Dec 2019
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Dec 2019
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arleedraws
Dec '19

Sadly after over ten years of digital art I’ve only recently discovered Actions and how much tedious work they can do for me.

Here’s a good intro video on actions:

Manga Studio 5 / Clip Studio Paint: Auto Actions

One simple action I like is setting up an action to create all of my folders and layer names for each update strip (Lineart, FX, Text bubbles, Panels, ext...), so i never have to retype them out again...

Another method I’ve been trying out to save time drawing is minimizing how many sketch layers i do. I used to do thumbnails, super rough sketch, clean sketch, then lineart. I now jump from super rough sketch to lineart, which has saved me a lot of time but my brain hurts more since I have to visualize the lineart more.. blegh.

What are your tips you’ve found useful for saving time or cutting back on repetitive work?

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    Dec '19

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    Dec '19
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burginlewis
Dec '19

Novelist, but I think the main thing that helped me save time is to create templates for plotting and for new characters that work with my style and methods. Uninterrupted, it takes me less than an hour now to sketch out a new plot and cast.

I also use Write Or Die for my first drafts. It forces you to focus and crank out words, or your existing words start getting deleted, going backwards.

rajillustration
Dec '19

there's a bunch but one of my faves is that I made "Stroke" into a hotkey (mine is on ctrl+shift+a) because I use stroke just a whole lot--I use it for effects, I use it for panels, I use it for bubbles. Stroke is just great.

Another good one is to make saving for web into an action as well, since then you can have like 40 images open, and then do "file>automate>batch" and it will save every file you have open into the right size and file format, save the original file, and then close the file while you just...do anything else you feel like.

What I would like to do next is make a new action where it will save a long format file into strips, which with photoshop shouldn't be at all too difficult to set up.

Hodge
Dec '19

Oooh! I really love these kinds of threads~

(I really go on for a while sorry)

Ahh it was exciting when I first discovered auto action. Currently I use it to add effects to my lineart quickly. I make like 3 different copy of the line art and change two of them to overlay and the other to multiply that gaussian blur one of those and lessen the opacity for all of them and change the colors . . . It's a whole thing so its nice to have it automated.

One thing that helped was figuring out how to take advantage more of CSP fill tools, cause even if you don't have really clean line work it still does the job. I also combine it with magic wand since nothing is worse than accidentally filling the whole canvas and CSP lags for like 5 mintues lol. There's also some really good fill tools as shared assets.

Another thing with CSP assets, I sort of just regularly gather brushes and assets I'd think would be useful, they've saved me on more than one occasion. I've also started gathering all my references onto one file and opening that with subview, before I'd just open them individually and it'd be a mess, now its all there. I've also gathered a bunch of textures and images that I thought would be useful from online and put them as materials, so now I don't need to go looking for one everytime I need an "old paper texture" or something like that. It's already downloaded on CSP and ready to adjust.

Finally last thing on CSP, this is more for illustrations rather than comics, but I've messed around a bit with autocolor/colorize and gradient maps. It's a good way of just getting some base color and values to work with. Actually, all the color correcting tools have been fun to play with since I prefer to go for the more "cinematic" and moody look with my comics.

For working on backgrounds, I've started just collecting them on a separate file or making them as their own materials. I prefer to make all my own background/establishing shot materials and I'm rather picky lol. So having my own premade and ready for modifications on its own file has been helpful (like how many times do I have to paint trees or clouds). Now I still gaussian blur a lot of my backgrounds, but its not quite as obvious that they're low effort.

As for my setup, changing to a tablet that has touch was so nice. Been able to just pan and zoom freely saves me probably a lot of time given how often I use it. I really recommend that if you can save more money to get a tablet with touch (really wacom . . . you sell your premium super expensive products with touch as an add-on . . .) its worth it. It also freed up my hotkeys, I have this fancy looking shortcut key remote made more for video editors but I liked it cause it has two dials and 15 buttons. It's more expensive than the cheaper one made by XP-Pen, which I also had back in the day but it broke after like 2 months grrrr. Initially, I thought 15 buttons is a bit overkill and I have a keyboard . . . but nope haha I found a convenient use for all of them and my muscle memory picked them up relatively quickly.

As for the writing aspect, probably where I'm most inefficient, but I've been figuring out how I can combine the writing and storyboard stage without getting losing quality or getting to myopic an losing track of the whole chapter/story. One of the things I've just started doing is I no longer write things panel by panel going down this super long file. Instead I first compartmentalize the super long image into the different scenes, what these scenes are intended to do to the reader (ex, "cliffhanger"), and figure out an estimated length for the scene based on its importance relative to the other events in the chapter. It's been helpful with pacing and using panels more efficiently.

For drawing/art, I also just started going from rough sketch to lineart. I tried to do rough sketch then construction lines then sketch then lineart, but I never liked the product and it felt frustrating. Just doing the first three steps in one drawing and then final lineart has been a lot nicer and I think the product better communicates the feeling of what I originally visualized. It uses up a lot of brain energy, but I think visualizing is probably the way to go (Kim Jung Gi said so! lol).

