Wednesday, February 17, 2010

My Gundam Fan-Manga Creation

I had recently purchased a Wacom tablet for my multimedia needs. If you are unfamiliar with this brand of product, basically it is from a japanese company that specializes in computer input devices & softwares.

Lots of digital graphics professional especially manga creators / animators / 3D artists uses this brand for their creations. Since I love to draw / photoshop, I went and got the Wacom 12" Cintiq Tablet. And I must say... this is a must have for anyone who loves to do any form of art in digital format. The funtionality is simple yet it feel so natural to draw and to manipulate softwares on the tablet.

I've hooked it up as a second monitor to my computer, and also installed my copy of Manga Studio 4 EX software (In Japan, this software is called Comic Studio) to try it out. One of the reason why I got this tablet is to create fan / original manga on my free time. And being a Gundam fan, I wanted to create a short Gundam fan-manga as my first project.

Here is an image of my Wacom 12" Cintiq Tablet. This is Wacom's smallest tablet, and it fits well on the desk at my home office.

Here is an image to compare the size of the tablet with my 24" & 30" LCD monitors. As you can see the tablet is very compact.

Using Manga Studio 4 EX.... creating my first page was a cinch, after I had got over the slight learning curve to using that software.

I have no idea what my short Gundam story will be like. Everything is in my head right now. But I had sketched out a block that I might be using.

Here is what the actual page looks like.... so it is still work in progress. Will update more later.

7 comments:

  1. I gotta say, that some nice looking graphic tablet, I do have some few question to ask, why does one of your monitors have these PSP/3 style of menu, and how does comic studio works. First panel looks great with all that detail, hope to see more of it in the future.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @GunStray: Thanks for your comment. To answer your questions:

    - My 30" LCD & 12" Tablet is connected to my computer, while the 24" is attached to my PS3.

    - Manga Studio is a program that works like a illustration program (the like of paint, corel, photoshop..etc.), but it's main focus is to help the user to create a manga/comic. What that means is that it include tools to simplified this process. For example, the program comes with some predefined layouts, tones, backgrounds, speedlines (use for action scenes)...etc. So with less clicks of a mouse/pen, I can do things more effeciently and effectly.

    If you look at my drawing of the Zaku... notice the gradation toning on it's armor. I can do that with 2 simple steps.

    For more info.. just google 'Manga Studio'.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow, now you are moving to comic strips awesome ^^. What you have in mind for a story?

    ReplyDelete
  4. What an investment! It's cool to do anime comic like this with tablet. Interesting!

    ReplyDelete
  5. @chubbybots: Since is a short manga... I am thinking of one that focus more on combat than story development. Probably the story will be about a skimish between the Feddies & Zeon Remnants in South America at the end of 0083. Main character will be Apolly Bay (this event will lead him to join the AEUG.)

    @ Dennis: Yeah the tablet is pretty expensive, I was going to get the 21" one, but the store was out of stock. so I settled for the the smaller one and save me some money.

    ReplyDelete
  6. wow this is awesome! im so glad to see this! i really envy you man... this is something i always wanted to do. i suppose its never too late though...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks BB. If you ever do this, we can collaborate. =)

    ReplyDelete

Gundam Guy Blog

Related Posts with Thumbnails