Manga Studio 4 is AWESOME (also Shannon's been here)

My girlfriend Shannon and I have been spending the last month or so together. We've had a really great time; taking drives, going out to eat, even spending a week in Disney World! It's been a blast!

During that time, we've also been drawing together. We've done a few jam comics and a couple little doodles back and forth. The other day, she asked me to draw a picture of my dodo, Randy, that she can use as a desktop background on her laptop. So I started roughing out a picture for her:

Earlier this month, she gave me her copy of Manga Studio 4. I've been fiddling around with it for the last few weeks and it's really grown on me. It's a REALLY fun program to draw and ink in. The brushes are really versatile. I'll be doing my comic with that program.

Then I moved on to inks:

I have to say, I usually don't like the inking process. But in Manga Studio, it's a lot of fun. I don't think I've ever had as much fun inking as I did with this. The uke and tree are a little wonky, but otherwise I'm really happy with how this came out.

Finally I sent it off to Shannon (all the way on the other side of the room) and she started coloring it in her program of choice: PaintTool SAI. I've heard nothing but good things from my friends and colleagues about that program. In fact, while I was at SVA, a lot of the underclassmen were using it to ink their films. And I don't blame 'em! The brushes in that program are godly-amazing. Sadly, it's a PC-only program, so I won't be able to use it anytime soon. Oh well, I'm content with Manga Studio.

Anyway, Shannon put in color, highlights and shading, cropped it a bit and the final product looks like this:

I really think Shannon and I make a good team. I can't color for jack, so I definitely need her help when it comes to coloring. She'll be coloring my comic, which HOPEFULLY will be starting up soon. I would've started sooner, but Shannon and I have been busy with other things.

Sadly, she's leaving in a few days to go back home to Washington. But I'm not too sad, because we'll definitely be seeing each other again real soon! Besides, we'll be talking and collaborating on stuff all the time, so we won't really be too far apart.

See you real soon!