Doing Some Manga Tones- A Not So "How to Post" Part 1

in art •  7 years ago 

Today I've wrote a little tutorial(well not really) of something that I've learned these past days.

I've already mentioned several times here in Steemit of my dream of going into a comic magazine company in Japan (Shonen Jump) were I can have my own anime in the long run.
And I also already mentioned about my upcoming project of a weekly comics here in Steemit.
Well, people might think, I will just get tired of it, as it requires a lot of work and dedication to happen here in Steemit and I might not be able to do it.
Well to tell you the truth, I still am having my struggles, even after all of those years I've been practicing.
But there is no way I can give up on it, coz i really love doing comics.
These past days, I have been studying about applying manga tones using Cs3 (Cs3 is the only one available here, and it is more than enough what I need).
Just in case you don't know what are manga tones are, they are the gray parts in the manga pages.

These sample have been cropped from Masashi Kishimoto's "Naruto" from the website "mangareader.net"

If you look at those gray areas there, you might think they are pencil shadings or some kind of gray marker.Well actually they aren't. Before, I thought that those are made with some kind of technique with a common comic pen(for years I believed that!).


Another image that isn't mine.Just used for reference! Source: missclub.info

You see here on this image above, a pattern of sparkles in gray. That is a manga tone. That is some kind of manga tone used for some kind of girly manga called shoujo manga (shonen is boy while shoujo means girl) . A manga tone is a film that you stick above the area of you're comic page. With the use of a cutter you cut out the excess tones.


Not mine. Source youtube: theproplady , please subscribe to her and don't flag me!

This video above is the traditional way of applying manga tones. But since we have the super, almost can do everything software called Photoshop(it can even remove you're pimples!), I've decided to study applying manga tones on my comics with Photoshop.
Okay ,okay. Just to clear it out. I'm not really a fan of mangas that use a lot of manga tones because I find it either too girly or too lazy. My style really prefers more into cross hatches cause I used to think that the best manga artists prefer hatches than tones. Except Bleach, Tite Kubo is really lazy when it comes to backgrounds and uses a lot of manga tones.Untitled-4.jpg
This one is completely mine.

This drawing is made just for trial. Guys, don't expect these characters to be used to any of my work coz this is only for sample! These characters have no names, or any, they are just samples.
First step you need to do is do the drawing first,of course. Then take a picture of that drawing using a decent quality camera. Really good high resolution cameras aren't really a must. Me, I just use a 13 mega pixels camera phone.

After taking the picture, open the picture in Photoshop.(note: take the photo as parallel to the phone as possible, take the photo as if you've used a scanner)

Apply gray scale.

It should be like this.

Find levels. And adjust till the pencil and dirt marks becomes invisible.
Like this.
If some pencil or dirt marks appear after you used levels, just use brush and apply white on the unnecessary or undesired parts.

I'll use rabbit girl to show you guys one of the ways I've learned.First,add a layer using Shift+Ctrl+N. Click the new layer and select brush tool.Either way you can use a selection tool or a magic wand tool.
I used the rectangle marquee tool to fill with black.Adjust opacity to make the black transparent like in the picture above.
Erase undesired parts with eraser tool and bwala! That's it!
To apply variations of tones, make more layers and apply different levels of opacity.If you want darker tones, make the opacity higher.

Like this.
Another way I learned is applying tones using filters which will be in my post for Thursday, I have to end this "How to post" here coz of, it is being too long already. I'll be posting the next part Thursday this week, I can't post the second part tomorrow Wednesday because there are scheduled posts for Wednesdays.
Anyway if you think that my method has flaws or if you have a better method, please mention it in the comments section below.
To support me and my blog, please do resteem, follow ,upvote and leave a comment.
That is all for now, thank you for dropping by.
Bye.

used items 2.jpg

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Very informative post!! I'm looking forward to the next one as I already knew how to do this part (just never tried some of things before)~

This was such a well-made post. I didnt know I could make that effect on photoshop, and thanks to your instructions I will. I hope your dream of making Anime on Japan comes true.

I will follow you to check more of your stuff. If you want you can check up my profile and tell me what you think. Cheers! @turtledance24

Thank you juaca...Yes it will...I promise you.

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Hmmm nice