That horrible dread of not having an update ready on time. That desire to update more frequently. Or just wanting to have more free time that isn't consumed by work.

What are some ways you've learned to shave your production time? A way to bash through writers block? A new way to color? A speedier way to do text balloons? Making better use of your work space?

Recently(ish), I've come across a few time saving methods for my own process. I'll share them below in a bit. I kinda need a bunch of graphics to explain it, that I haven't made yet.

But I wanted to get the question out there. Share what works best for you and maybe we all can get a little faster and gain some extra free time.

Sylvia's Time Saving Tip #1 This works best for those with cintiqs or dual monitors but you can pull it off on a signal screen.

NEW WINDOW

(note: this also works in photoshop. Window -> Arrange -> New Window for :file name:)
It took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure this out, even with an effing degree. This trick involves opening a second window of what you're working on. How did this help shave time off production, I hear you scream from the rooftops? Observe:


Drag the second window out of the program and on to your main or secondary screen. Size the second window to "web" size. That way, you can know how it looks without zooming out AND instantly know what details won't even be seen. I'd say it's saved me between 30 minutes to an hour. It's also cool to see the zoomed out image change as you work in the other window.

Hope this helps somebody!

I actually do something similar! Instead of opening up a new window I use the Navigator window in PS and blow it up really big on my second monitor. Saves a little bit of time since I don't have to open up two versions of the same file and rearrange the setup every time I start on a new page.

For other stuff I rambled a bit over in this thread, but the short version is:
-Learn/make your own keyboard shortcuts
-Use Actions for complicated stuff you do frequently
-Using layer styles to shade instead of color-picking
-Threshold lineart and use fill bucket for putting down flats

And some more that I didn't mention in that thread:
-I use cel-shading with one color set to multiply, rather than color-picking (which takes EXPONENTIALLY longer)
-Make a separate doc with swatches for all the base colors or every character (and sometimes bg elements) so you aren't fumbling around color-picking from previous pages constantly.

If I think of any more I'll add them here!

If you get stuck in line art doing the same line over and over, and not quite getting the right curve I use this method.

The pen tool in photoshop is worth its weight in gold when it comes to accuracy. And since my hands have a hard time doing weighted lines (my animation school enforced short quick strokes), this is the best compromise for me. It would take me so much longer to have fine line art using my bare hands.

Those are all really great tips! Thank you both for sharing!

I'm familiar with the second window option, unfortunately I no longer have a second monitor, or else I would probably do that! Thank you for those who shared their tips. This topic is of great interest to me too! Has anyone had any luck using a flatter plug-in for Photoshop? I downloaded it, but I couldn't figure out how to get it to work and gave up I would also love to know what "thresholding the lineart for flats" means if someone would care to elaborate?

Oh! Something I forgot. I mentioned this in another thread about resources but LazyNezumi has been a huge help for those rare moments I ink digitally. I don't use it as much for my coloring but it's been a gift to my lineart. It killed the stupid hooks and shoelace at the end of my strokes.



I'm afraid I can't help with the flatter plugin. I have an older version of photoshop that isn't compatible. Otherwise I would try it right now. blah.

But I can help on thresholding! It's one of the adjustments in photoshop and is really useful in cleaning up line art. There's a good tutorial here. I don't use it much myself due to my grainy pencil style but it's good for when I do more refined work. Once thresholded you can more easily paint bucket fill in your flats without that white halo.

While I use Photoshop for most of my comic process, Ive found using Clip Studio Paint to ink and lay down flat colours saves SO MUCH TIME! it also has super useful 3D models for when you hvae a character drawn at a tricky angle.

Thanks for linking that tutorial Silverkitty! I'll have to try that out sometime

Kryspix, I use MangaStudios (aka Clip Studios) to ink, but I haven't looked into the 3D models yet. I can see that being super helpful!

Necroing this thread, because I am very much in the market for timesaving techniques at the moment!


This was posted a while ago, but on the off-chance that you're still interested ... Manga Studio / Clip Studio is great for flatting - you can just use the paint bucket tool if you have the reference layers and options set up right. There are a bunch of vids explaining it, this one is the shortest and clearest I could find :P


Hey Star - in the other thread you linked, you mention doing simple shading then messing around with layers to make it look good ... could you tell me more? Or do you already have a bit of tut up somewhere that you could link?


Here's a couple of my timesavers, in the hope that they'll be useful for someone

1) Character base colour reference image

Star already mentioned this briefly, but I thought I'd post mine for anyone who hasn't come across the idea before. I use Manga Studio 5 for my colouring, and so I don't even have to flick between images, I just have this sat up in the MS5 subview window (in fact, the subview window is a great timesaver for referencing all sorts of things).



2) Blank speech bubble
I like the look of a organic looking speech bubble (rather than using the shape tools) but who has time to draw every speech bubble? Not me! So I made this guy - this is the one speech bubble I use for almost all my dialogue:



It has my standard black lineweight with a white background, eight nodes for easy manipulation, and a nice basic speech bubble shape. I do all my lettering in Inkscape (a free vector graphics program) because I don't like Manga Studio for lettering, so this is saved as an Inkscape file.
I plonk it on everywhere:



Stretch to suit the text (remembering tweak the lineweight back if it's being altered altered by the stretching):



Add tails and union the lot together, and I'm done:



Oh, and while I'm on lettering ... I always add a grey layer over my artwork while lettering, just to make the lettering easier to see while I'm fooling around with the speech bubbles. In the last pic, you can see it has been removed.

If anyone has any other tips they'd like to share, I'm all ears!

To piggy back on this, I have found that CSP will not allow you to manipulate text after saving/closing a .psd file. You'll need to either have two save files one of which is your final PSD and the other as a clip file - or start migrating your work in clip.

As far as bubbles goes: Does anyone know how to create connection tails that DON'T taper? I like connections between bubbles to be uniform length. I haven't found this functionality in CSP yet. <_< >_<

Same can be said for animations! Clip saves animation folders, PSD turns them into regular folders and loses all animations.

THEM's hard won fact 'der!

CSP is also really intuitive for sampling color! Right click of the pen will sample whatever color you like from say a previous page, a nearby blotch of color etc.! It's made my flatting go much faster!

Wait! Another CSP question to add!

How can you put a stroke around images? I figured it out for text, but there are times I want to put a stroke effect around an image.

When you open the "Layer Properties" tab you can add border effects, among them stroke around the image. This can be done to single layers as well as a group.
At least I think that is what you mean haha

Yeah but I'm still muddling through how to use layer effects. Can I put it on a layer that already has an image on it, or do I select a new layer, and draw on it to get that layer effect?

Things were altogether different in Photoshop!

Out of interest, why are you saving as a .psd file if you're not using Photoshop? Or are you still using it for part of the process?
Afraid I can't really help with your questions though - I've never used PS, and as I mentioned, I use Inkscape for balloons and lettering. IMO it's a lot easier to use .... buuuuut I admit it's not much good if you want to manipulate the art and the lettering at the same time.