How to draw manga; Screen Tones
Screen tones. Where to buy screen tones? How much do screen tones cost? How to use them?
In the previous posts, I talked about drawing tablets and Japanese pen nibs. In this article, I am going to talk about another mangaka art tool; screen tones.
If you notice a manga is mostly black and white with some gray dotted area or some special effects like cross-hatching or other patterns of different kinds. These are screen tones. But not everyone knows what screen tones are. Simply because European and American artists don’t use them as much since most of the western comics are black and white or in color. In addition, screen tones are getting hard to find and are pricey.
Classic American Comic Books
What are screen tones?
Screen tones are a sheet of adhesive paper in grayscale with different tones and patterns. They can have basic patterns such as dots or more complex textures like flashes of lightning, natural backgrounds, and so on. Screen tones are applied on the area of the manga you chose and cut around the image borders with an exactor knife.
It sounds pretty easy, right? Well, try to apply this sticky paper on a small area or hair. It can require a little bit time to finish the operation and it can result quite difficult when you have a lot of details. They are sticky, easy to break, and easy to scratch. Not to mention that at the end of the operation, it gets annoying to find all the left tiny pieces everywhere.
How much do screen tones cost? And where can I find them?
As I mentioned before, Screen tones are becoming a little bit more difficult to find (at least here in the USA) and they are expensive. I usually purchase screen tones on Copics.com. Yes, Copics sells good quality screen tones. It's kind of tricky find them on their website. The price is about $5.00 per sheet. The size is 9X13in (25X35cm), like a paper sheet for comics.
Deleter Manga Shop is another site where you can find screen tones and anything related to draw manga. It's a Japanese website all their material come directly from Japan. I talked about it in my pen nibs article. The price range from $3.00 to $5.00. They sell sets too. However, their screen tone sheets size, I believe, is smaller then Copic screen tones. In my opinion, Copic has the best price.
And of course you can find them on Amazon! Can you believe that?
They sell Deleter screen tones, which are great quality too.
The cost adds up quickly when you use them in your manga and you need to find the same exact one that you used in the previous image. For example, for my characters hair and clothing, I have specific screen tone numbers to maintain the same color tone on each page.
Example of screen tones:
Tom Sawyer hat hair and clothing have screen tones.
Same for the servant skin and Huck Finn hat and pants.
Should I use screen tones for my manga?
If you draw your comic on Photoshop or Clip Studio Paint, buying screen tones is useless since you can create them with Photoshop or download it for free from Clip Studio Paint. You don’t even have to use them at all if you paint digitally your comic.
I used screen tones on Legends of the West Volume 1 till chapter 3. However, I am about to start chapter 4 and because I don’t want to get too far off from the previous chapters I am still going to use some screen tones but not as much as before. I will eliminate them gradually and just do it digitally.
It really takes away a lot of time to apply them manually, and as an artist, you know how much precious is time.
Also, they are too expensive. I have to buy several sheets to complete one chapter. It gets too expensive for my wallet. Another reason is that I am afraid I won’t be able to find the specific screen tone numbers that I use in my manga in the future. It would be a mess drawing Legends of the West Volume 3 and no screen tones available. In the future, I would use Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop to apply a shade of grays and tones. After all, I am already doing that when I edit the pages on Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop.
Legends of the West main characters cover illustration. Drew and inked by hand then scanned and edited it on Photoshop. I did not apply any screen tones manually just painted with Photoshop brushes.
I am thinking to create a Youtube channel to show how to draw manga and share my drawing techniques.
And probably I would make a video on how to apply screen tones. It’s an important technique to know and if you want to draw traditionally a manga, you must know how to use screen tones.
In conclusion, a manga without screen tones is not really a manga, (if you draw a black and white comic). They are great for enhancing details and giving depth, volume, and shadow to the drawing.
On the other end, they are harder to find, expensive, and it requires time to apply them manually.
However, you can create and download them for free or at a lower cost.
Be careful! Don't exaggerate with too many screen tones on a page. It will flatten the image which is not pretty for a comic.
Here below some links in case you want to purchase screen tones.
Unfortunately, I am not able to post a link for Copic screen tones. Their website does not show any screen tones for sale. I checked Copic Facebook page and their post for screen tones is dated 2014. I tried to Google "Copic screen tones" like I did in the past but no luck.
So, I am posting the link only for Deleter Manga Shop and Amazon.
YOUTUBE CHANNEL
4 Comments on “Screen Tones for Manga- Drawing a Professional Comic Book”
Hi Anny, I´m Manu, from Spain. I looked the manga shop that you have posted and I would like to know if you have to pay tax if they send to another country? have yo buy something there? they don´t add tax at the moment of paying but they say maybe the delivery company could add. Thanks a lot and cheers for sharing!
Yes, you have to pay a tax. The Manga Shop that I posted on my blog it’s a Japanese web site. All the items in the website are Japanese brands. You will found out how much is the tax at the check out. Personally, I never bought anything from them but it’s a reputable website and a lot of mangaka shop there.
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It as hard to come by educated people about this subject. However, you sound like you know what you are talking about! Thanks.