Q: What's 'BLOE'?!!?
A: Funny you should ask... it's an acronym for 'Big Little Orange Everyone'. (You: ...) YES I KNOW IT'S WEIRD! It's just a general description of the Naruto world. It's big, but the characters are little... and there's a guy in orange... and everyone's involved. Basically. In a way. Summed up. :3
Q: What is Naruto?
A: I put it on the 'home' page, mortal. It's an anime (Japanese cartoon) about ninjas in a world different to ours. As said before, check the Naruto Wikipedia page for more information. ^_^
Q: Waaahhh! What the heck?! Which way should I read this comic?
A: Although it is a doujinshi, this comic reads from left to right in the Western way. (Apologies to anyone who gave up after one page.)
Q: How do you draw a comic?
Um... assuming you're asking how I draw the comic pages... I'll need a step-by-step thing. o_O
FIRST! I sketch it out with a 0.7mm HB mechanical pencil on A4 printer paper. Hannah the Editor critiques it and tells me, the humble artist, what should be improved before it gets inked. Then I go re-draw the stuff.
THEN! The page gets inked. I use a black fineliner for straight lines and panels, and a brush-pen for all the other inking. Anything that goes wrong at this stage, I'll edit later on with the computer. After I scream silently at the page for a few minutes. >>
THIRDLY!! This black-and-white wonder gets scanned into the computer in Grayscale, at 600 dots per inch. Naturally, it's a huge file. If it was a person, it would be morbidly obese bordering over the point of no return. In an ice cream parlour on Free Day.
-cough- ANYWAY. I have to crop the image and re-size it, and save the file as a .TIFF file so it stays nice and good-quality-ish. :3 I use Photoshop CS2 to edit the file.
For drawing and for all drawing-related stuff on the computer, I do INDEED use a graphics tablet. The make I use is Wacom Intuos 2. I recommend you only get one of these if you take drawing on the computer seriously, 'cause these cost a lot. >w>
AND NOW! A point that I get asked a lot... "Where do you get your tones from?". A while ago, I bought a nice shiny book called 'Manga Computones'. This one, to be precise. It comes with a CD that installs 100 tones on your computer as a Filter on Photoshop, Photoshop Elements or Jasc Paint Shop Pro. I sorta bought the SECOND volume though... ^^; If you buy it, it has step-by-step guides on how to use the tones, so stick with those. :D
Another thing- I also use brushes and styles made by
Debi-Chiru and
Shiranui on deviantART such as blood and accents. Remember to credit them if you decide to use them. ^_^
ALMOST LASTLY! I create word bubbles and text in Photoshop using the Pen Tool and -gasp- the Text Tool. :P The fonts I normally use are Anime Ace and Comic Strip. I NEVER USE COMIC SANS. NEVER EVER TOUCH THAT FONT.
EVER.
FINALLY! After editing like crazy, I resize the page and save it as a .JPG file for your unadulterated viewing pleasure on this site. :B That's all there is to it!
If you have a question that hasn't been answered here, feel free to e-mail me at meli@dabbsnet.com, and I will answer you~!
