Staley - Mastering Manga Studio 5

Liz Staley first started writing and illustrating stories when she was young. Her first novel was written by hand in a Marble composition book in middle school. In high school, she began to write another novel, the first book of that series was then published ten years later as The Hinomoto Rebellion . In 2010, she began her first long-form story webcomic, Adrastus . The giant robot love letter in comic form ignited a strong passion for comics as a story-telling form.

Aside from drawing and writing stories, Liz also loves to play role-playing games, read, watch cartoons from the 80s and 90s, and go for long walks. She lives in Western Pennsylvania with her very supportive husband, Byron.

Many special thanks to Smith Micro for their assistance with software and planning for this book. And to Julie Devin Minter for helping with proofreading and questions.

Heldrad is a freelance webcomic artist who has been posting her works online since 2004. She writes and draws her own stories, and lately, has begun self-publishing her comics in local conventions and participating in international Manga contests such as The Morning International Comic Competition and the Shounen Jump Manga Competition.

Mark Egan is a web cartoonist based in Oslo, Norway. He is an Irish expat, and originally comes from the Dublin region of Ireland, but has since lived in China as an English teacher before settling in Oslo.

He graduated from Griffith College, Dublin with a BSc degree in Computer Science in 2004, and following his time in China, began a career in the telecoms industry in Ireland, starting with work as a call center agent. He later progressed to technical roles prior to the economic downturn in Ireland, after which he migrated to Norway, where he continues to live and work.

Having been actively cartooning since 2003, he focuses on producing Manga-style webcomics. His main works of note are Back Office , an office comedy based in a call-center and Bata Neart , a 'magical girl' web-manga set in Ireland.

Both comics are published online at rawrtacular.com, which is the main portal of his studio "RAWRtacular Productions".

Carlos Naizir , also known by his pen name Rizian Larc, is a graphic designer, freelance illustrator, and comic book artist from Bogota, Colombia. He has been working in Manga-style illustrations and comics since the beginning of 2012, and one of his most significant works is the webcomic series Ereggia .

Mohammed Ali Vakil is the founder & creative director of Sufi Studios. Though an accountant by profession, in 2010 he found his soul work to be in drawing spiritual comics. He's the author of two comic books 40 Sufi Comics and The Wise Fool of Baghdad both of which have been nominated for awards. You can get to know more about his works at www.suficomics.com. He lives with his family in Bangalore, India.

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Preface

Welcome to Mastering Manga Studio 5 ! You're probably wondering just what this book is going to be about, and what we mean when we say that this will help you master Manga Studio 5. Dictionary.com defines a master as "a person with the ability or power to use, control, or dispose of something". Well, by the end of this book, you are going to be able to use the features of Manga Studio 5. You're going to be able to take control of your workflow and your productivity so that you can make your comics and illustrations even faster than before. And you're going to be able to dispose of the features in the program that don't suit your needs so that they're no longer in your way.

It's my job to show you the best time-saving features of the best program that I have ever used for art. That is exactly how I feel about this software, by the way! I've used lots of drawing software in my life, and Manga Studio is, far and away, my favorite one. Especially Manga Studio 5, which has even made me like coloring my comics because of its easy to use brushes that mimic natural media.

If you illustrate, draw comics, or just like to draw in general, I think that you'll love Manga Studio just as much as I do. Especially once you see all the cool things that it can do. It's more intuitive than most graphics software out there, and is infinitely customizable for the way that you want to work. As you're going to discover in the chapters of this book, you can customize all of your drawing and painting tools, rearrange the workspace to fit the way that you draw, create and save custom page sizes and layouts for comic frames, make word balloons with ease, and run actions that will do multi-step, tedious processes for you at the touch of a button.