Trying To Learn Anime/Manga Style Art

AnimeFan188 · Postby **AnimeFan188** » Wed Aug 01, 2012 1:33 pm

These are the results of my latest attempts:

http://animefan188.deviantart.com/art/A ... an188&qo=2

http://animefan188.deviantart.com/art/A ... an188&qo=1

As you can see, I still have a long way to go.

Can anyone suggest ways I might improve?

Postby **druban** » Wed Aug 01, 2012 4:08 pm

Hey I thought they were very nice and funny, and the joke seemed quite original (to me). Maybe the lips in second last and third last frames were off a little... looked too much like the letter w....
Perhaps using a comic style font or even hand lettered characters for things like fzzt, click, ding, twist etc. would look better than the standard font you're using, which doesn't add much to the action. In the best manga the sound effects are hand drawn just as much as the people and objects, if you know what I mean!

AnimeFan188 · Postby **AnimeFan188** » Wed Aug 01, 2012 4:28 pm

druban wrote:Hey I thought they were very nice and funny, and the joke seemed quite original (to me). Maybe the lips in second last and third last frames were off a little... looked too much like the letter w....

That's the Anime/Manga "Cat Smile":

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CatSmile

Which is used to denote playfulness/mischievousness.

druban wrote:Perhaps using a comic style font or even hand lettered characters for things like fzzt, click, ding, twist etc. would look better than the standard font you're using, which doesn't add much to the action. In the best manga the sound effects are hand drawn just as much as the people and objects, if you know what I mean!

Are there any good comic-style freeware fonts out there that you could suggest?

Postby **druban** » Wed Aug 01, 2012 6:01 pm

Not really, but I saw a font on here recently called SF fedora that would be not so bad for some effects. you could windows standard comic sans as well if you tweak it a bit... Jiggle the letters, distress them etc. In any case you should have different ones for each sound so you don't reuse the same one over and over in one strip... Maybe some other comic artists here can point you in the right direction.

Xav · Postby **Xav** » Wed Aug 01, 2012 11:25 pm

There are quite a few free (of charge) comic fonts at blambot.com. By converting to paths you can modify them even further, which can be useful for sound effects.

I use a couple of their (commercial) fonts for my 'Monsters, Inked' comic - the commercial fonts tend to have better glyph coverage.

Dillerkind · Postby **Dillerkind** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 4:36 am

I agree about those fonts. The standard letters look way too static and dull to transport a feeling of action, excitement or whatever else one might require in a comic. The same I'd say about the text bubbles. Don't make them all look so rectangular and stiff. Even if you use a rectangular base shape you could still bend it's sides, add a few nodes and thus some more edges and corners to give them more.. pep, you know.

Another point, probably a minor one.. I don't like the way you made those shadows. If you make simple, "flat" shadows why not leave the outline clear, i.e. without blur? Maybe it's just me but I think it would look better. Once you move on to some more complex shading (e.g. using gradients, overlapping shadows, etc), blurring things will probably make more sense and look better.

Aaand the last thing I want to mention is actually the first that jumped right at me when I clicked the link. Those colors are awful!Don't use those "MS Paint standard palette" colors unless everything else really doesn't work... or.. no.. not even then should you use them. Inkscape comes with a number of neat palettes. I suggest you take a look at them. You'll probably already find something fitting your needs.. But if not, you should try to come up with your own color-set. Think about what might best fit the scene you're going to draw, the characters that appear, what mood you want to create, etc. and then start setting up a few different colors and tones.
Okay, I was wrong. This wasn't the last thing above :D There's something else I'm curious about: your shadows. They're simply black with lowered opacity, right? It works, sure, but (just my personal opinion again) it doesn't look very nice. Maybe you wanna try this: create a layer for your shadows (if you don't already have one) and change this layer's blend mode to Multiply. Now draw the shadows as usual and give the a different color than black.. maybe some dark brown/red or maybe some darker blue, if you want to achieve a "colder" look. Just try out different colors to see the difference. That's pretty much how I use to do shadowing stuff in my pics. Multiplying the shadows kind of "merges" the shadow color with the underlaying colors, instead of just laying it on top if them (the semi-transparent black shadows you used made the colors underneath look gray and kind of dirty, right?)

Okay, that's it for my two cents. Hope this helps a bit...

AnimeFan188 · Postby **AnimeFan188** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 1:47 pm

Ok, as for the shadows, I did use blur, since the "soup can" tutorial:

http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL ... upCan.html

used it. I thought it looked all right. But to each his own. I may experiment with your shadow suggestions later, when I get some free time.

As for the colors; Since this is basically a 9-panel visual gag, I thought bright colors were acceptable. Though I understand if some people
might think those colors were a bit garish. If I try a longer, more involved story later, I'll experiment with more subdued background colors.

