Digital Inking Comic Book/Manga Style

[zerae]

For brushes you can download mine in here http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=311538, you may have to adjust the spacing to your needs.

The only software good for inking with anti-aliasing zoom/rotation is Opencanvas I don't know if 9.5 has anti-aliasing zoom, SAI is also excellent but it's not in English (http://systemax.jp/sai/).

There's also Deleter's Comic Works and Manga Studio 3.0.

[Jinbrown]

Hello all,

I recently discovered this site and it looks to be a great resource for users and there are some GREAT artists on here. That being said, I just a recently took the plunge and bought a wacom and painter to get myself into the digital age. First off, I'd like to say that I've hardly used computer programs to enhance my work. My immediate goal is to be able to ink my scanned penciled character drawings in a comic book/manga style. It seems most of the artists here are painters rather than inkers though but maybe some of you might have some advice. I read that Painter (i have IX) is probably the best program to digitally ink drawings and that the scrathboard tool is perfect to reproduce traditional inking techniques.

I ran across this tutorial on deviantart http://www.deviantart.com/view/22103422/
So I attempted to reproduce this inking technique. Well here's my problem. I used the scratchboard tool to go over some scanned pencils i had and at first the lines themselves were very jaggedy and not as all smooth, clean, and sharp as in that tutorial. I then changed the dab to rendered and and some other setting to "soft" and it somewhat looked better but still not as crisp. I'm at a loss at what to do.


Here are some questions :
1) does anyone know what settings i need to have in order to reproduce the line work in that deviantart tutorial? Is there an option for anti-aliased lines?
2) Unless im zoomed in at 100%, the lines im drawing look horrible. At anything below 100% the line's i draw look jaggedy and not anti-aliased. Is there a way to fix this?


If anyone can offer some advice it'd be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Clem

Hi Clem,

The Painter 6 and Painter IX Pens' Scratchboard Tool brush variant, it its default state uses the Dab Type: Rendered and it paints anti-aliased brushstrokes.

You'll see this if you restore the Scratchboard Tool variant to its default state, change the brush Size to about 30, using black, paint a brushstroke, then zoom in to 1600% and look at the brushstroke's edges.

I'd be very surprised if the tutorial's author did his Scratchboard Tool work at the size you see in the tutorial. I'll bet he worked at least twice that size, maybe larger, then reduced the images' size for use on the Web. I'd also be surprised if most artists didn't work 1.5 to 2 times the final size for printed work, too, and at a fairly high Resolution (PPI number, or number of pixels per inch). I use 300 ppi for anything I might want to print later and other artists say they use an even higher PPI number sometimes, depending on the kind of work, where it will be printed, and on what kind of material it will be printed.

The pixelation you see in Painter is a known problem and it doesn't mean your work will print that way or display that way on the Web. Try doing some test prints at 100% and I think you'll see the Scratchboard Tool variant, when used in its default state (except the Size settings) produces very smooth edged strokes.

[Jinbrown]

Hello all,

I recently discovered this site and it looks to be a great resource for users and there are some GREAT artists on here. That being said, I just a recently took the plunge and bought a wacom and painter to get myself into the digital age. First off, I'd like to say that I've hardly used computer programs to enhance my work. My immediate goal is to be able to ink my scanned penciled character drawings in a comic book/manga style. It seems most of the artists here are painters rather than inkers though but maybe some of you might have some advice. I read that Painter (i have IX) is probably the best program to digitally ink drawings and that the scrathboard tool is perfect to reproduce traditional inking techniques.

I ran across this tutorial on deviantart http://www.deviantart.com/view/22103422/
So I attempted to reproduce this inking technique. Well here's my problem. I used the scratchboard tool to go over some scanned pencils i had and at first the lines themselves were very jaggedy and not as all smooth, clean, and sharp as in that tutorial. I then changed the dab to rendered and and some other setting to "soft" and it somewhat looked better but still not as crisp. I'm at a loss at what to do.


Here are some questions :
1) does anyone know what settings i need to have in order to reproduce the line work in that deviantart tutorial? Is there an option for anti-aliased lines?
2) Unless im zoomed in at 100%, the lines im drawing look horrible. At anything below 100% the line's i draw look jaggedy and not anti-aliased. Is there a way to fix this?


If anyone can offer some advice it'd be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Clem

Hi Clem,

The Painter 6 and Painter IX Pens' Scratchboard Tool brush variant, it its default state uses the Dab Type: Rendered and it paints anti-aliased brushstrokes.

You'll see this if you restore the Scratchboard Tool variant to its default state, change the brush Size to about 30, using black, paint a brushstroke, then zoom in to 1600% and look at the brushstroke's edges.

I'd be very surprised if the tutorial's author did his Scratchboard Tool work at the size you see in the tutorial. I'll bet he worked at least twice that size, maybe larger, then reduced the images' size for use on the Web. I'd also be surprised if most artists didn't work 1.5 to 2 times the final size for printed work, too, and at a fairly high Resolution (PPI number, or number of pixels per inch). I use 300 ppi for anything I might want to print later and other artists say they use an even higher PPI number sometimes, depending on the kind of work, where it will be printed, and on what kind of material it will be printed.

The pixelation you see in Painter is a known problem and it doesn't mean your work will print that way or display that way on the Web. Try doing some test prints at 100% and I think you'll see the Scratchboard Tool variant, when used in its default state (except the Size settings) produces very smooth edged strokes.

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