Manga Tools :: Part 1: Manga Studio 3.0

One last post before the weekend:

Pseudome Studios announced the arrival of Manga Studio 3.0 on their web site a while ago, so I am finally getting around to talking about it and how excited I am for it. Though I am slightly wary at the same time. The program sounds very cool but I just don't know how much of it I would actually ever use, if I ever get around to buying it (Not really that expensive of a program but my finances are tight at the present.) The idea of over 3,000 actual tones at my disposal is thrilling (though once you throw out the crap ones I bet it's more like 1,000 actual usable tones—no offense to the makers!—same as Illustrator's swatches. Though you can make your own tones, how great!) But I already know how I would use the Adobe Creative Suite to do everything I want, so is Manga Studio really more efficient? It's probably a matter of preference, and I bet once I got it I would love a lot of the features, but we'll see.

I'm sure that for not just a few people the idea of using a program to create manga, especially for the traditional manga artists, is just frightening. I know that whenever I see those ads on TV for technical schools that tell you they can make you a graphic designer, I inwardly groan and want to slap them through the screen, so I do feel the manga artist's pain. Anyone who believes that knowing a computer program will help them be an artist is delusional; trust me when I say that the art background is crucial if you want to be taken seriously as a designer. But I do believe that once you have those skills, the computer is one of the greatest programs in which to produce the desired artwork. I think that people will find that the program will help fledgling manga artists who are serous about creating manga get good at a much faster pace, and those who are already good will become phenomenal, if only because it will speed up the process and help them make their deadlines. (Do you really want to spend your valuable time cutting out tone shapes all day? Because if I had to do that I think I would seriously want to gouge out my eyes with an Exacto knife. I admire the old-school process, but IMO those days are winding down fast.)

Anyway, one last shout-out to Manga Studio before I leave.