So I have been working on the graphic noiz manga today and I can successfully say that all the lineart is done for the manga. We are onto shading now after we spent an hour photocopying and reducing the 10×14 artwork to be 8.5×11 so it can be scanned. I usually don’t shade my manga but I thought since I had some feedback that I would do it for this story. I am still light on backgrounds but that is fine for now. The story will be told in pictures and the backgrounds which are difficult for me are not all that important. They are there when needed.
The first picture that I want to share with you is of the shading process. I am using neutral grey copic markers and fineliners for the shading. The inking was already done and the lines darkened so we are good there. This firstset of images is the initial 17 drawings that are being shaded.
Since I am new to shading I am mainly focused on filling in colours like hair and clothes. The clothes are simple in the images. I have not added dialogue at this point. All that will be added in the manga program when I have finished shading the art then all of it is scanned. I said that I would follow the entire process of creating the manga from start to finish and since we are not doing that making manga series today, I wanted to give you an art update anyway.
The copic markers I have are neutral grey variations 00 to 06 and also black sharpie markers. This allows me to do the colour variations easily and not have to worry about actual tones since everything is grey. Once I had all the pages reduced to 8.5×11 I started shading. I still have all the original lineart in a folio so that I can refer back to it but the shading is all done on copy paper sheets. Since I am doing this by hand which is not usually the process, I am limited by my shading ability. I think that I should have some darker tones but this is only the first pass through the pages, I will go in and add the background colour once I get through all the characters.
Deciding on colourization
Since I am doing this in grey I needed to set the values for the characters. Like Noiz’ hair is 04 grey and Julia’s hair is 02 grey. The skin tone variation is 00 and that is the lightest colour that I have in the pens. It shows up minimally but I wonder how it will reproduce when it is scanned. I decided to make Julia’s hair white and grey and not black like Jade’s so that it would be more easy to tell them apart when Jade has her hair down which is in the early part of the story. Usually Jade is in kimono so she has her hair up like a Maiko later in the story.
With the 7 values that I have I wanted to get the most out of them so I am draping Noiz in blacks some of the time so I can get his values straight. Shiro is light in white shirts and blonde hair. This is mentioned in the story in book 1 and book 2 so it was easy to make that decision.
Telling the story
Since the graphic noiz manga takes place between book 1 and book 2 there is an overlap with the final scene in chapter 7 when Noiz and Shiro are at the art gallery. The rest of the story is pretty unique but there are elements from both volumes in the manga. I wanted to make the final chapter about the art gallery even though I do not feature Julia in the final scenes instead Jade is represented as she is in the novellas. I had to leave Julia out because there were not enough pages to represent that and I did not want to introduce her husband into the story with the page limitation. The final scene in the manga is reminiscent of that in book 2 when they are at the art gallery.
The final scene in the manga is one that I think readers will enjoy as the characters come together in a show of emotion. This is a yaoi manga but there is no sex in it. I wanted it to be not so much a relationship story as a teasing. In the manga I get into the relationship between Shiro and Noiz a little bit more than I do in the novellas.
Scanning and Adding Dialogue
Once I have all the pages shaded including the backgrounds then I will scan all the pages into my mac computer. The mac is old and has an old operating system but I don’t have photoshop on that machine. The mac is used for writing novels as a glorified typewriter and for scanning. Once the 50 pages are scanned, then I will transfer them to the flash drive and port them to the PC which has Photoshop, Manga Studio, Adobe Acrobat and InDesign. These programs will be used to create the final work for printing which will need PDFs to do. Manga Studio will be used to add word bubbles and Photoshop for narration. The print file will be created as 7.5×9 in InDesign and taken to the printer. I bought an ISBN barcode for the print version which I will also make available as an ebook on Amazon using the Kindle Comic Creator app like I did with “A Storm’s Coming” manga.
Once all the pages are digital I will import them into Manga Studio and add words. Usually you should write a script first when adding dialogue but I did not do that so I will have to wing it when I get there. The novels are written and I have an idea of what is being said in the pages so it is just a matter of execution.
The final image
I wanted to share the final image of the manga with you. This is the lineart for the back cover. Since this is a yaoi manga which is suggestive but there is no sex I wanted the image to be suggestive but not racy at all. I think their look tells the story how it is in the manga. I got to explore the relationship between Shiro the writer and Noiz, on the left, the manga artist more in the manga than in the novellas.
The writer looks on Noiz with a longing and wants to express his feelings with him. The writer’s background has a tragedy in it which we explore a little in the 2nd book but will elaborate on it more in the 3rd. The manga shows the writer’s angst more than in the novellas as he reacts to various things said to him by others. The manga allows me to more fully express Shiro’s feelings and show how pained he is by his tragic past. His pursuit of Noiz is more a mystery to both of them as he is influenced by Noiz’ gentle persona.
Because of Shiro’s tragic past the writer can get easily swayed. Shiro is arrogant most of the time in the novellas but Noiz has him doing things that are out of character including going on a third date with Ai Amena. Noiz’ influence on Shiro is profound and even confuses the writer I think. His agent mentions it multiple times as his behavior changes.
I wanted the final image of the manga to show a culmination of the story but not give it away. Since there is no sex in graphic noiz I am limited with what I can show. This image for the final page shows how much the two care about each other while being subtle even if they have not worked out their feelings in the books so far.
Thanks for sticking around with me for this update. I wanted to share with you my progress as I continue shading.
We will be going to ComicCon in two more days and signing books and giving away manga, so I am excited to continue the process of working the graphic noiz manga as we fulfill a dream by bringing grydscaen to ComicCon something I have wanted to do for a long time.
copic, Manga Studio, Photoshop, InDesign, copic fineliners and Adobe Acrobat are all copyright their respective owners.