What kind of tablet and software do I need to be able to draw manga digitally?

I am looking for the right kind of software and tablet to use to draw manga digitally. I want to know what the best stuff is, and how much it is. If you could give me as much information about the software and the tablet, it would be greatly appreciated. If you use the tablet and the software I would really like to see a sample of some work that you've done on it. Please and thank you!|||I recommend using the software MangaStudio.



MangaStudio is the most popular manga drawing software. It comes with many different brushes that stimulate the usage of manga/comic dip pens. They include popular manga nib types such as Maru or G-pen. They also include pattern brushes and tones as well as pre-made panels and pre-made word bubbles. The pattern brushes are important when you want to add flowers or sand bubbles or something. The tones are important because manga doesn't use regular coloring. They use screen tones, which are special tones that are made up of patterns. You can use other drawing programs such as Photoshop to make these, but it's a lot harder and more time consuming. MangaStudio lets you format and edit pre-made tones [changing patterns or making a gradient, etc] really fast and easy. The pre-made panels are more convenient than drawing them and you can make perfect panels. You can also easily edit or crop the panels. Pre-made word bubbles cut down the time required to draw the word bubbles out by hand.



MangaStudio Debut is 49.99USD and EX is 299.99USD. The difference between EX and Debut is that EX has more functions. But I use Debut and I think it's fine the way it is and it has enough tools to help you draw a whole manga. The only thing I wouldn't recommend MangaStudio for is regular coloring and drawing. MangaStudio is specialized for drawing manga only, so it'll be difficult for drawing anything else. [I recommend IllustStudio, which is better than PS, for normal drawing.] It also won the Award of the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry of the 19th Digital Contents Grand Prix.



I'd recommend tablets Wacom or UGEE.



Wacom is the best tablet you can possibly get. They're a major tablet company and their product quality is excellent. They're easy to get in any electronics store too. However, they're really pricey. Out of their products I'd recommend their Bamboo or Intuos. If you have the money to spend, Cintiq is the best. Bamboo tablets have a small drawing area and average pressure sensitivity and the price is good. It's about 100USD per each Bamboo. Intuos is more professional and are more commonly used by professional manga artists. It has a larger drawing area as well as many shortcut buttons which make drawing easy and greater pressure sensitivity. But it's very expensive and can go up to 400USD. Cintiq is an amazing tablet. You get to see your screen directly on the tablet and it's large. More drawing area, visible drawing area, and more pressure sensitivity. But Cintiq is really, really expensive. They can go up to 2499USD. But they're more professional. The popular mangaka KogeDonbo uses a Cintiq. [+ MangaStudio EX and PS]



http://img.blogs.yahoo.co.jp/ybi/1/25/27鈥?/a>



I personally own a Bamboo. I don't really use it, but it's small/compact.



UGEE is just like Wacom, but they're less expensive. The con of UGEE is that they're only available over in Asia, which makes them difficult to fix, get parts [like extra nibs], and shipping might be expensive. But they're cheap compared to Bamboo. A UGEE Rainbow costs 60USD in China. It has the same pressure sensitivity as a Bamboo yet it has a larger drawing surface and it's cheaper. More shortcut and they're hot keys that respond to set drawn shapes too. They might be difficult to set up for people who can't read Chinese or Japanese though.



I own a UGEE Rainbow and I definitely use it more than my Bamboo because it just feels so much better to use.



So I'd recommend a UGEE Rainbow with MangaStudio Debut if you're on a tight budget. If you have money to burn, go for a Cintiq 24HD with MangaStudio EX.



But if you really want to save money, you should get a Genius MousePen i608 [41USD on Amazon], MangaStudio Debut, and some old fashioned dip pens and nibs. Many mangaka sketch and lineart traditionally and then screentone digitally with MangaStudio because they like linearting traditionally better. [linearting digitally is difficult] I've never used Genius tablets, but I know people who did and they said it was okay. Not best but good for just adding tones.



Here's a picture I colored digitally with UGEE:

http://melon-ramune-freak.deviantart.com鈥?/a>

It's really old and bad, sorry. I don't draw much digital now...



Here's my friend's gallery [she uses Intuos and PS]:

http://pichupet101.deviantart.com/



My favorite mangaka Aki's sample art [who linearts traditionally with dip pens, G-Pen and Maru nibs, MangaStudio EX screentone and custom made pattern brushes, and has Intuos.]

http://1.p.s.mfcdn.net/store/manga/9073/鈥?/a>



ArtemiSayuri's pictures [She uses Sai and Genius tablets. Her Deviantart closed so sorry for the pb link]:

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w193/鈥?/a>



Btw you'd get better answers if you asked in Drawing %26amp; Illustration|||well, i use photoshop cs5...i've always used some kinda photoshop actually. uh-oh, and at some point i also used gimp a few times(which is free). i can't tell you how much any of the below softwares cost, simply cause i...let's just say i don't buy my programs/games/music/whatever. *hint* the perks of being a geek i guess :%26gt;



so, any photoshop cs and higher is good in my book.

you can draw some pretty damn awesum things with gimp, considering it's free and all.

i've been told that mangastudio is great(and would probably fit your purpose best)

and i've also heard only good things about sai...



as for tablet, well, they cost some greens but are really fun. i have a bamboo wacom. a friend of mine gave it to me, cause he bought himself a better one or something. what can i say, i'm one lucky schmuck :%26gt; unfortunately, i don't particularly use my tablet for drawing so i can't show you anything completely digital. rather, i'm one of those "editors(cleaner+typesetter)", who clean/typeset the manga you're reading(have you ever compared a raw scan to a page edited by a hq cleaner?well, you should do it and then you should be very, very, veeery thankful xD). tablet comes in handy when cleaning the dust/removing sfx-es and redrawing some parts(it's useless when typesetting tho).



ofc, i've also tried drawing with it at some point, but i must say as fun as coloring is, outlining is hell to me. i've got a scanner tho, which is a life-saver. i just scan a pencil drawing and tweak it around 'til it looks like digital lineart...



bottom line, look around and see what suits you best. drawing manga is a long process(i mean, hell, editing a chapter takes a few days, talk about drawing the thing) so you have to be comfortable with your software/tablet or else 'tis gonna suck for your eyes, nerves, hands, knees and whatever else you can think of.