Adding text balloons and thought bubbles.
Zap Z
Posts: 60
in The Commons
I have been using DAZ 3d to create comics. Yet I am kind of not liking my results. I add them post render in GIMP. I try to perserve the image. Any ideals Here are examples.
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I use some software called ComicLife 3. I think you can get a free trial (1 month?), and if you decide to buy it's like $30. I looked thru a bunch of other options, and either they were way expensive or geared towards like manga or other specialized areas. ComicLife is good for setting up comic formats and adding balloons and titles and so on. It does have some issues, so it's not perfect, but it gets the job done once you've got it figured. It was designed for Mac as I recall, and on Windows I've seen some reliability issues (occasional crashes). It doesn't get updated very often (like once a year or two as I recall), and you may have issues with figuring stuff out. But for the price it's pretty good.
I use PhotoShop, but the process is generally the same for Gimp. I use a circular selection on its own layer and fill it in. Then I use the Pen Tool to create the tail and fill it in as well.
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GIMP/Add_Speech_Bubbles_to_a_Comic_Strip
ComicLife 3 is an inexpensive program you might consider because it fits the dialog in the speech balloons for you. I got it for all the comic page templates it provides, though I still use PS for putting everything together.
I use PS, but the process is generally the same. I use a circular selection on its own layer and fill it in. Then I use the Pen Tool to create the tail and fill it in as well.
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GIMP/Add_Speech_Bubbles_to_a_Comic_Strip
ComicLife 3 is an inexpensive program you might consider because it fits the dialog in the speech balloons for you. I got it for all the comic page templates it provides, though I still use PS for putting everything together.
One of the things that drove me away from PS and Gimp for this (well, a few things...) was that it's a few annoying steps just to make a ballon plus the tail out of multiple selections, and have it on different layers. And difficult to move and resize. And then to make a thought balloon...good luck making all the bubble things. The nice thing about a purpose-designed software like Comic Life is all of that is drag 'n drop, and you can easily move them around and size them and change the colors and fonts and stuff. And if you want to add titles or whatever it's drag 'n drop, and if you want multiple images on a page in a comic format that's all done for you. And for me personally the text function in Gimp drives me insane. Really, Gimp isn't designed for lines and shapes, and they even say that.
But otherwise I'm a huge Gimp fan.
Count my vote for Comic Life, too. There were three updates last year, and the crashing has been fixed for me, at least on Windows 7.
I know you asked about balloons specifically, but you might also want to consider processing your renders to give a more hand-drawn appearance. I've used Akvis Sketch in the past, which is relatively expensive, but does a great job; the attached image is Poser 7 > Sketch > Comic Life.
There are other plug-ins out there, some of them free so you can experiment.
Might want to start with the basics:
https://blambot.com/pages/lettering-tips
http://www.balloontales.com/category/tips/lettering/
I also use Comic Life. It's super easy and intuitive and best of all you can export the finished comic as a PDF.
Clip studio/Manga studio is another option, does text boxs/tails with 2 clicks, can export as web/pdf/various printing formats and goes on sale often for really cheap (e.g. $17).
It does "comic book" style image conversion too in the "EX" version (which also goes on sale for fairly cheap).
I mean, it also does basically most things Photoshop does (without needing 391294GB of ram) and has a billion times better digital painting, but we'll ignore that.
I use Clip Studio Paint, which is a really powerful program and has fantastic tools for comic creators (it used to be called Manga Studio IIRC). You can download all kinds of free brushes and tools made by users, and it has utilities for drawing vector speech balloons and stuff really easily. There's a free trial, and it goes on sale pretty frequently.
I did a bit of fiddling around with this in Gimp. Here is the approach I developed.
First I type in the text using the text tool and try to shape it into rounded shapes.
Next I create a new layer above the image but below all of the text layers.
I use the elipse select tool to select an eliptical speech bubble round each bit of text. I make sure that I have the mode set to "add to current selection" so they all get added to the layer. For captions in boxes I use the rectagular select tool.
I use freehand select to draw the spouts, or whatever you call them, going to the character's mouths, still in add mode.
For those bubbly thought bubbles I use a lot of overlapping circular selections. I find it easist to draw each circle away from anything else then drag it over until it merges with the others.
Once I've selected all of the speech and though bubbles I set the pen to white, select the bucket fill tool and click on any selected part of the layer. This fills all of the selected parts of the layer.
Finally I set the pen to black and use "Stroke Selection" from the edit menu. This draws a black line round all of the bubbles. The line thickness to use depends on the resolution of the image and how thick you want the line. If you don't like what you get just undo it and try again with a different thickness.