Also, with coloring and rendering, I'm trying to do "more with less" in some sense. Like rather than focusing on little things, I'm trying to just utilize bigger shapes for light and shadow and being more graphic when I can. Who cares about dumb little highlights on the hair? Especially on an overcast day with a gloomy mood! Its good to know what is and isn't necessary for the story. Also, if I can be a bit more abstract and emotional then I do that as well. It's less about rendering things till they look pretty and more about just capturing an emotion with simpler solutions.

For lettering, which I suck at lol and will always pass on to someone else if I can, I found that typing everything out first, then just copy&pasting it goes by quicker. I also don't make new SFX each time if I can and just save it as a material. With lewd comics it's alot of those "Ah!~" "Mmm~" "Gasp" sort of stuff that repeats a lot.

Ahh this got a bit long lol, just rambling away~ But really, people think these 40 panel per chapter webtoons are nuts, but honestly with an efficient workflow and experience (and an assistant or two lol) it's not that bad.

Hodge
Dec '19

Oh! Forgot haha, working in batches can also speed things up. Just doing all the lineart in one go, then all the flatting, coloring, lettering, etc, you sort of get in the zone since the range of tasks you're completing is smaller. I can see it being even more efficient if you combine this with creating specialized CSP workspaces and quick access sets. So the tools you would use for each stage are more easily accessible. I have't done this yet, still thinking it through. Especially since I'm not working with a lot of screen space (16") I can see it being really useful.

Another little thing, you can customize the select menu in CSP and that actually has sped things up for me, having things like "flip horizontally," "copy&paste,""convert to selection layer," "fill," "outline selection," etc. at only one click away rather than 2-3 helped.

Jenny-Toons
Dec '19

Basically this right here :point_up:

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I was able to flat 13 pages for Our Universe. Didn't even realize it until I counted back.

Assets are also pretty cool, especially when it comes to added special effects or backgrounds. A lot of Our Universe is based in space, so I use a lot of galaxy background assets to just quickly pop in. Saves so much time.

sarrowsmith10
Dec '19
Hodge

I do both these things!! Especially making your own materials. I refuse to ever draw foliage by hand ever again. I drew a whole bunch of standard trees and shrubs and now just use them as stamp-like brushes. I followed this tutorial:

Clip studio paint - How to make brushes and materials

Since I make long vertical scroll comics I do things in batches. Otherwise it messes up my flow. (one episode has to be broken into several files or my computer will crash)

aqua03Party Planner
Dec '19
1

Are there any specifically for Photoshop? (Which is what I use.)

arleedraws
Dec '19

@burginlewis Wow that writing software is HARDCORE but I definitely want to check it out:scream:

@rajillustration Damn I never even thought to set stroke as a hotkey... And I will deifinitely need to try out that batch action to quickly save files (it's like the most agonizing last process...)

@Hodge thank you for this wealth of tips, I'm slowly parsing though it during the work week :joy: I like the action of lineart you use, I do weird stuff with my lineart too so I need to set this up!! And agreed on doing work in chunks: I've spent most of the day linearting and it feels so good to be done with a bulk of it.

@sarrowsmith10 h-holy shit, why have I not thought to try making materials?! That's an awesome video, thanks!

Thank you everyone these tips are awesome, I just need to devote time to implementing it all lol!

rajillustration
Dec '19
aqua03

yes, you can set up hotkeys and actions in photoshop by opening the action window and recording an action that you want photoshop to repeat (it sounds harder than it is, it's actually really easy, you can find lots of youtube videos on it). Hotkeys are set up in edit>Keyboard Shortcuts, and nearly every menu button can be turned into a shortcut. So, if you find you're going into your menus a lot for one action, consider making it a shortcut. It's also nice just to look at the list to see what has a hotkey which you may not have noticed has a hotkey. Like it took me a while to realize Save For Web has a hotkey, as well as setting the colors to default black and white (that hotkey is pressing D) and that you can flip the colors with X. There's a lot of handy hotkeys.

aqua03Party Planner
Dec '19

Ah, rad. I'll definitely be sure to look into that some time soon then. Thanks for telling me! :slight_smile:

Rhonder
Dec '19

... Thank you so much for making this topic LOL I wasn't even aware that actions were a thing. To test it out, I set one up to auto create layers like you mention in the OP and omg is that super handy!!

PervertOldMan
Dec '19
1

When you drag a 3d model into the scene, in the layer palette, there's a ruler icon next to that 3d layer ( turned off by default, click on it to turn on, right click to turn off again ), it's a auto-generated perspective ruler that linked with that 3d layer, if you rotate the camera or change the perspective dept, that ruler will change along with it.

With that you can just turn Snap on special ruler on, and draw perspective stuffs very fast and correctly without a ton of perspective knowledge, no need using ruler tool to create it manually or fix the "create perspective ruler" to make it look right, just drag a 3d model in and rotate.