From: tal691@huxley.anu.edu.au (Tonio Loewald)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.manga
Subject: Re: How manga is done
Date: 27 Jan 93 20:42:53 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.2.12

isc30176@nusunix1.nus.sg (CHEN JIA TYAN) writes:



>                        How Manga is Done [v1.1, 250193]

>[This was originally a set of emails to answer a friend's (Dennis) queries.  I 
>thought it might be useful for some other people, so here's a compilation]

>I read it from 2 books on introduction to manga.  I have no formal education 
>on drawing nor painting, just immense interest.  I have done some manga 
>before, so some of the remarks are from my personal experience. I'm quite 
>convince that I've spelt some of the artists names wrongly, please correct me.
>Any comments, amendments, additions, criticisms should be directed to
>Chen JiaTyan
>isc30176@nusunix1.nus.sg
>chenjiat@nusdiscs.bitnet
>----------

[omitted parts about materials]

>(0.3) Pencils
>Pencils can be either mechanical or normal.  The choice would depend on your 
>familiarity with the pencil.  Try to get 2B lead, B would do fine, but HB is a 
>little to light (and you have to press hard onto the paper, which can't be 
>cleaned later).  3B leads are too soft for fine sketches. Some artists even 
>get blue pencils.  They work exactly the same as black lead, and can be 
>cleaned off using a normal eraser.  These are for artists who are very 
>particular about their sketches, do them in blue, then in lead, then in ink.

You'll find some artists prefer H leads, because it doesn't smudge the
board.  I find I'm going that way more and more.

[omitted part about erasers]

>(0.5) Brushes
>Brushes are mainly used for painting the black parts and for white 
>corrections.  Get a thin one for painting white, that is when you have to 
>paint fine lines, either to correct the black inks, or to draw on some parts 
>you wanted white (say hair clips).  A thicker brush is used to colour the 
>black parts, say night lines, hairs, &c.  It shouldn't be too much thicker 
>than the 'white' brush, because you might need it to paint corners.

I'm using thick nib oil pens rather than big brushes to cover large areas
of black, but using screen tones is better for the printer.

>Inking pens, screentones, ink: KIV.

I'm not familiar with the term "KIV".  What does it mean?

As for ink, can anyone suggest a good white ink to use.  So far,
all the ones I've tested are just too diluted to use.

>(1) Paging and formats
>The artist first sketches the format of the page (ie the boxes) and then the 
>characters in it.  The artist sometimes uses blue penciling for rough 
>outlines, and then lead penciling for the more visible characters.

>Much care is put into planning the page format: the position of the people 

>must come in order of the speech, the bubbles must also be just large enough 
>(too much talking crowds up the main ingredient), there must be suitable 
>background in the respective frames, the frames' spacing also indicates the 
>passage of time, etc etc.
>NB:  I shall call the entire block of squares/triangles/rectangles on one page 
>a "box", and each of these squares/triangles/rectangles a "frame".  I'm 
>uneducated in the lingoes of comics, so if you know of a proper term, please 
>let me know.

In Will Eisner's superlative "How To" book, _Comics & Sequential Art_, he
terms a "box" as a "frame", and a "frame" as a "panel".  Critics have
used the term "Panelology" (I think that's right) for the study of comics.

Anyone serious about doing comics must buy _Comics & Sequential Art_.

>Pages are drawn larger than the printer manga books you usually see, and then 
>reduced.  The original size varies, from A4 to B4.  Logically you'll have to 
>draw larger than the printed version, else all the little mistakes you make 
>might be glaringly obvious to the readers.  (I can still spot a lot of 
>mistakes made even by the professionals - like unmatching shadings, forgetting 
>to colour little parts of fabric etc)  If you intend to get your manga 
>printed, you'll have to take note of how  the wordings and characters would be 
>shrunk, and how the screentones come out after shrinking.

[omitted page diagrams]

>Some artists cut off the (21-11)mm from each pages, and tape the 2 pages 
>together behind.  Some prefer to use a large sized paper so that the drawing 
>is smoother (but most of it is going into the spine of the book anyway).  For 
>double paging, there is no boarder at the center of each page.  Draw the 
>picture (

What happened to the end?

Widya Santoso
-------------- S O U T H E R N    E X P O S U R E --------------
Widya Santoso (+61 6 288 0405) | And if I leave?  $10,000 or 18 
Send all EMail to              | years in jail... AND 18 years  
[100033,361]@compuserve.com    | in jail?!? - Joel Fleischman   
---------- CANBERRA, ACT- Not part of the Outer Seven ----------
 
Brought to you by (but not responsible for, and don't send mail to...)
-- 
Tonio Loewald | tal691@huxley.anu.edu.au

"Anybody with priorities so far out of whack
 doesn't deserve such a fine automobile." (Ferris Bueller)