Hello, I'm Cherry! I am the creator of my own webtoon. I have created all my chapters with the help of Clip Studio Paint, and in this tutorial, I will show you how to create your own webcomics, plus I will give you advice and tips to help you speed up your work.
All about webtoons
First of all, I'd like to mention that the format you choose for your webcomic is very important, because you must be clear that the reading direction is no longer a “traditional” one, so to speak. Keep in mind that now the reading will be vertical, so there are a series of fundamentals to consider to guarantee the success of your work.
For example, my first recommendation is to have a sketch prepared that you have previously worked on only for vertical reading.
Why vertical reading?
Because this way it will adapt to reading on a mobile phone, which is fundamental within webcomics, which were created for this purpose. This way, people will have more access to read your webtoon, because they will be in contact with it through their mobile devices.
That said, it is also important to ask yourself if you want your work to be printed in the future or not. Because of this, then you should also deeply consider the size of your canvas.
Format
Let's start with how you can create a Webtoon format.
(New —> Show all comic settings).
The dimensions I have established, as I believe it's an excellent format for both smartphone viewing and printing, are as follows: 2150 pixels wide x 30000 pixels high. With a resolution of 350 dpi
I also like to have added margins on my template because sometimes I prefer to arrange my panels within these margins, but this is a personal preference that you can ignore.
My margins are as follows: 1900px wide X 2999px high.
Template
It's very simple to save your template.
Simply set the format I recommended or an even larger one, if you think the template isn't long enough (keep in mind that images exceeding 30,000 pixels in height cannot be saved as a single image, so you'll have to divide your sheet).
After preparing your canvas, on the left side, select the “Save” button, give your template a name, and finally click “OK”.
With this action, your template will be available from now on so you don't have to configure the canvas again.
Default Templates
Fortunately, Clip Studio Paint offers a series of default templates. So, if you choose any default template, you would be saving yourself all the trouble I mentioned above. Simply choose your favorite template and start working on your chapter.
In that case, my recommendation would be Template Number 4 because its characteristics are similar to those I configured in my own template, and I believe it has an adequate size if you want to draw details.
Sketch and Panels
I will reiterate the importance of vertical reading again. Basically, vertical reading is the essence, and that's why it's important that your sketch is made with this in mind.
The structure of your panels and their distribution are equally important because they are essential for providing a solid foundation and a dynamic narrative. For example, you can play with this new narrative by alternating your panels or drawing a scene as the canvas moves down.
To create your panels, you need to go to the toolbar and choose “Panel Border”
My border has a size of 5 points. This is because I don't like the border too thick or too thin.
The appearance of the border will also be determined by the size of my canvas; that is, if my canvas has a certain size, my border, despite being the same size, will appear thinner or thicker depending on the case.
I recommend keeping this in mind and using the same border size for all your panels to achieve more consistency.
Panel Separation
It is also important to note that the separation between panels should be “wide” and not placed right next to each other, because this way, the reading will be easier to understand if both the dialogue and the panels are properly separated.
Leave a considerable space between each panel.
This is up to your consideration; there is no written rule, but remember to take advantage of the length of the sheet. Don't be afraid to widely separate between panels, or dialogue and panels.
Dialogues
The font size must also be appropriate; remember that your webtoon will generally be read on a relatively “small” device, such as smartphones.
Whether you decided to use the dimensions I gave you for your format or a smaller one, I recommend a size of:
15 to 25 points for the font size.
The font should be legible and dynamic, sans-serif.
You can use the default font called: Comic Sans MS
This section is also extremely important because people should feel comfortable reading your dialogues, especially if your chapters involve reading multiple panels.
To create your own font list:
Select the font list —>Open font list settings dialog (gear icon on the right side) —>Create new list (first button on the bottom left) —>Select font(s) to include in the list —>OK.
This way, you can create your own list and keep your selected fonts saved.
Script
The narrative of your chapter can be reflected in a written script, which is why I highly recommend writing a script for each of your chapters before anything else, as this will save you a lot of time. The written script serves as a guide, both for visualizing the panels, their number, their distribution, and the distance between each element, including the dialogues.
As personal advice, I believe the script is the first thing you should have written before starting a chapter. And not only that, I believe that in general, dialogues are the first thing that should be established and finished.
I'm going to give you two options to speed up this important part.
Option 1: If you have Clip Studio Paint PRO
Copy each dialogue you are going to add to your chapter one by one and place it where you want that dialogue to go, until all dialogues are copied into your chapter.
Then add the speech bubbles.
To create speech bubbles, go to the toolbar:
Balloon tool —-> Balloon —-> Select a speech bubble.
