Manga Studio 4 EX

I picked this up recently because it was on sale for a very good price. I've been using Photoshop since sometime around 1997. I'm used to it. I know ten ways to do anything I need to do. Why try something else? Well, it's good to keep your brain sharp and up to date with what's going on in the digital art world. It's also good to constantly experiment; good for your art and, hopefully, good for your productivity.

It's been a slow process but I can say at this point that Manga Studio is worth every penny.

It's not a perfect program by a long shot. Worst part about it to date: the manual. Ugh. It takes some significant brain power to understand what their intentions are. They leave stuff out and half of it's labelled wrong. "New Special Ruler: Speed Lines"!? No such thing, but there it is in the manual. "New Special Ruler: Radial Lines"? Yes, but you have to figure that out. And the fact that you have to create a new Ruler layer, then select the type of ruler you want to create, then click on the layer you want to draw on? It's mentioned once, way earlier in the chapter, then never repeated. It should be repeated for each set of ruler layer instructions, for boneheads like me.

I know, I know, gobbledygook.  :-)

Yes, I still do a lot of my comic work in Photoshop (under drawings,  sometimes"inking", putting together pages) but I'm starting to do more and more in Manga Studio. It's so efficient. Panel borders, word balloons and captions, and now, as of tonight: speed lines! These tasks are all tasks that have traditionally taken a fair amount of time in either Photoshop or on an actually piece of paper. With MS I cut these tasks down to minutes instead of hours, and for a guy who's slower than he should be, that's a significant change. Worth blabbing about for a minute? Obviously.

Okay, I said I'd post art next time so here's a sneak page from Recovery Incorporated.