Chapter 20: Finding Your Own Manga Look

It has been a long journey of learning how to create manga using Clip Studio Paint and Clip Studio Assets and finally we have reached the last chapter to discover your own unique manga art style! We now know all the bits and bobs of Clip Studio Paint art techniques, but there is one big problem for digital art, which is artists using the same tools and methods, such as the same pens, the same 3D pose references, and the same screentones, sometimes making their art look similar and less unique.

We are going to look at how to avoid generic looks and explore the most suitable style for an individual artist. We are going to start looking at what visual effects each drawing tool has, and how to not use some obvious manga elements tactically; then, we will look at how to create and keep our own color selections, and we'll learn how to keep consistency throughout a whole story of a manga. Finally, we will look at how to change the final look...

Technical requirements

To get started, you need Clip Studio Paint already installed on your device and at least one page of a manga or an illustration. I recommend creating an A5 portrait canvas in 300 dpi per page to go through the content in this chapter.

Choosing drawing tools

In this section, we will explore different tools we can use for the final inking stage. It can be a pencil, a pastel, or a brush. We are going to look at what visual impression each tool has with examples.

The most popular and traditional drawing tool for manga is the G-pen. It is the all-time winner for its smooth lines and the ability to control thickness depending on how much pressure we put on. But is it really the pen for everyone? Does your art really need smooth G-pen lines?

Choosing pens

If we look at the Pen tool category in Clip Studio Paint, there are many good ones already lined up by default. We are going to look at how to choose the right pen for us. First, let's have a look at art drawn using the G-pen in the following screenshot:

Figure 20.1 – Screenshot of a G-pen drawing

This is a look that we see in a lot of manga, a simpler drawing with a big contrast of black and white. But in some places, such...

Being unique by dropping some manga elements

There are certain elements in manga that artists put in for readers to be able to follow the story without losing their way and to help them understand what is happening. But there are also artists who make brave decisions not to put certain elements that seem vital to manga, because they are aiming for a specific atmosphere they want to create.

In this section, we are going to learn what will happen if we drop some manga elements with examples.

Not using screentones

Screentones are a great tool for expressing gray tones and patterns, and Clip Studio Paint offers many different types of screentones to use. But they might get in our way if we would like to create an intense high-contrast look in black and white. Let's have a look at the example in the following figure:

Figure 20.14 – Screenshots of images with and without using screentones

The preceding figure shows a comparison of the same panel...

Finding and keeping your original color palettes

Manga doesn't always have to be black and white or multicolored. When we use color for our manga, color combinations work like a trademark for a company for readers to recognize your work instantly. It is possible to show the uniqueness of the color palette we use!

In this section, we are going to learn how to decide on effective colors. By the end, we will have some ideas of how we can use colors in our manga. We don't need to worry about creating palettes when drawing one-off illustrations, but in the situation of drawing 30 or more pages of manga in color, you definitely need a palette to keep color consistency! Readers will be confused if every time the main character appears their skin tone and clothing are in different colors—that is inconsistent. And of course, we want to save time going back and forth between pages to find the right color. If you want a reminder of what a color palette is, go to Chapter 15...

Creating consistency

This is one of the most difficult but vital parts of creating sequential art including picture books, graphic novels, comics, and manga. A character needs to be recognized as the same character on every appearance in any panel, no matter what angle, what expression, and what posing the character has in a panel. This is because the art needs to be able to read through as a story, not a collage of random drawings.

In this section, we are going to learn how to keep consistency in our manga. We will find various ways to help us go through the process of creating a whole manga with the visuals intact.

The best way is to create a character guide. This will work as a manual that we can always have a look at for reference. I recommend creating two different visual guides.

One is a reference image with one character in a standing pose, some facial expressions, and particular items or aspects that need attention to draw, if any. You can see the following figure...

Adding textures to art

We have learned how to color (Chapter 16, Using Clip Studio Paint to Color Your Manga) and how to pick and keep colors (in the Finding and keeping your original color palettes section in this chapter). Now we are going to learn how to add textures on top of our colored art in this section for a final process of your Clip Studio Paint art creation. This is another great way to give a unique look to your art.

Chromatic aberration

Chromatic aberration is described as the failure of a lens to focus all colors to the same point. This means red, blue, and green colors are visible as a fringe along boundaries that separate dark and bright parts of the image. Yes, it is a failure, but this incident creates a great texture on art. Let's see the following sample images that show before and after the chromatic aberration effect being applied:

Figure 20.22 – Screenshots of images before and after the chromatic aberration effect

...

Summary

In this last chapter, we have learned how to make our art stand out from others, starting off with choosing drawing tools and how to keep them, and moving on to how to make the artistic decision to not use some manga elements. Then, we looked at how to keep consistency in a comic or your manga art, and finally, we learned how to add textures to the finished art. It was a long and fun journey going through 20 chapters to learn how to use Clip Studio Paint for our creations, and now it has come to an end. I hope all these skills and tips you have learned throughout the book will be helpful and inspiring to your creative life.

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