General Inking Discussion

[Jim_Campbell]

Just wondered, are talking Manga Studio Debut, or the big expensive one?

Debut -- the £30 one!

There may be extra options in the EX version, but you get TIFF, JPEG, PSD (plus PICT -- inexplicably, since it's a Mac-only format even Apple have abandoned -- BMP, PNG and TGA) in the cheapo one.

Cheers

Jim

[HdE]

Jim.

Accept this finely crafted sword of samurai nobility, and wear it with pride upon your hip (even though you'll get arrested if you walk into Asda wearing it) for on this day, you have done me a great honour and service. In fact, have a few pints, and this gourmet-prepared chicken tikka masala.

Now THAT'S gratitude!

Monday's wages are being spent on Manga Studio Debut. It'll help me out a LOT. Thanks for clearing that up for me!

[Peter Wolf]

Really want to invest in some brush pens. Never got on with dip pens at all. Don't mind brushes. Have read in the past that some inkers chop of the tips of brushes to get a chisel effect (I think). Was always a bit too precious about my brushes to do that.

I've tried all sorts of techniques but haven't decided what I should stick to. So far for the comps I've:
• worked entirely in Photoshop
• sketched on paper, scanned and inked in Photoshop
• sketched in Photoshop, printed out and inked with crap pens on crap paper, scanned
• sketched on paper, inked on tracing paper, scanned

Yeah, just about every variation possible.

The problem I find with Photoshop is that I end up constantly zooming in and working on details which is really time consuming.

Thanks for the tip about chopping the end off a brush.I just did this to one of my brushes.I cut the end off at an angle with a scalpel blade.

I wanted to get those brushstrokes that are long that taper into a very fine sharp point and could never find a brush off the shelf that would do this and none of them were really what i was looking for.

[HdE]

Yeah - I'm thinking about nipping into my local discount book store and getting some of their cheap artist's brushes to do this with. I'd hoped to afford a brush pen this week but skint-ness-ossity hath prevented me.

Damn. Sometimes I hate being self employed.

[SuperSurfer]

Glad it works, Pete. I'll have to try it myself.

I popped into town today and bought a couple of brush pens. A Faber-Castell and Tombo (never heard of that brand).

I've been working on this month's competition entry but all I had was a MUJI gel pen and an Edding marker. Frustrating as can't really get variable thickness strokes but will finish using those and then try new pens for next sketch.

[Gibson Quarter]

 MyGrimm...non repro blue ROCKS! I live by it. I use non-repro blue pencils to lay out entire pages, then bring the lead in to tighten things up before the inks. As soon as you scan in B&W after inking, the blue just drops right out, and cant be seen. If you'd like to see, I can always post up a color prelim scan for you to check out. Just LMK.
Cheers!

[Emperor]

If you'd like to see, I can always post up a color prelim scan for you to check out. Just LMK.

Yes please.

[Gibson Quarter]

I need BIG scans for you to see what I'm talking about, so I have to use my blog. Please take a sec to check out:

http://gibsonquarter27art.blogspot.com/

I put up some big scans so you can see what I'm talking about.

Cheers!

[mygrimmbrother]

Appreciate that GQ, was still unsire about how a certian shade of blue can just 'disappear', but that blog entyr has cleared it up.

You're a gent!

[HdE]

I actually tried sketching in blue pencil once. I didn't use any special 'non-photo blue' pencils or anything like that - just took an educated guess as to the shade of blue that I needed, and bought a handful of those pencils in the local art shop.

After tightening up with a mechanical pencil and then inking, I found that the blue dropped out just fine when I scanned the art in lineart mode, which my scanner seems to do really well.

[dyl]

http://dylansdrawingboard.blogspot.com/2009/01/blue.html

You don't have to use be non-photo blue, just any lightish shade of blue will do. I tried the non-photo col erase and found it too hard and light I use the dark blue ones. The above link shows how I get rid of the blue from my pencils but it works just as well with inks. I've even done the same with a red pencil and selected the red channel.

[Jim_Campbell]

The always-affable and horribly talented Nigel Dobbyn has bunged a very useful guide to his inking process in Illustrator up on his deviantART page.

Start here and click the BACK (not the forward, confusingly) buttons to go to the next step.

It's good stuff.

Cheers!

Jim

[Bhuna]

I think I'm going to pick up some of the Copic Multiliner Radiator has recommended.

Just picked up a copy of manga studio 4 and have been mucking about on it.

I'm crap at inking, so can anyone recommend a pen/bruch to use in MS4?

[Jim_Campbell]

I'm crap at inking, so can anyone recommend a pen/bruch to use in MS4?

At the moment, I'm doing literally everything with this:



All I'm doing is varying the size, and whether or not the Stroke In and Stroke Out options are checked, which affects the taper of the stroke.

One thing that might not be immediately obvious is this ... click on the green button below:



And you get this dialogue:



The curve represents the way the stroke behaves in response to pressure on the tablet, bottom left being no pressure and top right being maximum pressure. You can leave this window open, so you can fiddle with the curve, try a couple of strokes on the document, fiddle with it some more ...

You can also add points to the curve, just by clicking on any part where there isn't already a point:



... Which enables you to fine-tune the stroke behaviour.

One drawback I have discovered is that although these settings will stay the same until you change them, you don't seem to be able to save out custom brush/pen settings so that you can return to them later on. I suspect that this is a feature you have to buy the full-price version to get.

(Alternatively, I may simply not have read the manual in enough detail ...)

Cheers!

Jim

[Bhuna]

Cheers Jim