My daughter would like Manga Studio 5 and a tablet for her birthday but there are too many to choose from! I could use a little advice. I’ve been asking her classmate but I know he already loaded her laptop with extras since Mom was paying so…:rolleyes:
Her classmate says rather than spend the extra money on Manga Studio EX5 I should put that money into the tablet but the tablets range from about £60 - £1000. ack. I’m hoping somewhere less than the middle is my answer.
Wacom Bamboo or Intuos? How big for a 15" laptop? Are there features I won’t necessarily know should be included?
She’s actually a really good illustrator and it is her 16th so I don’t mind splashing out a bit and I don’t mind spending extra on the EX if it’s worth the extra ££
How much are you thinking of this as a toy for your little girl, and how much are you thinking of it as an investment in her future? Do you think she’s going to study art or illustration in college? If it’s the later, get her a good, middle-ranged Wacom tablet, which is about 300 dollars American. I was at art school a couple years ago, and everyone, student and teacher, used Wacom pads. Never saw a single other brand. Something like this is probably ideal, and will probably last her into college before it needs to be replaced. (which is different, of course, from when she’ll want it replaced.)
As for the software, one of the most common complaints I heard from my teachers was about students who had taught themselves to draw by copying manga. Before any otaku jump my shit: I don’t remember their complaints well enough to defend them here, I’m just reporting that the kids who came in with a strong manga style had to work hard to unlearn it before they could get good marks. You might want to look into getting her something like Adobe Illustrator, instead, which will give her a foothold on software that’s actually used by professionals. Apparently, they’ve got this subscription model for it now that’s pretty cheap. And Adobe always gives out gigantic student discounts.
I use an Intuos Medium (6" x 9") with a 27" monitor. That gives me reasonable feel for hand motion to cursor movement. The pen’s movement on the pad corresponds exactly to the limits of the monitor so I’m never scrolling. I got it a couple of years ago for $300 USD. I’m using Illustrator, Photoshop and Blender.
You might think about a smaller pad if the 15" screen on the laptop will be the primary drawing area. I say this because of the nice correlation I feel between my hand motion and cursor motion. Of course asking around in real life is always a good idea.
If she wants to get serious about comics then EX 5 is worth the added features. Otherwise, normal Manga Studio 5 is fine for regular illustration. EX 5 has a lot of features that make comics a lot easier to prepare for actual printing that the regular version lacks.
For the tablet itself I would get the Intuos Pro in a medium size - this works great for average sized monitors (14 to 30 inches) - Wacom did a weird thing where they rebranded Bamboo as fancy pens for Tablet PCs and Intuos is now split into normal and pro lines. So the normal Intuos is on the same level as Bamboo tablets once were. Absolutely go for the Pro above those.
However, I still use the Intuos 4 (back before Wacom did all the rebranding, and Intuos only stood for the pro line) and it still works great - a lightly used one could save you a lot of money. The only thing the new tablets feature over the older ones is stuff like multitouch. How your workflow goes determines whether touch is a thing you use at all - for me, I never use touch features so a newer tablet would be wasted on me.
Manga Studio is specifically set up so that all the commonly used tools such as undo, redo, select, deselect, rotate, zoom, resize, transform, etc are all functional buttons that can be accessed without having to go through subtool menus or use keyboard shortcuts. After you compare Photoshop to Manga Studio you will realize that MS’s user interface was designed for use with a tablet, and it shines compared to Photoshop which is obviously still in keyboard and mouse land. Since so many of the features are right there within one pen tap, I find I don’t need touch capability to make up for having them buried in submenus.
Also, just because it’s called Manga Studio doesn’t mean it’s about manga. It’s about illustrations and comics (the fact that it’s originally Japanese-made is why it even has manga in the title here - it’s just Clip Studio Pro over there). It’s far and away more strongly featured for these specific applications than Photoshop is.
Go with a Wacom because the other brands usually have worse hardware (sensitivity and accuracy) and worse software support (some programs are coded with Wacom in mind and don’t work as well with other digitizer brands).
Within Wacom’s product lines, the main difference between an Intuous (or an old Bamboo) vs an Intuous Pro (or an older Intuous, before the rebranding) is tilt support. The Pro can tell which angle you’re holding the stylus, useful with calligraphic or wider, flat brushes. There are also minor differences in pressure sensitivity, but not noticeably so IMO.
I’m a graphic designer and I use a non-tilt-sensitive Intuous and it’s fine for me because I usually work with single lines and shapes, not flat brushes, but if she’s trying to emulate watercolor or other types of painting, the tilt sensitivity is important.
Size-wise, it’s not just comfort but also resolution. A bigger Wacom will more closely follow the actual resolution of her image. But it’s not a huge deal to just have the software zoom in and work on a smaller area at a time.
So in summary, agreeing with the others that one of the smaller Intuous Pro models would be your best choice
And as for the software, let her decide that and grow into it on her own. The Wacom tablet should definitely be the priority over the software. There are so many different software drawing packages out there, from MangaStudio to ArtRage to Sketchbook to Fresh Paint to Illustrator to CorelDraw, and many of those are very cheap or even free for students (especially once she enters college). The software is always changing. The tablet is a much more stable, and valuable, investment.
PS: The Intuous Pro comes with AnimeStudio, Sketchbook, Corel Painter, and Photoshop Elements. That’s 4 drawing packages she can already play with.
Thank you all so much for the information. In just six replies, you’ve managed to summarize everything I need to know to make a decision. I didn’t want something ridiculously expensive nor did I want a toy that wouldn’t do everything she wanted. I don’t think she’ll be a professional artist but she does take her interests seriously (the sketchbooks are piling up around here!) and she’s more likely to stick with it if she has good tools to work with.
