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© Hiwatari Ki.
2004 - 2009.

Tutorials

On this page I will be writing up a brief tutorial on how I make my manga/coloured works. Please be informed that this is only my own way of working, and everything I put here may not apply to every one of you. If you have any questions about the steps or what I am doing, please e-mail me.

Drafting

Drafting includes the first rough work and preparations to get a drawing ready to be toned or coloured, at least that's my definition... it actually includes inking as well, but just to keep this tutorial simple I am avoiding many steps.

PROCESS: Rough
TOOLS: HB (#2) mechanical pencil, eraser, letter-sized copy paper
The first step is to draw out roughly what you want your image is to be. My only advice is to avoid using light pencil colours such as H or F because they will be very difficult to erase afterwards. Something like HB or 2B will do fine, but pay attention not to blacken the paper too much or your work will look really dirty.

PROCESS: Inking
TOOLS: Fineliner or ball pen or marker
After you are done with the sketch, ink the drawing with black or dark colours. Be very careful with this step because it is very difficult to change if you make a mistake. Fineliners work well on small paper like letter-sized. Using a fountain pen with a thin nib is also a good choice, but my pen nib is broken at the moment so I cannot show you.

PROCESS: Cleaning/Scanning
TOOLS: Eraser, scanner
After you finished inking, leave the paper idel for at least a few minutes. This actually depends on if your pen is of water or oil nature. Water-natured pens can easy be rubbed on and become smugged if you accidentally wipe a wet finger across the ink. Erase the rough pencil lines and scan it into your computer. Using Photoshop or whatever image editing software you have ( demonstrating software is Photoshop Elements 6.0) clean the drawing, leaving only the dark outline you want.

PROCESS: Layering
TOOLS: Photoshop
In order to make it easy to change when you make a mistake, colouring and/or toning is done on a different layer. I usually use four layers. The bottom most layer is a back-up or selection layer, where I can easily select the area I want to work on or duplicate it again if I screw up a layer. The second layer is the actual colouring layer. The third is the shading area which is used to put in darker tones on top of the second layer (I seldom have this layer if I am colouring manga style, but when you are colouring anime style this layer save you a lot of time when you make mistakes). The top most layer is the multiple layer. It keeps the outline of the image so your colouring will not be covering the outlines.

So after you finish these four steps you are ready to move on to either colouring or toning...
Colouring Tutorial
Toning Tutorial