pen

So let's get started, and we'll make a brush that will give us this effect over our sketch that we did with our pencil tool.

Select the Ink tool in your toolbox, since that's where we're going to want this tool to show up when we're finished with it. When you click on the Ink...

Paint away with a custom paintbrush

So now that we've made a pencil to draw with, and an inking brush to ink with, it's time to get into some coloring. Or rather, some painting. I have to admit to the fact that I have a slight obsession with speed painting brushes. (If you've never seen speed paintings, you should go and look some up on the Internet right now. And if you're feeling adventurous, try a few! They're great warm-up exercises!) Let's make a brush inspired by a speed painting brush. It's going to give us lovely, soft texture that mimics traditional brush strokes. Take a look at the colored picture below, which was digitally painted entirely with the brush we're about to make. Even the linework, which was inked with the inking brush that we just made, had the transparency locked and was gone over in more subtle, softer colors with it!

Paint away with a custom paintbrush

Before we can start painting with our custom brush, we're going to make a custom material to use as our...

Make a custom text tool

First we'll select the text tool (T), and then navigate to the Create custom sub tool setting under the Sub tool menu.

Make a custom text tool

Clicking on this will open a menu that allows us to pick a few initial settings for our sub tool. Pick a name for your tool—maybe the name of the comic that you're going to be using this style of lettering on. I'm choosing the name Strange Text because of a character named Steven Strange that I will introduce you to later on in the book. Next click on OK and we'll be taken to the Sub tool detail screen. Here we can set our font face, size, and if we want to, we can use bold or underline styles on the Font tab.

For this tool, I'm going to use Arial Black as the Font and set it to 12.0 points.

Make a custom text tool

Clicking on the Text option to the left of this menu allows us to set Justification and Line spacing. Let's set our font tool to Center justification, so that our text lines for dialog will be centered to one another.

The Edit...

The benefits of using custom tools


Manga Studio 5 comes equipped with some great tools, pencils, pens, India ink, watercolor, and oil brushes, just to name a few. But knowing how to make custom tools can help speed your process along, especially if you find yourself doing repetitive tasks that could be left to a custom brush instead. An example of this is putting leaf texture on a tree. Instead of doing this by hand, you could customize a brush to create the effect for you. A few tweaks, a custom texture, and your tedious task just became a whole lot easier.

You can also create custom tools to mimic a huge number of traditional art mediums. If you like to sketch with a non-photo blue mechanical pencil, then do your drawing with charcoal pencil, and finally paint over the whole thing with acrylic paints. All of those steps can be mimicked using Manga Studio's coloring engine. It takes some patience, and some tweaking, to make your own tools. But once you get the hang of it, and get a library...

Making a custom pencil tool


In the following section we're going to make a pencil tool to use for sketching. It will give you a traditional pencil look, just like the following screenshot:

In order to make any custom tool, the process to start is going to be the same. Since we're going to create a pencil in this exercise, click on the pencil tool in your Manga Studio toolbox (so that when we're done, our custom pencil will show up as a sub tool for us here, rather than being somewhere else, like the inking or painting tools). At the top of your tools menu is the icon to open the Sub tool menu, to which the arrow in the following screenshot points:

Click on it and then select Create custom sub tool from the menu.

The following dialog box will come up:

Enter a Name text for your new tool. In this case we'll go with Sketching Pencil. The Output process dropdown tells Manga Studio what you want this tool to do. For most of these, we'll be using Draw directly, because we want to make marks on a layer...

Making a custom inking pen


Manga Studio has excellent inking tools right out of the box (so to speak!). The default tools under the pen mimic several standard inking tools very well, including the very popular G pen which is a standard for many manga artists. It also has a calligraphy and a mapping pen, any of which might fit your style of inking very well. But let's say that we want a pen tool that reacts more like an inking brush instead of a pen. So we'll want to make a custom tool that has a bit more to give and maybe a bit more texture to the edges, so that we get the look of inking with bristles. Plus we'll want a lot of flexibility between the thick and the thin strokes.

So let's get started, and we'll make a brush that will give us this effect over our sketch that we did with our pencil tool.

Select the Ink tool in your toolbox, since that's where we're going to want this tool to show up when we're finished with it. When you click on the Ink option, the sub tool palette will change...

