Hi friends,

 

My name is ann, I will be briefly showing how I make use of clip studio paint to transitioning or turn my traditional comic manual script into a digital comic.

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🔅 Possible challenges face by traditional artist when turning their work to a digital format

The likely issue which traditional artist face when the want to turn the comic manual script into a digital format using digital software such as CLIP STUDIO PAINT, PHOTOSHOP and among other is as follows;

1. Confusion

As a traditional artist new to using software to draw often get confused when confronted with digital software many systems and features having known knowledge about digital software, that aspect then to be overwhelming,

But the best solution to the above mentioned issue which me myself used to overcome that challenge and have been able to easily see myself grow in the digital art world and even now can I am able to use the most of the digital software effectively,

 

• What I did firstly back then, is that before I make use of any of the digital software for my artwork, I first make myself familiar with the various tools and settings, knowing how the work, their functions and the best and effective ways they can be used.

 

• Secondly, I use the various brushes and features to practicing simple shapes and forms till I get familiar with them.

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• Now another way which one can overcome the challenge is but going related artist on how to make the difference settings, features, tools and more, do research.

•Lack of Knowing how

Now they process of transitioning from traditional to digital comic is very easier and understandable but for those who have known idea on how it is done may feel it difficuit and complicating like for example:

 

How do I get the artwork on the sheet of paper in to my digital device with my redrawing or having the line work area show and not the white areas.

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Now the above mentioned can be by doing the following;

• Scanning or Photographing: The simplest method is to scan or photograph the traditional painting with a high-resolution camera. This will create a digital image file that you can further edit or enhance using digital tools.

As this tutorial continues will see how to apply the answers give.

3. Used of Poor digital devices

This aspect may sound unessential, but it is highly necessary if you want to create a unique and good work.

Now, the device I will highly recommend for use are tablets,

• DIGITIZING TABLETS could belong to any of the brand Wacom, Samsung, and even Apple Tablet. They offer users cheaper and sophisticacted graphic design devices an should have, with a tablet one can use a digitizing tablet, also known as a graphics tablet, to trace or recreate the traditional painting digitally. These tablets allow you to draw easily, directly onto a digital surface and capture each of your strokes in a digital format.

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I recently got myself a tablet of which I will be using for this tutorial.

Pls do note that this may or may not be base on how it is done officially, but it's the way I have come to learn over the year on change the line work of my traditional comic into a digital line art.

 

 

🔅What is the difference between traditional comic and digital?

For users new using CLIP STUDIO PAINT (CSP) or draw in total this may come as a strange concept, but please don't be alarmed for when we say,

 

TRADITIONAL COMIC in this sense means the comic making process whereby one makes use of traditional materials such as pencils, ink, and paper to tell a story.

Meanwhile as we may know,

DIGITAL COMIC is comic making process released digitally with tha aid of digital devices such as smartphones, tablets, system and even webcom device, as opposed to in print.

And the process of transitioning from traditional to digital comic is the comic making process sketches by hand and scanning for it's line art and coloring using digital software such as CSP on a digital device.

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So for me not to drag this statement on and waste precious time, let's just jump into the workflow process.

 

 

🔅PROCESS 1: Draw out the traditional manual script

In this, I just lay out the sets of panels I want the particular page to have which in this case is (9 panels), Also making sure to arrange them in an interaction flow.

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I will then now draw out the character figures on each of the designated panels,

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With the above done, we are done with the traditional comic making process,

 

We can then scan or snap the comic which in my case as I do not have a scanner, I will just snap it.

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• Import process

Next is for one to move or import the snap image in CLIP STUDIO PAINT software and to do so, we first need to open CLIP STUDIO PAINT software on our device which in my case is on a (Tablet device).

 

But do note that the various processes I will be showing can be done any of the other devices.

With the CSP software open to import the snap image, click on

[File]>[Create new from photo library]

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A mini dashboard will then be displayed,

Select the [Snapped image]

of the short comic which I am calling

[THE FEMALE FENCER].