I'll definitely experiment with adding more pizazz to sound effect fonts and text bubbles.

I'm still new at this, so I have a long way to go.

Thank you all for your input.

AnimeFan188 · Postby **AnimeFan188** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 10:33 am

Ok, I took another crack at this "art" sfuff

Lyrical Rhyming Poem: Magenta Maiden! (Pages 0-9)

http://i.imgur.com/c0FLUqQ.jpg

Lyrical Rhyming Poem: Magenta Maiden! (Pages 10-19)

http://i.imgur.com/Rgw525R.jpg

Lyrical Rhyming Poem: Magenta Maiden! (Pages 20-29)

http://i.imgur.com/LUfML4U.png

Is this any better?

Dillerkind · Postby **Dillerkind** » Wed Nov 27, 2013 9:08 pm

I just took a quick look; didn't read the text. The human characters look good so far (proportions, anatomy). The blue orcs on the other hand look kinda weak compared to the humans, which I find odd since they seem to be mostly human, too (except for their pig-like heads). Shading varies; sometimes you're using blurred shades and sometimes un-blurred, in a seemingly completely random way. But the one thing that strikes me the most is the colors. They're as terrible and painful to look at as ever. No offence.

Have you tried using a different color than black/gray for shading? Try using something a bit more saturated, like a dark brown or something, put all the shading stuff on a separate layer and use multiply blending on this layer. I find that multiplying the shadow shapes results in a much more appealing result than semi-transparent black overlays. Also try to select colors that actually work (i.e. look good) together, instead of slapping those awful ms-paint-palette colors onto everything. Use the ability to add swatches to the auto-palette so you can quickly edit colors later on. This makes it easier to experiment, as you can simply edit the swatches and every shape linking to that swatch will show the changes immediately.

These are just a few points that I like to do/use in my own pics. Hope this helps...

edit
Okay, just checked my old comment again.. and it seems that for the most part I've just repeated what I've been saying back then. At least I'm consistent in what I'm saying :D

AnimeFan188 · Postby **AnimeFan188** » Fri Nov 29, 2013 10:24 am

Yep, the Blue Orks designs were meant to be simple, crude, and not quite human-looking. Even so, putting a crowd of them on screen still slowed down
my computer big time.

Another thing that slowed down my computer were filters, the larger an area that was covered in filters, the greater the slowdown.

Since this is a practice project, I did a lot of experimentation. Including trying different levels of blur on the shadows/shading. I also tried colors like
brown, grey and even purple-ish tones for shading, but they just didn't look as good as transparent black (at least to me).

I did try removing the blur from the shadows/shading though. Here's the result:

http://animefan188.deviantart.com/art/L ... an188&qo=0

http://animefan188.deviantart.com/art/L ... an188&qo=1

http://animefan188.deviantart.com/art/L ... an188&qo=2

As far as the colors go, I thought vibrant colors were ok. After all, a story about a Hippie drug trip *should* look a bit psychedelic.

Lazur · Postby **Lazur** » Fri Nov 29, 2013 11:48 am

Isn't manga based on plain simple black and white ink images?
Varying outline widths of the strokes, enhancing more important parts?
http://otaku.com/files/images/fullsize/86422S2.JPG
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_fOqaFT-yOOo/TKZN3dbJ0eI/AAAAAAAAABU/I7I1pLBNr8I/s1600/comic1+copy.jpg

Blurring, gradients, and other filters are distracting from the anime/manga look.
Try out sticking to black and white only and improve the drawing style before moving on to colours I suggest.
For example, the style of the drawing on page 9 looks quite ok -line width compared to the subject-
but on page 7?
All things merge together, the outlines of the main character are just wanished away -too thin-, too much detail for such tiny parts.
Though it's not drawn with a pen, the perception still follows the rules how a pen drawing is built up.
And that is what you missing in my opinion: a disctintive drawing style at many parts, as you don't use a consistent way of building up the image itself with a device leaving strokes of the same scale at each panel.
On page 7 it's even worse as the more important part -the main character, or the dragon- should have a wider outline, while the wall should be drawn with thin lines.
And without all brick drawn. Just a few in the front.

