www.it-ebooks.info Manga Studio 5 Beginner's Guide An extensive and fun guide to let your imaginaon loose using Manga Studio 5 Michael Rhodes BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI www.it-ebooks.info Manga Studio 5 Beginner's Guide Copyright © 2014 Packt Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmied in any form or by any means, without the prior wrien permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotaons embedded in crical arcles or reviews. Every eort has been made in the preparaon of this book to ensure the accuracy of the informaon presented. However, the informaon contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book. Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark informaon about all of the companies and products menoned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this informaon. First published: April 2014 Producon Reference: 1170414 Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. Livery Place 35 Livery Street Birmingham B3 2PB, UK ISBN 978-1-84969-766-8 www.packtpub.com Cover Image by Michael Rhodes (mike@crtoons.com) www.it-ebooks.info Credits Author Michael Rhodes Reviewers Heldrad Dawn Blair Melissa Darkshore Mark Egan Acquision Editors Edward Gordon Subho Gupta Content Development Editor Balaji Naidu Technical Editors Rosmy George Krishnaveni Nair Prash Soman Copy Editors Roshni Banerjee Sayanee Mukherjee Karuna Narayanan Laxmi Subramanian Project Coordinator Kran Berde Proofreaders Simran Bhogal Maria Gould Ameesha Green Paul Hindle Clyde Jenkins Indexers Hemangini Bari Tejal Soni Graphics Ronak Dhruv Producon Coordinators Kyle Albuquerque Conidon Miranda Cover Work Kyle Albuquerque Conidon Miranda www.it-ebooks.info About the Author Michael Rhodes took apart grocery bags at the age of ve to create pads of drawing paper. Decades later, he sll hasn't stopped, although he has switched from grocery bags and crayons to charcoal, paint, pen, ink, and computer. He has taught web designing at Silicon Valley College and has conducted cartooning classes for elementary school children. He has illustrated Tales of The Living Room Warrior, an eight-part fable following the epic adventures of cats from the creaon of the world to the domescaon of humans. He is also the creator of Thingies, a fantasy comic book series that details the adventures and perils that a reporter experiences while she uncovers secrets of her universe. His books and art work are carried by Fantasc Comics in Berkeley, Heroes and Villains Comics in Pleasanton, and Solo Comics in the Napa wine country. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Digital Design. His cartoons and artwork are displayed at www.crtoons.com and www.quatumgumbo.com. I would like to dedicate this book to Janet, my wife, my partner, and my always. www.it-ebooks.info About the Reviewers Heldrad is a freelance web comic arst who has been posng her work online since 2004. She writes and draws her own stories, and lately, she has begun self-publishing her comics at local convenons and parcipang in the internaonal manga contest, The Morning Internaonal Comic Compeon. Dawn Blair has a passion for telling stories about noble hearts and fantasc places. Though she started out wring novels, her life expanded into art and photography. She created Morning Sky Studios to support all of her creave endeavors: wring, painng, illustrang, and photography. She is currently teaching herself how to animate. She began using Manga Studio 3 and Anime Studio 5 and has loved the Smith Micro line of products since then. She has two conal series in publicaon: Sacred Knight and The Loki Adventures, published by Morning Sky Studios, as well as a non-con eding book for authors tled The Write Edit. She has won numerous awards for wring, painng, and photography, and has collectors of her art in Canada, Spain, Australia, and the United States. You can nd out more about Dawn Blair and her work on her websites www.dawnblair.com and www.morningskystudios.com. www.it-ebooks.info Melissa Darkshore is a self-taught arst who enjoys sing down and bringing her imaginaon to life through various mediums. I would like to thank Smith Micro for bringing us needy arsts such a wonderful and versale app for drawing and painng. Mark Egan is a web cartoonist based in Oslo, Norway. He is an Irish expat and originally comes from the Dublin region of Ireland, but has since lived in China as an English teacher before seling in Oslo. He graduated from Grith College, Dublin with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science in 2004, and following his me in China, started his career in the Telecom industry in Ireland, working as a call center agent. He later progressed to technical roles prior to the economic downturn in Ireland, aer which he migrated to Norway, where he connues to live and work. Having been acvely cartooning since 2003, he focuses on producing manga-style web comics. His main noteworthy works are Back Oce, an oce comedy based in a call center, and Bata Neart, a magical girl web-manga set in Ireland. Both the comics are published online via rawrtacular.com, which is the main portal of his studio, RAWRtacular Producons. www.it-ebooks.info www.PacktPub.com Support les, eBooks, discount offers and more You might want to visit www.PacktPub.com for support les and downloads related to your book. Did you know that Packt oers eBook versions of every book published, with PDF and ePub les available? You can upgrade to the eBook version at www.PacktPub.com and as a print book customer, you are entled to a discount on the eBook copy. Get in touch with us at service@packtpub.com for more details. 