The golden rule of comics — and when to break it

Edit
Moving to the editYou can edit at this point, too – in the panel border layer you can erase the parts of the border that you no longer need or want. You can specify the width of these borders yourself. The mask applies to any layers within this folder – so make sure you’ve moved any pencils and inks into this folder. It will also add a border along those masked-off areas. This will create a special folder, which is masked off to show only the panels you’ve created. Notes on masks
Tips on masks in Manga StudioManga Studio’s masks uses the opacity level of the colour to decide what should be shown on the layer (where Photoshop would use black and white for the same effect). 04. These tools are especially useful when you want to stick to tried and trusted comic book layouts, and can help create brilliantly readable comics. 03. For this article, we’re going to assume you’ve either pencilled – or at least roughed out – a page, and that you have at least one element that just wants to explode out of the frame. Words: PJ Holden
PJ Holden has been a professional comic artist for over a decade, drawing predominantly for 2000 AD on Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper and more. You can also set the height and width of this slice in the tool’s properties. Using various levels of opacity (with any colour) you can create subtle masks – assuming, of course, that your layer Expression is set to either Grey or Colour. This means you need to draw 100 per cent transparent ink on the mask to indicate artwork to be hidden, and any other colour for artwork to be revealed. Take your time, and once you’ve got a layout that you’re happy with, you can rasterise it using LayerRasterize. Definethe panel frame
Make the action break out of your comic panelsCreate a new Panel Frame Layer using LayerNew Frame Layer. 02. That doesn’t mean that you’ll be limited to self-contained panel formats. In those instances we need to help our characters break away from their constraints.