AnimeFan188 · Postby **AnimeFan188** » Fri Nov 29, 2013 4:10 pm

Lazur URH wrote:Isn't manga based on plain simple black and white ink images?
Varying outline widths of the strokes, enhancing more important parts?
http://otaku.com/files/images/fullsize/86422S2.JPG
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_fOqaFT-yOOo/TKZN3dbJ0eI/AAAAAAAAABU/I7I1pLBNr8I/s1600/comic1+copy.jpg

Blurring, gradients, and other filters are distracting from the anime/manga look.
Try out sticking to black and white only and improve the drawing style before moving on to colours I suggest.
For example, the style of the drawing on page 9 looks quite ok -line width compared to the subject-
but on page 7?
All things merge together, the outlines of the main character are just wanished away -too thin-, too much detail for such tiny parts.
Though it's not drawn with a pen, the perception still follows the rules how a pen drawing is built up.
And that is what you missing in my opinion: a disctintive drawing style at many parts, as you don't use a consistent way of building up the image itself with a device leaving strokes of the same scale at each panel.
On page 7 it's even worse as the more important part -the main character, or the dragon- should have a wider outline, while the wall should be drawn with thin lines.
And without all brick drawn. Just a few in the front.

It's not just black & white. There are some color manga out there:

http://fullcoloredmanga.blogspot.com/

Anime, of course, are also done in color.

Manga artists can also use tone sheets to give the appearance of texture:

http://forums.thesmartmarks.com/lofiver ... 70988.html

Quote:

"On my book, A Distant Soil I have used tone sheets (usually
known by the brand name zip-a-tone) to give ethnic characters dark skin.
The sheets are thin, plastic film with an adhesive backing. I cut out the
shape and place it on my original art and the sheet produces a grey area
that can darken skin or make a gloomy alley gloomier.

However, in Japan, you aren't stuck with mere sheets of dots limiting you
to varying shades of grey. Oh, no. You can buy sheets with every
conceivable background, every special effect, every detail you could
possibly imagine."

"Of course there are countless sheets for rendering. Difficult hatching
techniques which take many long hours by hand are no problem for the
Japanese artist who need merely buy a sheet, peel it off and place it on
their finished art. You can even buy sheets to simulate tweed and paisley
and silk to duplicate the weave and print on clothes. One catalogue I
picked up contained over 250 pages of these sheets."

Of course, that article was written in 1997, so tone sheets have given way to computer effects (like filters), for the most part, since then.

I recommend reading the above article in its entirety, as it delves into aspects of the Manga industry that aren't normally talked about.

Dillerkind · Postby **Dillerkind** » Sun Dec 01, 2013 2:41 am

You're certainly right in that manga doesn't have to be black and white. But I totally agree with what Lazur said about the line work. Varying line widths can help define the overall picture, making it much better "readable" even if there's little to no color. There are several ways to achieve this. There's the pattern-along-path method, there's powerstroke (in the dev version of Inkscape) or even the old-fashioned everything-by-hand method (which is what I prefer to do).

And about colors again... Nothing wrong with vibrant colors. But like I said, the colors you're using simply "bite each other". And they look very standard and dull, pretty much like the old MS Paint default palette. Of course you can go with these, but I'm afraid the result is unlikely to look very pleasing to the observing eye. It takes a lot of experience to make something nice with a set of ugly colors. Like I said before, I'm not trying to be mean or something. I just want to suggest you look into some color theory soon. Btw. did you multiply the colored (instead of black) shadows? Because if you did not, that would explain why it looked weird ;) Maybe I should make a little example image to show the difference..?

Inkscape being incredibly slow with several filters applied is sad but true. And I don't think there's much one can do about this, except for leaving filters out while you're still working on the drawing itself and applying them in the last step. Another thing you could try to get smoother shadows is to use gradients that go from opaque to fully transparent. Just like plain opaque colors, gradients can be added to the auto-palette and thus can be edited later on. If you haven't tried this yet, DO IT NOW! Having shapes refer to swatches from the auto-palette is great if you're still not sure about the final colors as EVERYTHING linking to such swatch definitions will update automatically when you edit the swatch. So you can easily experiment and see what looks best without having to select all the shapes over and over again.

Last thing.. Tons of orcs slowing down your system. Just out of curiosity, did you duplicate or clone the "original" orc? I'd be interested to know which way would have a bigger impact on performance. Anybody know?

AnimeFan188 · Postby **AnimeFan188** » Sun Dec 01, 2013 7:26 pm

Leaving filters out until the end works, though if you want to go back and edit the drawing later, you have to remove the filters and put them back
when you're done. Which is a hassle.

I'd rather just put the filtered items on a separate layer that I can switch off when I'm not using it.

When you mentioned using multiply, did you mean something like this?:

http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entr ... n-inkscape

I don't mess with gradients too much, since I've had cases where I've applied a gradient to a shape, then moved the shape, only to have the gradient
get left behind, while the shape reverts to a solid color. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong.....

I've also had problems getting the auto-palette to accept radial gradients. Once again, maybe I'm just doing something wrong.

As far as the Orks go, I used duplicates, not clones. Not sure if using clones would've made any difference though.

