Introduction

Without further ado, please take a look at this panel.

It depicts a schoolgirl saying [Good morning] on her way to school.

You might notice that the character is slightly buried in the background and hard to see.

The black of the leaves and hair overlap, making it difficult to distinguish, and the brick lines have no difference in thickness from the character's lines, making the boundary between the character and background ambiguous and hard to identify.

 

This time, I will introduce several ways to finish a manga to make characters stand out, while adding and correcting this panel. I hope some of these methods will suit your manga.

 

By the way, I used the following material for the bricks.

Create space around characters by not drawing backgrounds.

Since overlapping black leaves and hair can make it hard to see, create space around the character's hair by not drawing leaves there. This is something to keep in mind before starting to draw the background.

This makes it easier to distinguish between the character and the background.

Comparing the two results in the following:

Make background line thickness thinner than character lines.

By differentiating the thickness of background lines from character lines, it becomes easier to distinguish between the background and characters.

For lines like the bricks in this panel, it's best to draw them with thin lines when creating the background.

 

 

You can change the thickness of background lines later with the [Correct Line Width tool].

It can also be used on raster layers, like this.

Thicken character lines.

Earlier, we thinned the background lines.

Now, we'll thicken the character's lines to further increase the difference in thickness from the background lines.

 

Select the character with a selection area, then use [Edit] menu > [Outline Selection] to thicken the outline.

However, erase the lines around the hair with an eraser as they can be distracting.

Outline the character with a white line.

Similar to before, enclose the character with a selection area, set the drawing color to white, and draw a white line on the outline using [Edit] menu > [Outline Selection].

 

This improves the character's visibility.

Draw white between the character and background.

Draw white between the character and the background using a gauze brush.

This is an easy process because there's no need to add or correct the background.

Draw white hatching between the character and background.

A speed line brush can draw many lines at once and can snap to a parallel ruler, making it ideal for drawing hatching.

 

Use this speed line brush to draw white hatching between the character and the background.

This allows for a more natural-looking depiction than drawing with a gauze brush.

First, create a vector layer, set a parallel ruler horizontally, and draw white hatching.

Next, create another vector layer, set a parallel ruler vertically, and add another layer of hatching.

Since this hatching is drawn on a vector layer, you can adjust lines individually or multiple lines together.

You can freely change parameters with the [Correct Line Width tool] or [Object tool].

For details, please refer to the previous TIPS.

Reduce the visibility of background text.

This panel has another problem: the high visibility of the text written in the background.

This is the area covered in red.

It refers to the slogan about fire prevention on the mid-left of the screen and the shop name written on the utility pole.

 

 

Text possesses high visibility and priority in cognitive processing.

This significantly distracts the reader's focus from the manga characters and dialogue.

 

Therefore, it's necessary to degrade background text to reduce its visibility.

Here are a few methods to do so.

Lighten the black of the text with white hatching.

Use white hatching to scrape away the black of the text, making it lighter.

By weakening the black, the text's impression and presence fade, allowing it to blend into the background.

Outline and shave off text.

Create a new layer, Ctrl-click the text layer's thumbnail to create a selection, then use [Edit] menu > [Outline Selection] to create outlined text.

Erase intersections, tips, and mid-sections of long lines until the text is barely legible.

By distorting the text so it's not recognizable as letters, it blends well with the background.

Method to make text white and combine it with halftone.

First, draw hatching under the text to create a halftone base.

Next, change the text to white using [Edit] menu > [Filter] > [Invert Luminance].

Finally, add slight partial touches to give the impression that text is written there.

 

 

In all methods, the important thing is to reduce the contrast of the text to lower its visibility.

Darken areas further from the character.

Let's consider the overall balance of shadows and highlights in the panel for a moment.

Balancing the brightness as if a spotlight is on the character makes the character stand out more.

 

It's not good for areas far from the character to have the same brightness as the areas around the character.

Even a slight difference in brightness is better.

 

The bottom edges of both sides of the panel were a bit bright, so I applied hatching to reduce their brightness.

This created a difference in brightness between the character's surroundings, making it easier for the viewer's gaze to focus on the character.

Place the character above the panel.

By placing the character's folder, which has a white base, above the panel layer, you can achieve an effect where the character appears to pop out.

This technique is called "Buchi-nuki," which comes from a Japanese word meaning "to penetrate a partition."

 

 

When color-coded for clarity, it looks like this.

Conclusion

The most important thing I wanted to convey this time is that the readability and ease of viewing manga can change with every single line.

If a manga is difficult to read, readers will leave before finishing it.

This means they won't read far enough to discover the story's interesting parts.

Please use the techniques and perspectives introduced this time as a reference, observe how professional manga are finished, and apply it to your own manga.

 

Don't forget that even a single line affects readability.