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Screen tones, those mysterious grays and colors in comics and manga that give us shading and texture! What are they, and how can you apply it to your own artwork? For today’s Creator Tips and Tricks, I’m going to go over this tool and some different techniques to add them.

With that, let's dig in!

What ARE screen tones?

On its own, in the most basic sense, a screen tone is a technique that allows one to add textures and shading to drawings or images. It’s often used as an alternative to manually drawing textures by hand in order to save time, or to get more exact, especially with repetitive dot-patterns that simulate grayscale or...

Have you ever thought about doing a crowdfunding campaign?

Launching a campaign is a large commitment and can have a lot of pitfalls. I'm here today with a special guest, Cody Fernandez, Founder of Ironverse Comics. You might recognize him from his primary series Jack Irons: Steel Cowboy, a story about an Immortal Jack who has lived many lifetimes; and Kactus Coyote, a different story set up in the same universe. Ironverse has gone through multiple crowdfunding campaigns, and at the time of writing, Issue #4 is nearing completion.

With that intro out of the way, let's sit down with Cody from Ironverse! The following summarized transcript has been taken from an...

So what is Komawari?

Paneling for manga is done in the same spirit of western comics: creating a smooth experience for the reader. However, the thought process behind how it is done is a little different. “Koma” themselves are the panels. Komawari refers to the layout as a whole, and its flow.

From san-dangumi to wakusen there's a lot to cover. With our intro out of the way, let's get started!

Reading direction

The most notable difference between the two is the reading Direction.

Most manga does read right to left, traditionally. However, there is a movement of “Manga-inspired comics” that are in a manga style, but read left to right like...

In our last Creator Tips and Tricks article, we talked about the basics of paneling and flow. This week, we are going to dig a little deeper into this flow idea. Understanding gutters, panel layouts, and how to make your pages easier to read. A confusing page could cost you a reader, and nobody wants that!

With that introduction, let's dig into Gutters and Panel Layouts!

Looking at a standard comic page as a reader, you might not know that these pages are very carefully crafted to keep you reading. As a creator, you might know the pages take some time to plan and create. Now that we have some understanding of comic flow from our last article, visual narrative, and margins...

No matter the format we use to tell our stories, be it comics, manga, comic strips or koma, we need to understand the flow of a page. By flow, I mean panel to panel, bubble to bubble, and eventually, page to page. A good flow is very important, as it keeps the reader reading. Any type of disruption in that flow can knock the reader out of the experience and possibly cause them to stop reading. That's obviously the last thing that we want.

With that flow we need slower times and faster times, this is called pacing, or timing. You don’t want to speed through a moment that needs to be slower, but you don’t want to drag out something that isn’t interesting or...

What ARE Margins, Bleeds and Trims?

Simply put, the trim is the line where the comic or manga paper will be cut. The Margin is the area inside of the trim line that will remain and the bleed is the area outside of the trim, specifically the area that gets cut off.

Working digitally, do we even need to worry about these margins anymore?

Whether you are printing or not, you should know these areas and it is in your best interest to use them should you ever decide to print your digital comic or manga. Traditional artists can use these as well! A lot of Blue Line Paper made for comics and manga contain these margins by default, so even if you are a traditional artist, this article...

Welcome to our new Community Series: Creator Tips and Tricks!!

ArtCrumbs here! I've got a great new series for you!

In this series we'll provide you with advice on how to grow, level up, and get new skills as a creator. These tips and tricks don't just apply to GlobalComix, these are the nitty gritty, the real work, the meat of what we do. We create and any way that we can improve that process is going to be a game changer!

Think you can't improve? You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great!

In our first installment of the Creator Tips series, we are going to cover the Story feature in Clip Studio. I have spent time...