Drawing Tools
- Thread starter Shiakou
- Start date
There are a series of books... How to Draw..., there is How to Draw Manga, How to Draw Cartoons, etc...
Might want to start with them... though they do assume a basic understanding and ability to actually draw.
Note, they have it available at least two different ways... as collected works in a couple volumes, or in many pieces in cheaper if smaller volumes
Might want to start with them... though they do assume a basic understanding and ability to actually draw.
Note, they have it available at least two different ways... as collected works in a couple volumes, or in many pieces in cheaper if smaller volumes
Like what is stated above.
There's lots of helpful tutorials that can be found too on deviantart, you can also find lots of downloadable help artbooks online for free.
For software, most go with Photoshop, or Sai, Corel Painter, Paintshop Pro, GIMP, Illustudio (which I think is fairly new...not sure though). Though I mainly stick with Photoshop and Paint Tool Sai. Each person sticks to whatever software they like best after trying them all.
Earlier Versions of Corel Painter kept crashing on me yrs ago which is why i don't ever use it. (Don't know how it is NOW) But its pretty good for mimicking traditional drawing and painting.
There is also Manga Studio which is great for setting up comics. Inking, and tones. And I know lots of people who prefer using Adobe Illustrator which is good for vectors.
Most everybody recommends Wacom Tablets to draw with. The Bamboo series are pretty good to start out with until one is ready to go for the higher priced tablets. And they last very long imho.
Then for handheld tablet pcs for drawing on the go, I know of a few that's good for sketching and uses Sketchbook Pro: Ipad, HTC Flyer and Samsung Galaxy Note *ireallywantthisoneomfgbuthtcisgoodtoo*.
Now if you're brother ever wants to start doing animations on the computer: Flash any version, Photoshop CS5, Toon Boom, Animation Studio (There's tons more but these are the ones I can think of atm) are interesting to check out.
There's lots of helpful tutorials that can be found too on deviantart, you can also find lots of downloadable help artbooks online for free.
For software, most go with Photoshop, or Sai, Corel Painter, Paintshop Pro, GIMP, Illustudio (which I think is fairly new...not sure though). Though I mainly stick with Photoshop and Paint Tool Sai. Each person sticks to whatever software they like best after trying them all.
Earlier Versions of Corel Painter kept crashing on me yrs ago which is why i don't ever use it. (Don't know how it is NOW) But its pretty good for mimicking traditional drawing and painting.
There is also Manga Studio which is great for setting up comics. Inking, and tones. And I know lots of people who prefer using Adobe Illustrator which is good for vectors.
Most everybody recommends Wacom Tablets to draw with. The Bamboo series are pretty good to start out with until one is ready to go for the higher priced tablets. And they last very long imho.
Then for handheld tablet pcs for drawing on the go, I know of a few that's good for sketching and uses Sketchbook Pro: Ipad, HTC Flyer and Samsung Galaxy Note *ireallywantthisoneomfgbuthtcisgoodtoo*.
Now if you're brother ever wants to start doing animations on the computer: Flash any version, Photoshop CS5, Toon Boom, Animation Studio (There's tons more but these are the ones I can think of atm) are interesting to check out.
I do all my drawing in Autocad....
Anyway, I think an important thing to consider is the paper/software interface. A tablet & stylus is good for drawing directly into software, but most manga are drawn on paper and then scanned in. Depending on the tech-saavy of the individual mangaka, they might do editing, screentoning, or panel-stiching on the computer... or just treat it like a photocopier.
My advice, is get a good scanner. There's a lot of freeware for image manipulation so the only cost to your brother is the sunk cost of getting familiar with them, but if he's doing paper drawing and pushing that into software, then a good scanner is an investment with a reallly short payback period.
Dunno how you feel about CAPEX though...?
Anyway, I think an important thing to consider is the paper/software interface. A tablet & stylus is good for drawing directly into software, but most manga are drawn on paper and then scanned in. Depending on the tech-saavy of the individual mangaka, they might do editing, screentoning, or panel-stiching on the computer... or just treat it like a photocopier.
My advice, is get a good scanner. There's a lot of freeware for image manipulation so the only cost to your brother is the sunk cost of getting familiar with them, but if he's doing paper drawing and pushing that into software, then a good scanner is an investment with a reallly short payback period.
Dunno how you feel about CAPEX though...?