Create comic frames and balloons using specialized tools. Sketch with various brushes to add depth. Depth can be achieved with perspective rulers. Download free as well as commercial-license materials including pens, tones, images and 3D assets for use.
Save time with functions tailored specifically for manga/comic production. Register frequently used shortcut keys as auto actions for improved productivity and maximize work efficiency.
Character Design
Character design is one of the core aspects of creating comics. This involves drawing each character’s distinctive features such as facial features and hairstyles as well as clothing and accessories; and detailing their background information such as family, hobbies and interests.
Create your character requires practice and experimentation with various shapes, poses and facial expressions. Furthermore, studying existing artists’ work to define your own art style will enable you to craft characters with personality that are engaging and distinctive.
At the outset of character design, sketch out a rough sketch. Use Clip Studio Paint’s tools – such as pens and brushes – to draw realistically while conveying your concept for this character. Use frame borders and line drawings as guides when sketching.
Once you’ve sketched out your character’s basic outline, the fun begins. Adjusting brush settings to achieve different effects or use the blending mode can change how your brush marks appear – more experimentation means more learning and becoming a better artist!
Gradient maps allow you to experiment with various tonal corrections and prepare a final character sketch using preinstalled character templates – helping ensure that your character has an appealing silhouette, and looks good printed out.
Clip Studio Paint makes drawing balloons and frames simple. The program’s Panel and Balloon Tool is especially handy for creating comic panels; with multiple panel layout options and an intuitive user interface, this tool makes creating comic panels simple. Furthermore, its ability to line up frames and balloons at consistent distances makes webtoon production much simpler.
Your comics can easily be exported as JPG, PNG and TIFF files for publishing online or as PDF for printing with Comic Creator Pro’s import/export function. In addition, the program features an import/export function to share files between users; you can even upload directly to Amazon Kindle and ePUB platforms!
Storyboard
Storyboarding your comic work is essential when constructing it. A storyboard is simply an illustration that depicts the sequence of events within a narrative, providing guidance to artists when designing composition and dialogue for every scene, helping ensure proper pacing and cohesiveness of scenes across pages. Storyboards should ideally consist of equal frames to mimic panel layout.
Storyboarding is an excellent opportunity to hone your drawing abilities and experiment with compositions. Starting small may help newcomers, so begin with four to ten page comics to start out with and build up from there. Also consider studying your favorite comics to gain an idea of what works and doesn’t.
Clip Studio Paint offers many functions designed to simplify the storyboarding process. Tablet touch gestures such as tapping with two fingers simultaneously to undo an action are supported, as are Mac-specific command key shortcuts such as cmd + z; cmd + c; its pen tool was specifically created to mimic traditional manga inking pens and is extremely user-friendly.
Automatic Dividing can also be enabled to automatically divide your canvas into even rows and columns for faster sketching, making it easier to draw multiple panels of identical size on a single sheet of paper and saving you time when working on larger projects.
Storyboarding software makes the task of storyboarding even simpler by offering text balloon creation tools. Simply select any character, enter their dialogue into a dialogue box, and the software will create and insert appropriate shapes automatically onto the drawing. This feature is especially handy when undertaking large projects that involve numerous texts.
Clip Studio Paint offers many other functions to assist in the production of comics and webtoons, such as import/export support for RGB data for web content, as well as support for printing CMYK data with 3D preview to verify colors before publication. In addition, multi-page works can be uploaded onto Clip Studio SHARE so they may be shared among various viewers before being transformed into vertically scrolling webtoons.
Panel Layout
Panels in comics should be organized so as to best convey their story in an effective and efficient manner, taking careful planning into account when creating long works. You need to think carefully about starting and ending points for every panel–what must happen prior to beginning one, as well as any panels leading up to another page–to create effective panel layout. This involves both story creation as well as artwork.
Clip Studio Paint provides features that make comic production easier, such as paneling tools and frames. These allow you to divide pages into panels and arrange the frames within each panel quickly when working on large canvasses; and make it easier to check progress quickly as well as address mistakes quickly.
Use our special tool for drawing speech balloons to quickly and efficiently illustrate dialogue. This tool offers various shapes, tail positions, lengths and border thicknesses of speech balloons so it is easier than ever to find just the one for your work.
Clip Studio Paint features an assortment of tools and presets designed specifically to assist manga artists, such as a paneling tool which lets you create panel borders that automatically cover gutters between them. When combined with smartphone companion mode, this tool also lets you view your manga from its reader’s point-of-view – perfect for testing!
If you’re working on an online comic, Clip Studio SHARE makes publishing it an easy process. Your work can be shared in an embedded viewer for friends and followers to view; plus PDF/EPUB formats make distribution through electronic book readers possible.
Clip Studio Paint offers all of these features and more to help create Western-style comics and manga. Experience all these functions first-hand by downloading a free trial on the App Store, or by purchasing Clip Studio Paint EX or Pro.
Lettering
Lettering refers to the process of writing character lines, narration, sound effects and onomatopoeia for comic books and manga series. An artist responsible for drawing speech balloons and onomatopoeia is known as the letterer; their primary responsibility includes drawing speech balloons and onomatopoeia in addition to laying out text and applying base colors, shadows and highlights to adjust font styles – which they often do by hand or digital fonts – using either method simultaneously – making lettering uniquely suitable for comics! Lettering can be done either manually by hand or digital fonts; many comic artists employ a mixture of both methods when lettering comic books!
Clip Studio Paint provides tools to facilitate the entire workflow for creating black-and-white and color comics and webtoons, from creating new documents, customizing workspace and vector drawing settings, using ruler tools for drawing anything from straight lines to intricate backgrounds, making 3D elements, using screentones and materials, adding text / word balloons / word balloons as well as animating your drawings – everything necessary to bring these works of art to life!
Clip Studio Paint provides various functions designed to boost work efficiency. Shortcut keys can be personalized and registered as auto actions to execute frequently used operations with one click, creating multiple layers and managing them via layer folders is possible, and searching the Search Layer palette and Select Layer sub tool makes finding layers quick and simple.
Clip Studio Paint makes changing the color of text easy thanks to it being a vector layer, but if you wish to bend or change its shape it will require you to rasterize its layer first.
Clip Studio Paint offers several specialized panel tools for quickly designing panels and layouts optimized for manga and Western-style comics, particularly its Frame Border Pen sub tool which is useful in quickly drawing out frames in panels with uniform lines.
Clip Studio Paint makes comic coloring an easy process, while supporting various file formats for printing and sharing your comics. Export your work as PDFs or JPEGs; embed viewers for the web; or e-book formats like Kindle and EPUB for sharing purposes. Furthermore, your works can also be uploaded directly onto Clip Studio SHARE so they can be shared with friends, fans and followers!
