# What Materials..



## Willow (Jun 1, 2010)

So I've been thinking for a while, and I don't know exactly if I'll ever do it or not, but it's always good to know in advance

Exactly what materials or programs does a person need for making comics?

Would using something like Photoshop be good enough, or is there more to it?


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## Watercolor_Lotus (Jun 1, 2010)

I've heard some people swear by MangaStudio, a program I think made specifically for comic making, but I suppose you could get by with just Photoshop, if you're doing it digitally. It might be easier if you had Illustrator in addition to PS, though. 

Traditionally, you'd need to choose something that would make a line - almost anything will do. There have been serious comics done with nothing more than ballpoint pens and cheap copy paper, though most professional comic artists love their bristol board and the tool of their choice. Common tools for comic artists include the brush, the nib pen, the technical pen, brush pens, and even just ordinary pencils.
Each has it's pros and cons, and some artists use all of the them.

I've got Scott McCloud's book Making Comics, if you're wondering where I'm getting this from, lol. It's an awesome book C:

Edit: The book is done in a comic format and apparently it was done almost entirely in Photoshop, so if Scott could do it you can do it ;P


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## KingCabbage (Jun 3, 2010)

Photoshop is more than adequate.  Really all you need is paper and a pen.


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## quoting_mungo (Jun 3, 2010)

The hard part about making comics isn't the art, anyway. It's the narrative. I've some kind of Sequential Arts diploma and I still don't quite have the hang of it. 

But yeah. Pen(cil) and paper is probably what you need. A ruler is good to have as well; straight panel borders vs uneven hand-drawn ones really make a huge difference to people's perception of your work. (I used to do my webcomic without panel borders at all. Oh, the negative feedback I've gotten from that design choice.) Don't hand-letter unless your lettering looks neat-and-legible enough (my own lettering is honestly kind of borderline), and also avoid using Comic Sans; Blambot has some nice, neat-looking free fonts.

If you want to use screentones, a cheap simple way of getting enough to get you by is picking up How to Draw Manga: Computones, which includes a CD with a very user-friendly Photoshop plugin for screentoning your work. I've got I think three volumes of that series as well as Deleter Comic Works, and while Deleter does some things more neatly, the Photoshop plugin is _so_ much easier to use Deleter admittedly does a lot of collecting dust.


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