Tools Of The Trade Part 3

In previous posts I talked a bit about what tools we at Imaginos Workshop use to get the written part of our productions on track. Now I want to talk about some of the tools that help us to visual and produce or finished products. Besides working on scripts, we do illustration and comic book work. Thus we use a variety of different tools to help us out. For reasons, which i am sure you are aware off, and because you can get information on it just about anywhere, I won't go to indepth when I talk about Adobe Photoshop.

It is truly the workhorse of our pipeline. We use it to color images, create logos and even digitally sign documents. It is also an awesome photo manipulation tool. Another great tool which I use a lot for digital painting and touch up is Corel Painter 11.

It has a lot of the same features as photoshop however, it has features that Photoshop is just starting to mimick. It has a natural feel to the painting and you can create tons of different media like conte crayon and watercolor work. As it name implies, this software is the best for painting images. It's interface takes a bit of getting used to, but if you have used Photoshop before you will get this in no time. The last software I am going to talk about is probably one of the best kept secrets out there for comic creators. It's called Manga Studio EX4.0 (or comic studio in it's native Japan).

This iteration of the software is a one stop shop for anyone wanting to do a comic. It has digital versions of every tool you will need to create page borders, letter, ink and color your comic. It allows you to pick different paper sizes which correspond to actual comic page sizes. Also it allows you to lay down screen tones digitally, so you can use all of the effects you see in today manga. Along with Manga Studio EX 4. I would like to recommend a book for anyone who has any interests in producing comics. The book is entitled. DRAWING WORDS&WRITING PICTURES by Jessica Able and Matt Madden.

This book is very thorough in introducing, explaining and giving practical understanding concerning all of the different facets to comic book creation. I cannot talk about this book enough. If you are just exploring comics, graphic design or web design these softwares can be quite invaluable to your efforts. -Mark

Tools Of The Trade Part 2

Last time we talked I mentioned a tool called Celtx. Celtx is a script writing software that is free to download and use, but also allows networking features so that your and your collaborators can work together on the same script, for a nominal subscription fee.

In lieu of the subscription fee service provided by Celtx, we here at Imaginos Workshop, opt to use Dropbox, the file archieving and sharing software I spoke about in the last T.O.T.T post. Dropbox and Celtx allowed Nik, who is currently in Chicago, and myself to finish revisions on act one of a script we have most recently been working on. 

One of the coolest things about Celtx is that not only is it formatted for film,play and a number of other types of scripts, outlines and screenplays it also has a very competent COMIC BOOK script format. 

This is a boon for comic writers in that I haven't seen to many other softwares that do as good a job at tackling this format as Celtx does. It allows you to choose and place dialog, pick the type of word balloons and captions and much more.

If you want to give Celtx a try you can download it here.

There is also a cript writing book that I have got to talk about. The first is the J. Michael Straczynski's

THE COMPLETE BOOK OF SCRIPT WRITING!

This book goes in depth, not only concerning the script writing process but also gives a huge amount of insight concerning the business aspect of film, television and animation.

Next I will talk a bit more script writing books and later about digital  imaging and painting tools like Photoshop, Sketchbook Pro and Corel Painter as well as some really cool Japanese image softwares such as Paint Tool Sai and Manga Studio. 

Mark