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The image will then the imported into the CSP software on it's own layer.

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Now, when we look closely at the above imported image carefully, we will notice that the snapped image has some unwanted parts around it edges,

 

To remove those unwanted parts, I first using the (selection pen) sub tool to select the unwanted parts and I then click on the (Clear) icon on top of the canvas which will then erase the selection areas where are unwanted.

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And with the above done, we can still notice some areas of the image that a dark,

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Next, I click on (lock transparent) icon of the image layer on the left side, then using the (Lasso fill) sub tool, I fill in a white color to the various edges.

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• Line art extraction process

Following that,

Select the imported image layer,

 

Click on (Layer property)

A dashboard with the selection option called (Expression color),

 

Click on the bar below the expression color

A mini dashboard will appear with three selection options,

Select that of the monochrome

The line art of the comic will then be extracted from the imported image.

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Then, below the bar are the selection options which I adjust to the following;

1. For the color threshold, I adjust to 130%,

 

2. For the alpha threshold, I adjust to 246%

I choose this sets base on my imported image contracts and to reduce the amount of noise in the extract line art.

Also , beside the (expression color) bar there is a black and a white color icon,

Click on that of the black color icon

To enable it which will make the white area of the imported,

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Afterwards, we can notice that now when we disable the blank paper layer in the layer dashboard, we will no longer see the white area the imported image making it a transparent area, before we can move on to the next, we need to following;

Click on the (Apply expression color of previews) bar

To apply the transparency permanently to the white areas,

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• Line art refining process

This is the process whereby we use one of CSP handy features to remove another sets of unwanted dots and lines into the line art.

Looking above in the [Layer property] in the image below by the left side, we can see an option Called (Border effect),

Click on the (Border effect) to enable it,

While the line art layer is still selected, A border effect will then be given to the line art.

 

Next

Click on the (edge color)

Then change the color of the border effect to a (red color) and follow by

Clicking on Ok to save the change,

Do the above mentioned, help the CSP noise detector to be able to detect dots and lines which in art are called noise.

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With the above mentioned done, the line art will then have a red border effect, and on that note we will also see the various noticable noise that the extracted line art have,

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With the various dots and lines (noise) now visible, I use the (Remove dust) sub tool which can be located in the [Sub tool: correction line] dashboard to draw a square round the imported image in the canvas,

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Then I let the noise detector to do it's thing and when it's done, we will notice that it has effectively erase those unwanted dots and lines in the extracted line art Layer.

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And with that we now have our clearly extracted line art, now is this transitioning process from traditional manual script to digital comic very very easier and faster.

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🔅Process 2: Coloring process with CSP handy features

At this point, we now have the line art all we just need do now is to add colors to the master piece using the various CSP handy features.

Now one of the most important and handy features in CSP and digital comic making process is known as (Layer),

• Layer

Layer in digital art or comic making process give users the ability to add components to an image and work on them one at a time, without permanently changing your original image.

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To adding my colors, I first start by creating below the (Line art layer), using the (Lasso fill) sub tool, I fill in the entire layer with slightly dark orange color.

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Afterwards, I create another new layer above the (Line art layer) by also clicking the (create new Raster layer) icon and I use the (Selection wand) sub tool to select the entire outer part of the various panels, then up the Bucket sub tool to fill in a white color to the selected areas.

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The move on to doing next thing, which is creating other layers and filling them with the base colors of each panels.

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• Blending Modes

This is an effect mode users can add to a layer to change how the colors blend with colors on lower layers.

And to add this mode to my digital comic for beautification to do so,

I first create a new layer by clicking on the Raster layer, above the on the (Layer) dashboard we will see the (blending mode), clicking on it, a mini dashboard will the various blending mode which are used for adding forms of lightening and darkening to an art piece,

Which in this case I firstly, select the layer (which the line art) and set the (blending mode) to [Multiply] to give the lines an overlapping effect,

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Create again another layer, use a soft edge brush to adda slightly blue shadows with yellow edges or halftone on the individual characters in the various panels,

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Then lastly, I create another new layer above the former, set the (blending mode) to [Overlay] using it to give the various characters in the individual panels a suit of glowing or illuminating effect.

