Polygon Comics

Hmm... Manga Studio(tm)... Also Known as Comic Studio(tm) In Japan!

Okay, I think it is an understatement for me to make the following statements:

• I LOVE Anime and Manga!
• I SUCK at drawing both

Now, having said that, I very much want to draw manga and anime style, since it really is a beautiful way to represent the world.

To that end, I've been inspired by my recent exposure to Rosario+Vampire. I find that once again, I've been bitten by the ol'drawing manga bug. Which is fine. However, since I didn't want to splurge on a $300 Wacom Intuos Tablet, I decided that I should see if I couldn't locate my old cherry pink 4x6" Wacom Graphire tablet. Several hours and boxes of searching later... I was able to locate both the table and the stylus. The mouse, unfortunately, was doing a VERY good job of hiding!

Download Wacom Mac OS X drivers, plug tablet in... magic! It works.

Manga Studio EX Sadness!

So, with tablet and stylus in hand, I try to get a demo of the Manga Studio EX 3.0 for Mac OS X.... only to find that it does not run on Leopard!?!? That I should wait until 4.0 or get Manga Studio Debut...

Well, there is no demo for Manga Studio Debut. And there is no estimated release date for Manga Studio EX 4.0... maybe they will have it at Anime Expo 2008... hopefully.

In either case... a few dollars and one corrupted download later, I was sketching in Manga Studio Debut.

Both good and bad. :/

The Good

Manga Studio Debut behaves alot like sketching manga... but one of the features of EX that I really wanted to take advantage of was the SVG aspects, so that images can be scaled up and down without resolution loss. Debut only works in raster mode, so scaling up and down will result in information loss.

Debut also doesn't support color or 16bit/channel greyscale. Only 2bit and 8bit greyscale.

*SIGH*

Inkscape!

There is an open source package called Inkscape. Fully vector based illustration... however, requires you to update Quartz X11 and even with that, after a few runs, it crashed on me! Ack!

Still, I think that given the tools available, Inkscape, with some module extensions and stability improvements, will be a strong illustration tool.

Quick Summary

Going to practice more on my little graphire, maybe get a rubber grip for the too-thin stylus and save up to get that Wacom Intuos3 6x11 Pen Tablet. Like some other gear I would like to get. :)

Overall, I like the feel of Manga Studio Debut.. I only wished it supported color, 16bit greyscale, and scalable vector graphics. It almost has me wondering why I don't just use Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. :)

Still, TokyoPop's crew are using Manga Studio EX, and there are a good number of video tutorials out there. For those who can read Japanese, you can pickup copies of Comic Studio guide books and get started that way. :)