Chapter 1, Getting Familiar with the Story Features, deals with using the story editor to set up custom page sizes, multi-page setups, and two-page spreads.

Chapter 2, The Right Tools for the Job, deals with making custom pencils, inking pens, paint brushes, and importing and exporting tools.

Chapter 3, Palettes of a Different Color, deals with using color palettes and making your own palettes.

Chapter 4, Setting up Your Space, deals with setting up custom workspaces, saving those spaces, and switching between different setups for different tasks.

Chapter 5, Living in a Material World, deals with navigating and searching materials, editing and using existing materials, and making custom materials.

Chapter 6, It's Only a (3D) Model, deals with using the 3D options of Manga Studio, including pre-set poses, characters, creating custom poses, and importing models.

Chapter 7, Ready! Set! Action!, deals with playing and recording actions to speed up repetitive processes in your project, such as resizing batches of pages or setting up layers.

Chapter 8, Rulers and Speech Balloons, deals with using the ruler and speech balloon tools of Manga Studio. It includes the special rulers, such as perspective and concentric circles, as well as how to use the speech balloon tools to make custom balloons.

Chapter 9, Putting It All Together! Drawing and Inking, deals with making a multi-page comic file and making a custom material for the panel layouts. Then we'll be drawing using custom tools, and using 3D models to help with character poses.

Chapter 10, Finishing Touches, deals with using screentones and doing comic book style coloring using blending modes, the lasso selection tool, and the gradient tools. We will also explore a few special effects techniques, such as reflections and using patterns.

Appendix, Recommended Reading, provides a list of further references.

In order to complete the exercises in this book, you will need:

Also recommended is a graphics tablet, such as a Wacom brand tablet.

Since this book is for intermediate Manga users, much of it assumes that you already have a graphics tablet. If you haven't heard of a graphics tablet before, I recommend that you pick one up! A tablet is an input device usually consisting of a board and a pen, called a stylus, which allows you to draw directly on the computer with a more natural feel. Wacom is the most popular brand, but there are many other brands out there. Most tablets do not have a screen in them so you do have to get used to some disconnect as you are not looking directly at your hand while drawing. However there are options out in the market today that do incorporate a screen, so that you can draw while looking directly at the tablet.

There are also some older tablet PC laptops that allow you to draw and have pressure sensitivity right on the laptop screen. Most of this book was written on one of those, actually. I currently use a Gateway C-141X Convertible Tablet PC that I purchased.

This is not a book for beginning Manga Studio users. I'm going to show you some of the basic features and how to use them, but I'm going to assume that you have some familiarity with the program, especially where to find the basic features. If you have never ever opened a digital art program before, this book is going to be a great help to you once you get the basics down. It might even help you figure the basics out if you're one of those people who like to learn software by pressing the buttons and seeing what they do. (This is how I like to learn programs, for the most part.) But this book won't explain what a layer is, or what the pencil tool is.

This is also not a book about how to draw comics. There are a lot of those out there, and I'll recommend some of my favorite ones in Chapter 10, Finishing Touches. But this is not going to be a drawing instruction book itself. In Chapter 9, Putting It All Together! Drawing and Inking, and Chapter 10, Finishing Touches, I do give some general drawing and coloring insights that I've gathered over the years, as they pertain to the information being covered in that section. But this won't show you how to draw your favorite Manga character or teach you perspective drawing. Maybe one day I can write a book like that, but this one concentrates on the software and how it can help you save time on the illustrations you're currently doing. (Thus, giving you more time to further your skills by getting more practice in!)

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "A save dialog box will come up, and by default our file name will be Sketching Pencil.sut."

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Click on the Add new settings button and a new entry will be created in our list of settings."

Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or may have disliked. Reader feedback is important for us to develop titles that you really get the most out of.

To send us general feedback, simply send an e-mail to <[email protected]>, and mention the book title via the subject of your message.

If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide on www.packtpub.com/authors.

Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.