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And with that done the piece is closer to being Concluded but before this works is done, we need to add what is called Effect to be specific I meant a Monochrome Effect.

• Monochrome Effect

Monochrome are expression color effects comprising of black, white and transparent. They are used for drawing lines and give our comics a unique detailing effects which maybe of mainly lines and their different variance alikes.

To achieve the above mentioned, we select the (), go to the [Material: Effect and feeling] dashboard tab > [Monochrome Effect] > [Effect and feeling] another dashboard tab will be displayed, then drag the material (which in this case is a Flow line, rough) your want to the background of the comic.

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• Speech Balloon

Speech balloons (also speech bubbles, dialogue balloons, or word balloons) are a graphic convention used most commonly in comic books, manga, and webtoons to allow words (and much less often, pictures) to be understood as representing a character's speech or thoughts.

Now in traditional comic, speech balloons are drawn by hand and it can be stressful and cannot be easily moved but in digital comic making the speech balloons can't be more easier, it can also be more to where we choose for it.

To create a speech balloon, we first need to get to the (Balloon sub tool), then we can use any of the sub tools to add the speech balloons.

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Another Way which we can add the Speech Balloons is from the

[Material: Balloons] > [Balloon] >[Jaggy curve small 1]

where we will see the different sets of speech balloon with what the can be used for like interrupted rectangle (which when use tell viewers that the character interrupted the other character), also there is the whispering voice speech balloons among other.

• Sets of Dialog Speech balloon

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• Sets of Narration Speech balloon

[Balloon: Narration]>[Interrupted rectangle]

In the below image, we need to go to the Layer Property tab, click the down arrow to see the “Expression Color” option. Choose black there. Bingo, it turn the the (announcers) speech balloons from white in black. This is the same way we did turn our above line art into the old-fashioned “non-reproducible blue” style of line art that I talked about in the extraction of (Line art).

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• Tone effect

Using a [Marker sub tool], create a selection area. Select [window] on the above tab > click on the [Layer property],

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Open the [Tone] settings in the [layer property] which is located on the right. Set the tone pattern, dot frequency, and density,

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As shown in the image above, we can just create another layer below the created Tone layer, (Clip) the tone layer to the below created layer, using a soft edge brush on the bottom layer to add a blue dots effects on the cloths of the fencing character and background as well.

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In CLIP STUDIO PAINT, If you want to add the dots effects by hand, you can get the brush I used above, click on the link below, it will take you to the assets site where you can download the above brush material.

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Now this next aspect is not highly necessary but if you are like me and want your comic to appear unique, make use of the Filter Effect features.

• Filter Effect

In CLIP STUDIO PAINT, often a variety of filters and color adjustments are used to help users as myself to enhance his/her artwork, comic is not excluded. So we need learn how to use filters and other layer adjustments edify or change the nature of our artworks.

The first thing we have to consider first is how to locate the (filter effect),

Click on the [Filter] > [Effect] > [Pencil drawing]

With above followed accordingly, a mini dashboard will appear and to give my comic a kind of paper looks or appearance, I set

• Enable the outline,

• Enable Hatching,

• The Hatching size to [6],

• The hatching roughness is [2],

• The hatching angle to [150],

Then I conclude it by clicking on the [OK] button.

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The comic will the appear as shown below.

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At this point say we want comic appear as a manga like comic, all we need just do is to replicate the same above similar settings for the [Pencil drawing] filter effect but in this particular setting,

we just need to enable the [Grey scale output].

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The comic will the also appear as shown below.

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Sign out

Thanks everyone for going through, really really appreciate and I very much hope those who gone through this article may have learned something that may help them in their comic or webtoon making. Hope to see you on the next article of mine so byee.

 

Ann signing out for now

😽😽😸😸😺