Manga has been a loved form of art for a very long time for both readers and writers, and with its popularity it has gained a lot of forms and ways of making.

In this article, I'll explain why digital manga is becoming more and more popular.

Note: if you want to jump to the fun part you can go to “MAKING MANGA” in the index.

MATERIALS

Costs

The first thing you need to look at when working on anything is how much money you have to pay, compared to how much you get paid if you're willing to sell your work.

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Working on traditional manga requires pencils, pens, different tone sheets, and a lot of paper, while working on digital manga might only require a tablet, a stylus, and an art application.

Looking at the prices of tablets might drag you back, and let's not forget you may want to pay for a good drawing application, however, if you reconsider, traditional manga requires continuous costs for art supplies. On the other hand, making manga digitally can only require paying once a year, or so much less than that. So, even a single page could cost you a lot if you're working traditionally, which we'll be talking about it later on.

Availability

Even in stores that sell art supplies, finding suitable tools that you need for making manga can be a bit challenging, but thanks to the growing technology, buying anything has become easier! Still, the need to purchase them regularly can be costly, let's not forget that shipping its price too! That's one of the many reasons that lead artists to work digitally.

Post-production

Once the traditionally made manga is finished, it undergoes a complex process to reach its readers. Some of the steps include:

• scanning: which is done for every page for further processing.

• Digital enhancement & editing: this includes removing errors, making some adjustments, and adding sound effects and text.

• printing: and that's the final step which puts the artwork onto paper again, but in larger quantities.

Most of these steps aren't needed when working digitally.

Another thing to consider is coloring an already-made manga. That can be quite challenging if manga was made on paper. Going through multiple steps for every single page can be pretty frustrating.

Of course, coloring isn't always needed in manga so that isn't considered a big problem :)

MAKING MANGA

We've reached the most fun part of our topic!

I'm going to explain the basics to help you start your journey of making manga!

Paper settings

To start, go to File, New, and from the top of the page choose the third option.

This will give you many options you need for manga.

For standard manga, you can use the settings shown below:

You can check the Template box if you want to work with a certain framing template

If you're making manga for fun and you don't want to stick with these settings, you can choose the illustration option and still have fun with the features :)

After pressing “OK” you'll notice that your page has three rectangles inside of it

It's recommended to stick inside the inner rectangle (2)

Please NEVER surpass the borders marked in pink (1) because that area is going to be cut after printing.

Panels

Panels, also known as frames are what divides manga scenes.

There are several ways you can use to make frames in CSP.

The first way is my favorite, which is done by going to the frame icon in the tool bar, go to “create frame” and choose “Rectangular frame”

Now press and hold on your page to draw a frame, just like how it's shown below:

Notice how a white background is automatically created under the frame folder.

If you don't like it automatically making layers, there's another way to do it.

Press the three lines in the layer window, go to New Layer> Frame Border folder…

The following window will pop up:

You can adjust the frame’s line width.

Make sure “Draw border” is checked.

This will draw a frame, and create an empty folder to add layers in it later.

Now, to cut these borders, go to the same tool, but on the “Cut frame border” window this time.

You'll be given two options:

1. Divide frame folder which will put each panel on a separate folder so that you won't accidentally draw in other panels.

2. Divide frame border will only divide your frame without seperating it.

(I recommend the first option)

In the tool properties, you can adjust the space between panels.

Tones

To make the tones effect, go to layer property, and press Tone.

Adjust the tone frequency for your liking.

You can play around with the settings but I think the default once are the best!

Also, make sure the layer expression color is set to Gray.

Okay, so here's a cool trick:

To make a colored tone effect turn on Layer color in Layer property, while Tone is on.

Now you can choose the color you want for your tone.

Another way to do it is to add a new layer above the tone layer and clip it to the tone layer, and play around with the coloring.

Of course, this is just a fun effect and it's not used in the usual manga.

Text

Now, you can finish your manga page by adding the last steps which include speech bubbles and text, and also written sound effects which are onomatopoeia used to describe sounds in manga and other comics.

To add a speech bubble there's a special tool for it which is called…

BALLOON!! (You expected it to be called something else right? Yeah, same)

There are many options for making it and you're able to install more as well!

Making a speech bubble is pretty easy, after you make the main shape, choose one of the tail options to make a line referring to the speaker.

Notice how they're automatically merged together.

This tool will create a new layer especially for the balloon (or bubble)

Now, when you use the text tool and press the speech bubble, the text will be centered inside it.

You can change and and add fonts for your liking. Clip studio’s comic font looks suitable for comics.

Exporting

After you finish your page, it's time to turn it into an image.

Go to File> flatten and export to device storage, and then choose PNG because that's the best option, and make sure that “text” is checked.

If you're using Clip Studio Paint EX you can as well make more than one page in a single comic project and export it as PDF.

Note: what I explained about making manga isn't limited to Clip Studio Paint. There many free options you can use to make manga :)

CONCLUSION

Please notice that I don't have anything against making traditional manga. Every form of art has it's own good and bad. My intention is to give a chance for some artists who might face some difficulties when making manga.

Thank you for taking your time to read through this article.

I wish you a smooth and artful journey :)