Another thing I noticed was that I couldn't fit an entire page on screen at the same time. I was using a page approximately 1054px tall by 746px wide
(approximately the proportions for A4 paper). But since printed pages are taller than they are wide, and since computer monitors are wider than they
are tall, I might use a shorter, squatter page size next time. That way, it'll be possible to view an entire page without scrolling.

Using a smaller page size might help keep my computer from slowing down so much too.

BTW, I noticed that every time I tried to change the dpi (dots per inch) of a page, the page size changed too. Is there a way to prevent that?

Dillerkind · Postby **Dillerkind** » Sun Dec 01, 2013 8:59 pm

When you mentioned using multiply, did you mean something like this?:

http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entr ... n-inkscape

Yep, simplest way would be to apply it to an entire layer via the blend-mode dropdown box in the layer window. Of course you could also create a multiply filter manually and apply it to specific objects only.

I don't mess with gradients too much, since I've had cases where I've applied a gradient to a shape, then moved the shape, only to have the gradient
get left behind, while the shape reverts to a solid color. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong.....

Hmm, haven't experienced this yet. When I move stuff around, the gradient moves with the object it's applied to. Same goes for scaling and rotating. Really strange...

I've also had problems getting the auto-palette to accept radial gradients. Once again, maybe I'm just doing something wrong.

Now this sounds familiar. Maybe I'm missing something too but here's how I re-use auto-paletted gradient swatches for radial gradients: select the shape you want to apply the gradient to. Select the gradient tool. On the tool settings bar select the "radial gradient" button, then pick the desired gradient from the dropdown list on that settings bar. For some odd reason this has to be applied to a shape that doesn't link to any auto-palette swatches, so if necessary simply right-click the fill/outline color thingie and set to white or black. Admitted, this is a very weird way to do this. Not sure if there is another way and if it's a bug or a feature. I don't use radial gradients very often so this doesn't bother me too much. Linear gradients via the auto-palette work like a charm. Btw you can add ANY gradient to the palette and reuse it as linear or radial, one way or another. Changes to the palette swatch later on also apply to all gradients that link to the palette entry, no matter if they're radial or linear.

Another thing I noticed was that I couldn't fit an entire page on screen at the same time. I was using a page approximately 1054px tall by 746px wide
(approximately the proportions for A4 paper). But since printed pages are taller than they are wide, and since computer monitors are wider than they
are tall, I might use a shorter, squatter page size next time. That way, it'll be possible to view an entire page without scrolling.

Using a smaller page size might help keep my computer from slowing down so much too.

There's a key to fit the entire page or drawing to screen (I think it's the 4 or 5 key, numpad works too). You could use this to check how the page looks in total, then zoom in again to work on things. I'm zooming in and out all the time, to see how the overall things looks and to be able to work on small details. You can also open another window of the same document. This way you could have a zoomed in view to work and a full-page view as an overview. This would of course work better with multiple displays but quickly switching between the two windows works as well.

That using a smaller page size would help with performance.. hmm, I don't think that would help much as you don't really work on a pixel level. No matter how large or small your document in pixels, you'd still have the same number of paths and objects on the page. The more things on screen, the slower it gets. Not to forget the filters like gaussian blur and stuff that slow the program down and cause updating the view to become more or less sluggish.

BTW, I noticed that every time I tried to change the dpi (dots per inch) of a page, the page size changed too. Is there a way to prevent that?

A simple example (yeah yeah, I know that technically there's a difference between dot, pix, pic etc) :

We have a document of 1000 x 1000px. Printed at a resolution of 100 px/inch this results in a 10 x 10 inch print, at 200 px/inch this would result in a 5 x 5 inch print. Increasing the resolution would result in smaller prints (or page sizes), decreasing it would make for larger prints. That means that if you increase the resolution and want to keep the same physical page size, you'd need to increase the pixel numbers in the same way (e.g. double resolution - double pixels).

Lazur · Postby **Lazur** » Sun Dec 01, 2013 9:38 pm

Dillerkind wrote:
...
I don't mess with gradients too much, since I've had cases where I've applied a gradient to a shape, then moved the shape, only to have the gradient
get left behind, while the shape reverts to a solid color. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong.....

Hmm, haven't experienced this yet. When I move stuff around, the gradient moves with the object it's applied to. Same goes for scaling and rotating. Really strange...

Note
If you want a Gradient to transform with an object, you must toggle on this option using the icon icon that is in the Tool Controls when the Select Tool is in use.

http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Attributes-Fill-Stroke.html#Attributes-Gradients

AnimeFan188 · Postby **AnimeFan188** » Mon Dec 02, 2013 11:05 am

Lazur URH wrote:Note
If you want a Gradient to transform with an object, you must toggle on this option using the icon icon that is in the Tool Controls when the Select Tool is in use.

http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL.html

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