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Simply use your login credenals for immediate access. www.it-ebooks.info www.it-ebooks.info Table of Contents Preface 1 Chapter 1: Installing and Seng Up Manga Studio 5 9 Preparing for installaon 10 Computer requirements 10 Monitor 10 Tablets or input devices 11 Workspace 11 Installaon of Manga Studio 5 11 Where are those les? 12 Starng up Manga Studio for the rst me 13 Not your morning cereal 13 Palees, toolbars, and documents 13 The main Manga Studio 5 toolbar 13 Palees 14 That new document template smell! 16 Time for acon – creang a new document dialog box 17 From your hand into the computer 20 The Wacom tablet control panel 20 Manga Studio 5 Stylus sengs 27 From a blank document to a nished page 28 Summary 30 Chapter 2: Messing Around with Manga Studio 5 31 The dreaded blank page 31 Time for acon – making our comic book page preset 32 Making our marks 34 Time for acon – sketching and the digital environment 35 The marking tools 37 Inside a marking tool 40 www.it-ebooks.info [...]... Computer requirements for Manga Studio Installing Manga Studio Registering Manga Studio and registration number tips Introducing the Manga Studio 5 interface and document creation Drawing on a document canvas Setting up a tablet for use with Manga Studio www.it-ebooks.info Installing and Setting Up Manga Studio 5 Preparing for installation If we purchased our copy of Manga Studio from Smith... Setting Up Manga Studio 5 This chapter is the beginning of our adventure creating comics with Manga Studio 5 We'll install Manga Studio 5, snoop around at what was installed and where it is, set up our tablet, create our first page, and see some examples of work done with Manga Studio If you can remain conscious through the first part of this chapter, we'll explore and learn how Manga Studio 5 has been... Installing and Setting Up Manga Studio 5 The toolbar looks like the following screenshot when you first install Manga Studio 5 (callouts for your learning enjoyment): Palettes Further to the left, we see that Manga Studio 5 has two rows of palettes On the furthest left is the Tool Palette What we see here on the page won't match what you see on the screen That's because Manga Studio remembers which tool... all begins Installing and registering Manga Studio 5 is covered in this chapter Getting started with creating a new file and using a pencil tool is also covered Chapter 2, Messing Around with Manga Studio 5, is a walkthrough of the basic interface of Manga Studio, from the dreaded blank page to the plethora of palettes in this program The marking tools of Manga Studio are covered Chapter 3, Formatting... third pencil What about the brush category settings? Making a custom sub group Making folders and saving files Testing out the pencils Summary Chapter 3: Formatting Your Stories 42 43 44 45 49 51 52 53 54 55 57 58 60 62 65 67 Story formats Comic strip Comic book Graphic novels Publishing Making the page presets The comic strip The double-decker comic strip The comic book and graphic novel Settings for... www.it-ebooks.info 3 35 337 339 Table of Contents Time for action – exporting for the Web Other ways to display 339 341 Applications other than Manga Studio Getting the word (and pictures) out Keeping the momentum Summary 342 343 343 344 Chapter 11: One More Thing 3 45 Manga Studio 5 EX Stories Time for action – starting a story Time for action – the Page Manager window Batch operations Import 346 347 347 350 356 356 ... all the screenshots in this book Starting up Manga Studio for the first time Now that the computer's work is done, our work is just beginning We'll be starting up Manga Studio for the first time and creating our first document Let's begin! Not your morning serial There should be a shortcut to Manga Studio 5 on your desktop Double-click on it and Manga Studio 5 will start up If this is the first time it's... conjunction with Manga Studio (and other graphic apps if you've not seen the Manga Studio light) It's quite possible that in the next five, ten, or more years, it'll be the next big thing in creating comics It will probably change our world But for now, we have Manga Studio 5 With it, we can change the world One story at a time What this book covers Chapter 1, Installing and Setting Up Manga Studio 5, is where... first page Adding dialog balloons and caption boxes Time for action – making a custom dialog balloon subtool Making dialog balloons on the page 148 150 150 155 155 156 Time for action – ballooning our dialog Summary 156 163 Chapter 6: Pencil Mechanics 1 65 The hidden hand of comics Time for action – preparing our workspace Making a basic detailing pencil Basic pencil settings Time for action – configuring... Chapter 5: Putting Words in My Mouth The soundtrack of comics Got to get them all Font formats Comic lettering font conventions Categories of comic fonts Lettering in Manga Studio 5 Preparing our page for lettering Time for action – writing the script The text tool Time for action – using the text tool Text tool settings 98 98 100 101 103 1 05 1 05 106 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 1 15 116 118 120 124 1 25 127 . www.it-ebooks.info Manga Studio 5 Beginner's Guide An extensive and fun guide to let your imaginaon loose using Manga Studio 5 Michael Rhodes BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI www.it-ebooks.info Manga Studio 5 Beginner's. page 150 Time for acon – leering our rst page 150 Adding dialog balloons and capon boxes 155 Time for acon – making a custom dialog balloon subtool 155 Making dialog balloons on the page 156 Time. Wacom tablet control panel 20 Manga Studio 5 Stylus sengs 27 From a blank document to a nished page 28 Summary 30 Chapter 2: Messing Around with Manga Studio 5 31 The dreaded blank page 31 Time