Tone Deaf

So I'm playing around with screen tones in Photoshop getting mixed results and snags. Why use Photoshop for tone work? Well, it's the program I'm most familiar with. There are methods that I'd read up on that show you that toning is possible with Photoshop. I've used Manga Studio before but found it to be a lot like Photoshop only there were annoying little things that made it a lot not like Photoshop which turned me off to it. Now, I shouldn't criticize it that much, this was a really early version of the program so by now all those little bugs have probably been squashed. In fact I just watched a video on the Manga Studio homepage where Dave Gibbons (of Watchmen fame) gives a run through of how he uses the program to pull off some amazing work. In the end Manga Studio is the better choice for tones, seeing as how it's built from the ground up for comic production. But Photoshop will always be my first love and will probably be open right next to whatever other program I'm using at the moment filling in the gaps other programs leave open.

Let's Manga!

I did these for a flier that'll be used to advertise an manga art class I'll be teaching in December '10. I'm getting back into doing my inks by hand. The overall look achieved by doing it the old fashion way is something that hard to obtain digitally. Plus, I'm learning new cleaning techniques for my finished inks. Such as adjusting the 'Levels' on your line work before doing a 'Threshold' helps you get a much cleaner result.

Sequence

These are from two years ago I believe. At one point I had the chance to possibly work on a manga adaption of 'Avatar: the Last Airbender'. Things fell through though and the project wound up not going anywhere. I ended up totally forgetting about them. Thought it was worth posting since I hardly have any sequential work up on here. It's also some work that has tone on it which is oddly enough kinda rare for me.

I'll have more sequentials to share in the coming weeks.

Telly

Above is a another quick one I did to practice painting backgrounds as well as characters. Color theory is a pain. The hardest part I found was matching ambient light to different parts of the figure as well as keeping the lighting the same throughout the entire piece. Like "would the light hitting her on the face look the same if it were hitting her skirt?" I haven't the foggiest :/

Either way, I look forward to doing more of these.

For those in the New York, New York USA area I'll be attending the New York Comic Con/Anime Fest 2010 this coming weekend Friday & Sunday. Be sure to stop by booth # 432 as I'll be hovering around throughout the weekend handing out Stan swag with my buddy/mentor Jamar Nicholas. Hope to see you thaar!