Roger Langridge's Blog, page 192
March 14, 2016
Some Comics I Pitched That Never Got Made
These are all real, by the way. I keep on knocking...
Further experiments with John Allison's Manga Studio brush. I'll say this for it, it's great for drawing fast, which makes a lot of sense when you consider John's astonishing productivity. The quickie dailies aren't the time or place to test it on something more deliberate and considered, but it's going in my permanent tool arsenal, for sure.
March 13, 2016
Piggy Wiggy 1-2-3
No digital drawing today, I needed to do a quick strip. Back to the software tomorrow.
March 12, 2016
Jet-Pack Jetlag
Today's strip was drawn with John Allison's Manga Studio brush, which he very kindly allowed me to use. It's good! Apart from a beginner's error in panel 1 when I had it set to a much finer width than I really wanted, I think it's got possibilities. I'll continue to play with it. Many thanks to John, and do read his wonderful comics. by John, Lissa Treiman and Max Sarin is easily my favourite current monthly; it's absolutely delightful.)
March 11, 2016
Purple Ronald
Today I finally summoned up the nerve to try Manga Studio's perspective tools (see panel 1). Yow! I get why people make a fuss about them. I haven't figured out how to make the lines go at regular intervals yet (the windows there are spaced by eye) but as a first attempt I was well pleased, oh yes I was.
The inking continues to be a source of frustration; I'm trying a different Frenden brush every day but none of them feel right or look natural to me. I will persevere. The plan is to see out the month with these experiments before going back to good ol' paper and ink in April.
I can see a possible future in which I pencil in MS5 and ink on paper. Those perspective tools. Again, I say yow.
March 10, 2016
The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye
First thing: please buy Sonny Liew's latest book. It's really, really good.
I'm pleased to say this is the first time I managed to do the entire strip, including colour, in Manga Studio (even yesterday's had a bit of Photoshop tweaking). I opened it in Photoshop and was about to start fiddling with a few things, and I thought no, sod it, just let it stand.
Tried adding screentones in MS for the first time (now that I finally figured out how to install the "Materials" folder - I'd been getting it wrong for months and wondering why nothing happened). While adding tones is far from intuitive, I got there in the end.
I should probably be writing all this stuff down as I work it out, I'll forget it all in a week otherwise...
March 9, 2016
The Baker Street Peculiars
New today at your comic book store: The Baker Street Peculiars , a comic written by me and drawn by Andy Hirsch, with colours by Fred Stresing. I'm very happy with it – all of the all-ages hijinks, Sherlock Holmes references, supernatural shenanigans and frankly fabulous cartooning you could wish for. Pick one up if you're so inclined.
From our friends at Boom! Studios, as is so often the case.
March 8, 2016
Wanted
Today's experiment was twofold: trying out some Frenden brushes I'd neglected to load into Manga Studio, which I found in a folder and had forgotten I had; and using MS to colour the thing, which I've been a bit scared to tackle until now, though it turned out to be relatively painless. I used a pencil tool for drawing it, which didn't feel very pencilly (possibly I was using too coarse a brush size, although I prefer the fat lines to the gossamer spider-threads I've been falling into); then some watercolour effect brushes for colouring, on a different layer (set on Multiply, so it was transparent). I'll live with it for a first attempt.
The Presentation
Guest word-strangler Andrew Langridge supplied the pithy texth today.
On the one hand, today's strip took me way too long to do. On the other, I figured out how Manga Studio's basic ruler tools worked, so overall a win I feel (the perspective tools are Advanced Manual at this stage; I just needed to make a few straight lines and a couple of circles). Haven't worked out how you get rid of the rulers once you've used them yet – for now I'm just dragging them to a dedicated "Rulers" layer once I'm done with them, which works well enough.
The anti-aliasing brushes issue is still annoying me. I wonder if it's specific to the brush I was using. I switched to a Frenden brush ("Bob's Big Belly") when it happened again today, and that was fine. Something to test tomorrow.
On the one hand, today's strip took me way too long to do. On the other, I figured out how Manga Studio's basic ruler tools worked, so overall a win I feel (the perspective tools are Advanced Manual at this stage; I just needed to make a few straight lines and a couple of circles). Haven't worked out how you get rid of the rulers once you've used them yet – for now I'm just dragging them to a dedicated "Rulers" layer once I'm done with them, which works well enough.
The anti-aliasing brushes issue is still annoying me. I wonder if it's specific to the brush I was using. I switched to a Frenden brush ("Bob's Big Belly") when it happened again today, and that was fine. Something to test tomorrow.
March 7, 2016
Iron Duchess update
Another page at ZCO.MX for you. All drawn by hand, with only the tints added via digital trickery; keeping the bastard machines in their place.
Pie in the Sky
More Manga Studio experiments. I ran into a problem with the brushes today in that I couldn't switch off the anti-aliasing. I did the usual thing of shifting it down to a hard outline in the settings, but the brush remained blurred. Most perplexing. I fixed it in Photoshop before colouring, but still. I think I might just be a Settings Idiot, as this is becoming a recurring theme.
Also found today that knowing how to use the rulers might be really useful. All the long curves here were done freehand, which I don't recommend on a Wacom Intuos 3. So that will be a task to tackle this week.
