final art with text laid in

I finished up the last few details yesterday. Then I imported the image into Photoshop to make it print ready.

I am very pleased with the ease of which I learned the basics in Manga Studio EX. Most of the tutorials I was able to access on the web were either too basic or not detailed enough. I am still hunting for some that fill my needs. The majority of the videos utilize true Manga style art, and the process I use for layering in color is not typical for most of those artists.

My next attempt will be with the vector tools, which, from my investigations, seem to only be good for line work. Further digging will be needed.

Sadly, the colors were VERY off when I printed the image out in CMYK mode. Either my monitor is in desperate need of calibration or my printer is horribly out of whack. The other option could be the program but since the colors look very different from the printed image in all programs, I have to go with one of the first two.

I laid in the text and crop marks in Illustrator because I find that program has the crispest lettering when output. This will be used as a new promo postcard slated for the October mailing. What do you think?

Almost done!

While I was waiting for the disaster that was my afternoon to happen, I had a few hours to work on my Snow White piece.

I lightened up the background and replaced the skirt color and texture. The flat color for the stone house is laid in and I made a little garden of flowers along the base of the house to break up the wide expanse of tan.

The texture in both the sweater and the skirt are default pattern brushes. So are the flowers.

Tomorrow, I plan on detailing the skirt, adding color and depth to the house and working on the slate walking stones. If I have time, I will finish the basket and apples as well. I have decided to lay in the text in Illustrator so I can get this puppy out the door.

All in all, I am pretty pleased with the capabilities of MangaStudio EX in the raster format. My next trail image will be done in the vector format as soon as I figure out how to find the tools.

Laying skin tones and central apple

I got laid low by a nasty cold. The cold has mostly dissipated except for a hacking cough. While annoying, it seems to be the tail end of the illness. I have to stop painting whenever I cough so I don’t mess up what I’m working on.

I have been laying color in Manga Studio EX. The Snow White inking received some more doctoring yesterday because the maid’s face appeared to be squashed. Getting the features and expression to be the wide-eyed, young innocent I wanted took most of my session yesterday. Today I started laying in the skin tones and the color for the apple.

I have almost completely forsaken the stylus in favor of the mouse at this point. My drawing hand still aches if I use it for work on the computer, even with the brace. This morning my thumb was so stiff I couldn’t even hold my toothbrush. I have better control on the computer with the mouse, so I will just continue on with that instead of trying to learn how to use the stylus at risk of injuring my dominant hand again.

The Snow White illustration is completely done in raster format. The neat thing about Manga Studio EX is I can choose to work in either raster or vector formats. I am really enjoying the ‘painting’ sessions in raster. It seems to me that my color style is consistent with that of my traditional watercolor technique. I am using the default color palette of the program right now, but I think I will create my own palette with the color combination of my physical paints and see if that translates as well. MS-EX does give me the option of ‘mixing’ my own colors. In addition, the tool controls allow me to choose a lot of different brush widths.

I will finish this illustration as a raster drawing and then switch over to the vector tools with my next illustration. I wonder how similar the tools will be to those in Adobe Illustrator, the program that has been my go to for digital illustration for years? I am hopeful the learning curve will not be as great as the initial switch was from Photoshop.

One thing I do have to add. I am taking just as long to ‘paint’ an illustration in MS-EX as I would be on paper. The only dramatic differences are there is no drying time (which I use a hair dryer to speed up on paper) and my ‘brush’ doesn’t run out of paint. I still get just as growly about having to take a call or answer the door, but at least using this tool for washes doesn’t mean a ruined painting if I have to stop in the middle of the wash. The undo command fixes splotchy washes in the blink of an eye. I like that.

Snow White's face fixed, final inking done. Starting with background color.

I made some minor fixes to Snow White’s face and cleaned up the line work on the house today.

After compressing all the inking layers into one, I removed any white so the layer was transparent. Then I fiddled around until I found the buttons needed to change the layers from black and white to color.

This took far longer than I like, as a long time Photoshop and Illustrator user, I have come to expect things to be in certain places and to act in certain ways.

I don’t know why I am not finding Manga Studio’s interface less intuitive for me, but the time spent learning where all the tools are and how to make them function the way I want is taking a major portion of my ‘drawing’ time.

I feel good with the amount of progress I made today. I hope I will have time to get back to the illustration before next week, but because of my schedule for the next several days it seems unlikely. I hope the time away from the program doesn’t slow me down again.

All-in-all, I am quite pleased with the program’s capabilities once I figure them out, but a good tutorial would be something I would appreciate. The tutorials I have been able to find are either too generic or assume the viewer is already familiar with the tool pallets. I would love some lessons on how and where all the tools are and how to make them work. I guess I’ll have to do it the old fashioned way. By trail and error.

I missed a bunch of days, being out of the studio or just too danged busy with other deadlines to get to this project. I can tell. I’ve lost some ground on being comfortable with the stylus. Because of this I am not as pleased with the line quality on Snow White. Also, something is bugging me about her face. I’m not quite sure what as I have been drawing and redrawing individual parts for the balance of the afternoon. Time to move onto other things on the list. I’ll revisit it tomorrow.

inking in Snow White