Hello everyone, In this tutorial, I will share some techniques and tips to use when creating monochrome art for comics, manga or illustration.
I will try to explain all the functions and tips the best I can so artists of all levels can follow the tutorial, I hope you find it useful!
▼ I prepared a Video Tutorial with all the information, to help me guide you, as the tutorial is quite long and detailed here i will just list the tips and some of the information as a guide to watch the video. Hope you dont mind.
1. File settings
Create a file by going into [File] > [New] and then set the [Basic expression of color]
▼ Here are the file settings.
Make sure you have expression of color set to monochrome and a good dpi like 600 for printing
▼ The Basic color for new layers is monocrhome, but we can still change the individual color of layers
2. Expression of color
▼ The different types of expression of color.
When we work in black & white we have 100%black or White without transparency so be carefull of how the soft brushes work.
3. Anti-aliasing
▼ Anti-aliasing creates a blured greyscale border around lines, it helps to display images smoothly
on screens but it can create problems in print.
In Monochrome layers anti aliasing is turned off on all tools.
The lines may seem jagged and harsh but they will print better. Thats the reason we setup a high resolution while working in monochrome.
▼ in monochrome layers filling and selecting is really easy since we have 100% black lines, when we fill Anti-aliased lines it can create a halo around the line.
To avoid it we can setup area scaling in the fill tools, but the color will go behind the inked lines.
In the monochrome case its a perfect fill
▼ in some cases we want Anti-aliasing, for example when sketching i like to use a pencil brush with soft edges, so i set the layer to gray expression color, then i ink on a monochrome layer.
4. Organization tips
▼ is always a good idea to keep your files organized, specially while working on comic pages.
Create Folders for each element, and remember you can add subfolders.
To create a new folder we can select a layer and press CTRL+G or Right click and go to [Create layer folder and insert layer]
We can also Use frames as organization tools, since it creates a masked area for all the elements inside.
5. Actions Layer color
▼Since we dont have color its sometimes hard to see on witch layer we are working. to help i set the layer color effect on the layer properties. This way all black turns to a color and whites turn into other. I created some simple actions to make this process easier, i explain how to make them in the video
6. White mask
▼ Here i show a quick way to create perfect white masks for our elements.
To make them i make a new layer behind the inks. then i create a selection around the character with the selection area tool.
Then i fill it with white. To aid me visually i use the actions i make previously so i can see white as a color.
Lastly i pick transparent color (Shortcut C) and with the bucket fill tool i click outside the character. this give me a perfect selection.
7. Expressing shades of gray
▼ Here i show 2 methods to express gray while working in B&W.
Since we dont have color we need to make patterns that create the ilusion of tone.
The firs method is called Cross-Hatching. This type of tone is created by drawing lots of lines in diferent angles to achieve a gradation. For this example i also used hatching brushes that make this type of work easier. (You can see how i made all of them in the video)
▼ The second method is with screentones. i show different ways to work with them in the video. How to set them up and overlay them. also how to avoid moiré. To learn more about screentones you can check this tutorials below.▼
▼ To overlay tones that dont dissapear while printing we need to move the pattern, we can use the move pattern tool to do it.
8.Filters
▼We can use the LT convert layer and binarization filters to quickly turn photos into B&W art.
9. Contrast and BG
▼ While working in B&W we need to pay extra attention to the contrast of our drawings. using too many tones can result in flat drawings or comic pages, so try to achieve a balance.
▼ To separate the characters from the background we can use borders, add tone to the backgroud or simply paint with white using a spray brush.
10. Export settings
Make sure to enable tone layers when exporting for print and to disable it when exporting for screen.
Also for digital rasterize any Tone layer you want to keep for example as decoration
Closing thoughts
Well, this is the end of the tutorial. I hope it wasn't too complex.
Please watch the video for the detailead explanations.
hope you can apply some of my tips to your own work.
The most important thing is to be creative. Please don't be afraid to try new things.
See you next time. Thank you for watching