Finding the right Manga paper...

[Pepper Kittie]

Hiya ^^ Well, I'm a bit in a rut with my manga at the moment. A long time ago I was given "Deleter" comic book paper, and I was planning on using it for my manga. It's very thick and works perfect with my pens and markers, and I'm really used to using it for my art. I got a new kind recently that has light green borders and measures around the edges, and is made for helping with making mangas. I LOVE the way it's put together and it does wonders for helping to make things straight and look good, but the only way that the border doesn't show up when I scan it is if I scan it in the black and white setting instead of grayscale, which makes the lines look kinda wierd 0_o I can't imagine doing my manga on a different kind of paper but I thought I read somewhere that you should scan it in greyscale so that the lines will be smoother. I'm not sure what to do... I'm so confused XD (doesn't take much to do that. Lol.) To those of you out there who have webmangas... what do you draw on, or what do you think I should do?

[inkhana]

Well, I've never used Deleter paper before (although I'd like to try sometime) so I can't really give helpful advice there. In ref to removing the green borders and stuff...when I do my manga, I make new layers in Photoshop and ink and color on -top- of the background, then throw the background image away. That way, it doesn't matter if there are green lines or not (I have a tendency to scrawl notes on my pages, kinda same-diff), no one ever sees them. Although I'm not sure how you go about working with your webmanga...this might not be compatible with your current method.

[Mave]

I'm a poor graduate student so I use regular printing white paper (A4) for my works. Yes, THAT type for printing and photocopying. Even the papers are funded by my assistantship. 0.o Nothing special, so I can't really offer much advice.

I always scan in grayscale at 150 rpm? ppm? (gah, scientific terms messing me up!) at the moment. And I use Inky's way too to get rid of unwanted stuff from my scans.

[inkhana]

>150 rpm? ppm?

Oh, dpi I'll bet is what you're looking for... (dpi = dots per inch, for those who were wondering).

Oh, I forgot to mention - I work in a regular acid-free sketchbook (you can get some very inexpensively - I think I paid $3-4 for mine). This may sound crazy, but I work on both the front and back of my sheets...XD Since I use 2H pencils they don't mess up the previous pages. </digression> Seriously though, any paper should work fine, but I like to use acid-free sketchbooks a) because they preserve the work better and b) because it keeps your work all neat and nicely bound together.

[Pepper Kittie]

Wonderful advice from the both of you, but I think you're missing what I'm asking (lol! Totally my fault XD) I've never been the best at explaining things... eh heh... anyways, Inky, you do your outlines on the computer after scanning it, don't you? For some reason I'd much rather ink it myself with my own pens and just do the tones or color on the computer instead of outlining it. That's what I'm used to doing ^^v The problem with that is that when I scan it in both the border and the inked drawing are on the same layer, and I don't think there's a way to divide them. Unless I just erase the border... that'd be a challenge in itself XD Sorry if I'm not making any sense... *laughs at herself* The paper is meant to be for printing and is used by a lot of the pros because the green lines dissappear when it's printed. It's not really meant for webcomics. I just can't imagine using anything else. Lol, guess since I'm the first one to try it I might as well be creative with it then. Thank you so much for trying to help! *hugs both*

[shooraijin]

Pepper, you might try photocopying your work, and then scanning the photocopy. Some types of that paper have the borders and rules in so-called "photo blue" which won't duplicate on a B&W copier. I use a photo blue pencil sometimes on line work to do test sketches without having to erase them -- I just photocopy the sketch when I want to get rid of them for the final "pre-scan" before I scan it into the computer and do additional work on it.

Even if they're not in photo blue, if your own lines are sufficiently dark and you have minimal shading, you could try turning up the contrast and turning up the brightness on the copier, which would make the green rules much less likely to be printed on the copy.

These days, myself, I'm trying to get used to doing it all with the touch tablet, but old habits die hard, you know?

[Pepper Kittie]

Lol, if I had access to a photocopier I'd take you up on that advice XD All I gots is a moodly lil scanner *thwaps it in hopes it will work* But thank you very much, I may look to see about the contrast on the scanner. I think I remember a while back when I would scan in the black and white and then blur it somehow so the lines were smoother. I haven't done that for ages, but I think I'll look into how I used to do it and see if it'll work. Thank you very much Shooraijin!

[Gypsy]

After trying out lots of different types of art paper, I've stayed with stock paper for a while. It erases easy (very important!) and rarely smudges (with pencils - you have to be a bit more careful with inks because it takes a couple seconds to soak). It's not that expensive either, and can be found at places like Walmart and Staples right next to the regular photocopier/printer paper.

[Pepper Kittie]

I've never heard of stock paper before ^^v Heh. I live in a box XD What's it like, Gypsy? I mean, does it go by other names?