Left arrow icon Right arrow icon

Key benefits

  • Make Manga Studio 5 your own personalized software by creating your own workspace, tools, page layouts, and materials
  • Explore using 3D models, actions, ruler tools, and creating projects to save you time
  • Full of examples, illustrations, and tips with a lighthearted and fun style to make comic creation fun and easy

Description

Time is something that almost every artist doesn't have enough of. If you're an illustrator or comic creator you know just how much time and effort it can take to produce one great page. But the features in Manga Studio 5 can make this process a lot more streamlined and give you more time to create! "Mastering Manga Studio 5" will teach you how to create more comics and illustrations in less time than you ever thought possible. By using the features of Manga Studio 5 like the Story Editor, Custom brushes, actions, materials, and 3D models, you'll learn how to make Manga Studio work for your style and workflow. Go from being a novice Manga Studio user to an expert using the tricks, techniques, and projects in this guide. Learn how to make and share custom tools, set up left- and right-handed workspaces, make custom materials, alter 3D models, and create custom actions. By putting together a custom story project and making your own tools, automating redundant processes, and converting an inked art into a traditional comic art, you'll learn all about the advanced features of Manga Studio 5. "Mastering Manga Studio 5" will teach you what you need to know to produce more work in less time.

Who is this book for?

This book is for those who already have some Manga Studio and graphics program experience. It is not a beginner's guide, but if you are a novice Manga Studio 5 user it will help you to master the time-saving features of the software.

What you will learn

  • Set up and save custom page templates to use in your comics
  • Learn how to use the story editor features efficiently
  • Create custom workspaces for drawing, coloring, and more
  • Make custom sets of colors and use them to speed up your coloring process
  • Search, use, navigate, edit, and make materials
  • Learn how to insert, pose, and edit 3D models
  • Automate actions for redundant processes
  • Integrate everything learned to create a finished, colored comic page

Product Details

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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Sep 24, 2013
Length: 298 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781849697682
Vendor :
Celsys
Concepts :

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Product Details

Publication date : Sep 24, 2013
Length: 298 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781849697682
Vendor :
Celsys
Concepts :

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Table of Contents

12 Chapters
1. Getting Familiar with the Story Features Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. The Right Tools for the Job Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Palettes of a Different Color Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Setting up Your Space Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Living in a Material World Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. It's Only a (3D) Model Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Ready! Set! Action! Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Rulers and Speech Balloons Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
9. Putting It All Together! Drawing and Inking Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
10. Finishing Touches Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
A. Recommended Reading Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.4
(17 Ratings)
5 star 58.8%
4 star 17.6%
3 star 23.5%
2 star 0%
1 star 0%
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Digi-fish Jan 21, 2014
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
When I recently upgraded from Manga Studio 4 EX to 5 EX, I found there were a lot of things that were different. Manga Studio 5 not only had a new interface, but also a new approach for accessing all the tools you needed.While Liz makes it clear that this is not a book for beginners, I have found it to be a much better reference and resource than the free downloadable manuals on Smith Micro's website. It really helped me settle into Manga Studio 5's new interface. However I must point out, I had just come from using Photoshop and the previous version of Manga Studio. So this book may not suit someone who has never used art or graphic design software before.I have been looking for a "Manga Studio 5 for Dummies", however it appears that title does not exist at the current time. This would have to be the closest compromise. Liz explains every icon and detail in each chapter so that you can easily follow along, with extra tips and notes, almost like a Dummies book. Still, I recommend you either pick up and flip through a physical copy (if you can find one) or download a free sample before deciding whether this book will be right for you.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Edward Matherly Jul 17, 2018
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Thanks
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Steve Axworthy Jun 02, 2014
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Got this for my son who love Manga and drawing Manga... The book was laid out well and informative. He enjoyed it
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Kyle De Connick Apr 24, 2014
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
I got this because I got Manga Studio for my baby sister and if she needed to ask questions on how to do certain tasks within Manga Studio I could help her. This has everything technical you need to know in Manage studio.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Amazon Customer Mar 10, 2014
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Though I feel that the digital book is a bit overpriced, the book itself is excellent.Manga studio 5 doesn't have a lot of tutorials or books out there and this one does show you around.While I do feel the "mastering" part is a bit exaggerated, this book is a valuable source to show you around and eliminate any confusions you have about what Manha studio can or cannot do.I'm glad I picked up the book and recommend it as your first step to mastering manga studio
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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