Here are two pages from my comic; these were done in Clip Studio Paint. CSP includes over 60 pre made speech balloons and the ability to custom make your own speech balloons. text is automatically centered in the speech balloon. For text I use Anime Ace from Blambot. As far as entering text you need to go here https://blambot.com/pages/lettering-tips and read the lettering tips. all text in comics needs to be capitalized, that way it looks neater. Your image is a little dark, it's important that your point interest stands out from you background. If you're really in to creating comics I would you look into getting Clip Studio Paint, it has far more tools for creating comics than anything else out there.
I use Comic Life 3 too. I had it from the days I had an iMac but now I have it on Windows 10. It has some annoying failings but I have not found anything better for creating Speech Bubbles, etc.
I add my speech abllons using gimp, here is a tutorial:
I also prefer Clip Studio Paint as the final solution I'm was using photoshop which was horrible for this purpose and not sure if I tried comic life but those things do not have enough functionality.
Although the interesting fact is that clip studio is also 3d rendering software by itself which also can be used to make 3d comics.
Yes while Clip Studio Paint is good it can be overwhelming for new users, while Comic Life 3 is a good stepping stone for those just getting started in comic creation as it is very easy to use.. It also depends if they are making comics for fun or to sell..
And I do own both Clip Studio Paint EX and Comiclife 3, and well CL3 has some things built in that CSP does not and vice versa.. Although I do admit that what does make CSP really good is an ability that could be useful, and that is the ability to import and manipulate 3D models..
There is a long froum thread discussing many issues involving the creation of comicbooks and graphic novels here. https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/36615/comics/p1
~ in Photoshop , Use the Custom Shapes ~ thanx
And this thread as well. https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/228061/3d-comic-book-tips-and-pictures/p1
Why not create a bunch of balloons in Photoshop as vectors and save them to a clip art library. Then you can add them as needed and being vector they are easily rescalled.
I use Photoshop and I also have ArtRage 6. In ArtRage you can make stencils & stickers of comic book balloons and resize them as required.
At the link below is to the ArtRage forum where I shared some of the stickers I created to ArtRage members. They can be downloaded from this link if you are using ArtRage.
https://forums.artrage.com/showthread.php?37066-Comic-book-stickers
You can also find other comic book stuff made by other members which are also free to download.
Not sure if you need to be a registered user or not.
Because with Comic Life you drag 'n drop premade ballons on your image, click inside to add text, select from a dropdown if you want thought or speech or other premade styles and colors, easily configure/customize a bunch of options if you want, drag 'n drop custom captions, drag 'n drop premade backgrounds and templates, and so on... For me it's no contest. And also I pretty much hate Photoshop. And Gimp really isn't designed for stuff like that.
https://blambot.com/pages/lettering-tips
I'm too lazy for all of that. I use the free "Paint.net". Load the render, open a new image as pure white, type the words in a compact block, draw a bubble around them. Cut and paste balloon into rendered image, add a tail from my home-made clipart folder, and I'm done.
It seems the crowd here is going for this Comic Life. Anyone else got something to add?
I recently downloaded both Clip Studio Paint and Comic Life 3 to try out (they both come with free trials). In the end, I decided to go with Comic Life. Clip Studio Paint lets you load 3d modelws into it, but only if you get the one that costs over $200. CSP also has an in-studio store, and while the assets there don't seem to cost a lot, you have to buy them with tokens, which you have to buy in larger quantities. Additionally, the software is from overseas, and many of the assets' descriptions are not in English. Comic life probably doesn't have as many features, but it does come with styles and image filters to give your work a comic book look. The balloons are easy to move and modify. The panels are easy to change up as well. Overall, Comic life seems to have a lot of flexibility. I just hope I can find/import or make more styles. Even if I can't, I think it will be good enough for what I need it for, which is just to make short comics for personal use.
Adding bubbles is just one way of adding text to images. See image below. With this method multiple characters speaking is succession within one frame requires an identifier (name) before the dialogue, but it's easier than setting up bubbles.
Every version of CSP can load 3d models. The "asset" store is full of free stuff mostly, and the program comes with basically everything anyway (and you can easily make your own "assets").
Comparing an old, ported and that (according to reports here) crashes lots to a newer, frequently updated, stable program (that also keeps auto backups), with a big community of users, isn't much of a comparison.
Yeah, I think for some/many of us doing the speech balloon/comic style thing is a fairly minor part of what we do, and therefore a ton of functionality in a bunch of areas really isn't needed.
I'm curious, what's the purpose of loading 3D models into software like CSP? Is that so you can do painting of your 3D objects in a 3D viewport and generate UV's? (kinda like what I do in Blender)
It's used for a few things.
People use it for things like hard to draw repeatedly things (like a fancy sword, or mechs or a gasmasks) either as they are or draw over them. Or another common use is stuff like backdrops, as a 3d backdrop is much quicker than drawing the same backdrop over and over from different angles (the program comes with some 3d backdrops too). It's basically a bit like a light version of something like Daz studio. Basically.
~ . very good . ~