Tools of the Trade

I can officially say that my computer is now back up to working condition! All of my previous comic files are now nestled in their home, and I've made several different alarms to make sure I back up everything I have. (Honestly, can't be to terribly careful anymore.) Since I'm still trying to figure out a good time table on the comic itself, I thought I'd give a little tour of some of the tools I use on the computer. 

And yes, post-it notes are Kind of a Big Deal.

While I've been doing a lot of the extra work for the comic in Photoshop, I'm starting to lean away from using them in favor of other programs. The brushes and blending that I use are prevalent in Manga Studio 4, but I will be upgrading to Manga Studio 5 in the near future. 

The inking and flat coloring have been fairly simple so far in MS 4 EX, but I've heard enough about MS 5 (considering it's on sale right now) and that it's coloring capabilities are on par with Photoshop. We'll see where that goes - hopefully, it'll help me settle on a style for the comic. (or at least kick that perfectionist feeling out of high gear. )

Photoshop is enough of an industry standard that I really don't feel like I should go into it. I've been using Photoshop for around thirteen years at this point, but when they shifted to the subscription model I sort of lost that "Adobe Fanboy Glow" in my eyes. I have CS5 and it's still one of my apps I use a lot (and adore), but I'm shying away from it outside of teaching work. There are things far more affordable. 

I've also been experimenting more and more with Mischief since I got my laptop back. The situation's improved a lot as far as lineart goes, but I'm still floundering about with coloring. I've kept it as my sketch/doodle app for now, and I do recommend people give it a try. 

Coffitivity is a site (and application) that generates coffee shop white noise. They did a study about people working better against the calmer background of a coffee shop as opposed to office noises or just general silence. I've been using it for a few days and so far have really enjoyed using it. I tend to pair it with listening to podcasts (don't know if that's weird or not) but the balance has been acceptable for me. For music, otherwise, I just use Spotify. 

Another webcomic artist turned me onto Frenden and his brush sets. Since then, I've bought both the PS and the MS 4 brushes and they are smooth. I've always struggled with achieving beautiful line weight variances like this, but with these brushes they're much easier to achieve. Before it was like painting calligraphy with the dirtiest, nastiest, split-hair brush you could find. Frenden does reviews about both wacom and monoprice tablets, and has convinced me that if I ever upgrade I should move to a yinova as opposed to a cintiq. 

In the end, that's a fraction of the software I use, but it's a good start. Catch you next week!