There are three types of speech bubbles:
Elliptical speech bubble: a round/elliptical speech bubble.
Curved speech bubble: with this tool, you can create the shape of your speech bubble.
Speech bubble with rounded borders: a speech bubble with rounded corners.
I recommend creating a folder that will contain all your speech bubbles and onomatopoeias. This folder should be placed at the top of all your work. This will prevent the bubbles from being hidden beneath upper layers, such as the color layer or the layer where you will place the backgrounds.
Option 2: If you have Clip Studio Paint EX
On the top left side, select:
Page Management —> Edit Text —> Open Story Editor —-> OK.
Once the story editor is open, copy your dialogue exactly as you want it to appear inside the text bubble and then paste it.
Close Story Editor —-> OK (save).
With this action, all your dialogues will automatically be inside your panel.
Lineart
My lineart is always done with the same type of pen. It's a pen that I configured, but it's not that different from the G-pen, so you can use that if you wish.
You can also draw the line with a type of pen or brush that doesn't have such a decisive pressure mark, such as markers or felt-tip pens. That's a matter of personal preference.
Explore your own style, whatever you feel most comfortable with.
I also often use the “Bezier Curve” tool to draw faces, because with this tool you can vectorize certain elongated parts with an organic line. This is very useful for drawing the lines that define the face or certain very long parts of the body.
Color
Some coloring techniques I apply to all my chapters help me considerably reduce working time, so I'll give you some of my tips.
There are two ways you can create and save your own color palettes. Color palettes are important because they define our style and the genre of our webtoon. For example, my palette is very colorful since my webtoon is a comedy and slice of life genre.
I'll show you how to set this up.
First, have the following base colors already chosen:
Skin color, shadow color for skin, hair color, and eye color.
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Option 1.
Go to the command bar:
In the empty space, right-click —-> Add drawing color.
This way, you can create a color palette that will always be within your sight.
I think this is the best option to have your palette available at any time.
Option 2.
The usefulness of this palette is that you can add large sets of colors.
Go to your color wheel:
Go to the “Color Set” window —-> Select the “Color Set (wrench)” button —> Add new settings —-> OK.
An empty palette will be created for you to add the colors you want.
To add a color, right-click on an empty space —-> Add color.
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My working method starts with the flat color of each section of the main characters. I refer to “flat color” as the base color, meaning without shadows or highlights. I usually paint the base skin color first, then the hair, and finally the clothes. Of course, each on different layers.
Then I place the shadows over my base colors by clipping a layer above the lower layer.
I recommend doing this and not painting character by character completely because it will take a lot of time. It's preferable to paint all the base colors first, and then start placing shadows and details afterwards.
To give dimension to your characters, I also advise adding gradients, mainly to clothes and hair.
For gradients and shadows, I usually use the layer blending mode “Multiply”, and for highlights, I usually use “Add (Glow)”. It's not common for me to leave the opacity of these two layers at 100%; I prefer to play with the opacity at different percentages.
By the way, to paint shadows, I use the “Lasso Fill” tool:
Fill tool —-> Lasso Fill.
Backgrounds
Backgrounds are an important part of our webtoons because they help convey expressiveness to situations.
Also, since the reading format is vertical, we can play with this aspect, for example, a scene where we transition from one situation to another using this advantage.
Now, I work on backgrounds in a way that also helps me reduce delivery time. If you notice I've been insistent on time, it's because my webtoon is published weekly, so I need to use all available resources to speed up the process and get my chapter ready.
When I need to add a background, I usually use photographs, and I tend to "pictorize" these photographs. That is, I edit them so they look like animation backgrounds. I've already made a very simple tutorial explaining this technique, I'll leave you a link to the tutorial.
Briefly summarizing, the effect is in:
Filter —-> Effect —-> Pictorize.
Additionally, you can modify your photographs using some preset brushes such as those for leaves, grass, trees, clouds, etc.
Image Export
Once your chapter is ready, you need to save your images according to the requirements of the site where you will publish your work.
Where I publish, the requirements are panels of 1280 x 800 pixels, so I configured my panel cut to export them this way and simply upload the images.
If you have CSP EX, then you can cut your panel by going to:
File —-> Export Webtoon
It doesn't matter if the images are exported cut, because when you upload them for publication, they won't show that cut; they will appear as a single vertical image.
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This was my creation process.
I hope some of the advice, tips, and suggestions I mentioned here have been very helpful to you.
I hope you are encouraged to create your own webtoon. It's not as difficult as it seems; you just need to have perseverance and discipline. There is no other secret.
If you publish your webtoon, I would love to know.
I wish you much success!
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Links where you can find my work:
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