How to Panel Manga

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Paneling manga or comics is no simple task. But put your mind to work, and you'll be there in no time! Good luck, mangaka in training!

Steps

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  1. In the first stage, plot out four to six boxes on a piece of paper and write your first actions in each box, with the caption under them. [1]
  2. Close-up or background-shot? Horizontal or vertical, maybe slanted? How does this affect the scene? [2]
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  3. Rewrite the panels on a different sheet of paper and fit them together [for the American manga artist, panel them left-to-right]. If you are leaning towards traditional format, right-to-left panels are a nice idea. [3] Decide in this part of the process what frames bleed out from the edges, but be careful to keep the important captions and drawings inside a "safe-zone".
    • Now, there doesn't have to be a gap between boxes like in American Marvel Comics. Usually, the borders separating each panel are just thin yet bold black lines. In some cases, the borders of a given panel will be left out entirely. This technique is called 'bleeding out' frames. [4]
  4. After you've made the perfect page, ink it with inking multi-liner pens [or G-pens, whichever you prefer]. Copic and Pigma are recommended highly.
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Community Q&A

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  • Question
    How do I add manga dots and shades to a digital manga page?
    Community Answer
    It depends on what program you are using; if you're using regular old MS Paint, you can go into setting and change the mode from colour to black and white, and you can colour with dots as in a manga.
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  • Question
    How do I know how big I need to make the panel?
    Community Answer
    In my experience, I think it's easier to draw the picture first and then build the panel around it.
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  • Question
    How long will it take me to make my own manga if it has over 200 pages in it?
    Community Answer
    It depends on how much time you dedicate to it, but I would expect a manga that long to take a few months at least.
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      Tips

      • Ka-Blam! has templates for download where you can measure manga page sizes. They also publish independent comics, for those who are interested.
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      • Use a pencil and ruler to mark margins of 4 1/2" by 7" along the edge of a sheet of 5 1/2" by 9" paper. Inside these lines is your page's safe-zone, where the finished product will be trimmed either in print or digitally.
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      Warnings

      • If you don't have a lightbox to help you ink the drawings and panels, don't press very hard on the sketching pencil, or it won't erase well.
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      References

      1. ↑ https://penandthepad.com/panel-manga-5230782.html
      2. ↑ https://www.creativebloq.com/how-to/how-to-create-a-manga-comic-strip
      3. ↑ http://ww2.ac-poitiers.fr/anglais/sites/anglais/IMG/pdf/MANGA_V_COMICS.pdf
      4. ↑ https://dw-wp.com/resources/cartooning-quickguides/layout-quickguides/quickguides-bleeds/

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