John Martz

Drawing perspective in Manga Studio

I’ve been quiet around these parts, but I’m knee-deep in working on a kids’ graphic novel with my friend Zach Worton. It’s called Barbarian for Hire, and a preview will be in Comics Festival, one of the free titles available in comic stores on Free Comic Book Day this year (May 2, 2009). Chris Butcher’s blog has the full line-up, and it’s mighty impressive.

One thing I hate drawing is perspective.  It’s not particularly difficult, but it’s time-consuming, and frankly, I’m lazy. Ultimately drawing should be fun, and the more it feels like work, the less I’m going to want to do it. But there are times I can’t avoid it, and this particular scene in the book necessitated a nice wide angle.  And drawing this traditionally, would’ve meant positioning a vanishing point so far off the page, I would’ve needed another drawing table.

Enter Manga Studio.  I’ve been drawing the book completely digitally in Manga Studio, and today I finally took the application’s perspective tools for a spin. It’s really as simple as positioning your vanishing points and then when you draw on the canvas, your lines automatically follow the right perspective.  It’s kind of like magic.  I was able to take this rough doodle:

And in just a few minutes, create this sketch:

I think it may have taken me longer to write this blog post than it did to draw that barroom. Awesome.