Clattertron

[dc]S[/dc]ince I went digital with my comics, I needed to relearn a few things. The biggest change perhaps was lettering. Drawing was still drawing, I just needed to get accustomed to the Surface Pro 3 pen.

Lettering, however, was totally different. Or at least, it could be.

Let’s Letter

I had a choice to make: keep lettering by hand or simply use Manga Studio 5‘s Text tool.

The Text tool was the easiest route for lettering—just type the dialogue and alter as needed. While this might have been an easy choice for some, it wasn’t for me.

I don’t really care for the look of digital text for my comics. While my hand-lettering may not have been the most pristine at times, I felt it at least gave my comics a style.

Anything you can do to have a distinct ‘style’ or stand out in comics helps, and I felt my ‘rough around the edges’ text did just that. I don’t want my stuff to look 100% perfect. I want my comics scruffy or uneven. Just like me!

Cough. Moving on. The Text tool was out.

Hybrid Style

What, then? I hand-lettered a couple of comics in Manga Studio 5 like I did on paper, but I wasn’t happy with the result.

Inspiration struck after reading this Speed Comicking article by Ryan Estrada. In the article, Estrada mentioned pasting his dialogue from a text program. Handy, I thought, because editing and composing text in Manga Studio isn’t the smoothest. Estrada then lays out the text and panels in a process he calls ghost pages: just text, no characters because they haven’t been drawn yet.

I liked the idea of laying out the text in this way (it meant fewer headaches than my analog days, for sure). I still wasn’t crazy about using the Text tool and looking like a million other comics however. But then I thought: why not trace the text?

I gave it a try.

Trace, Tracer

Last week’s comic was the first test run of this process. This week’s comic was my second try, and a little more polished.

• First, I typed up my text, all in capitals, in Notepad or OpenOffice.
  

• Then, I set the Text tool in Manga Studio 5 to use Verdana, a simple font which is easy to read on a screen (the same text clattertron.com uses). I make the color red, so I can trace on top in black. 

• I pasted each bit of dialogue separately, making each its own layer.

• I re-sized and moved the dialogue around until I was happy with the placement.

• I use the Grid to help with lining up text and other objects (this really helped in this week’s comic with keeping No Filter Fox the same ‘height’ in each panel).

• If needed, I do quick sketches with the Blue Layout Pencil (part of the Frenden penciling and inking set) to help with text layout. I fine tune the sketches later using the Red Layout Pencil (part of the same set). 

• Finally, I trace the text on another layer.

Here’s the second panel, with the typed text off-set a bit.

And here is what the completed version looked like.

This method combines the benefits of digital lettering, with the ‘real’ look of analogue lettering. It also lets me ‘dress up’ certain words easily (if a character is yelling or emphasizing something).

Go ahead and give it a try.