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Hebi wa kusa ni fukuzai shite iru... (a Clay retouch adventure)
I'm usually pretty good at glancing over a page of manga and determining how difficult it will be for me to letter. Occasionally I'll waffle between two levels, but a final decision is fairly easy and accurate 95% of the time. That 5% where my initial estimation is wrong, though...sometimes, it can be downright nasty.
Ahhh...detailing my little lettering adventures here is wonderful stress relief. And I've decided to add this entry to My Manga Method. It's called "work" for a reason, though I still love it. And Clay, too. *hearts for all her Clay characters* And yes. They are mine.
The orange Clay page I tried to tackle yesterday, for example. Volume 11, page 46. The first panel looked rather challenging, but I didn't think it would be too difficult. The angle of the radial tone and lines in the background (which Yagi-sensei does soooo love) was different from the norm, and the center of the radial contained speed lines for a swooshing sword. But hey, I have a huge 100 meg file full of radial tone and lines backgrounds, filched from my previous volumes of Clay, for precisely this reason. If there's one thing I know how to do, it's retouch Clay tones! XD So no big deal, right? I studied the other two FX on the page, label the page "orange" on my key sheet, and moved on.
Except, it should have been pink. >< Yesterday when I began to retouch that first panel, it didn't take me long to realize that none of my filched tones would work. None of them. Not even tweaking the angles by rotating small sections within each tone paste would make them fit...the original artwork was too varied, too odd, and that waving sword's speed lines in the middle of everything kept mucking up the works. When this happens and none of my filched tones will work--very very rare, thanks to the size of my tones shortcuts file--the only path left is painstaking retouching with what you have available in the original panel.
Which...
can...
take...
forever.
Usually when I tackle orange and pink pages, I'll complete one FX, then switch and finish an entire yellow or green page of a different title. Then I come back, and handle the next FX, then do something else, etc. Thus, the effort of an orange or pink Page from Hell is spread out over a couple of hours. But with this page of Clay?? I retouched a few inches, would find myself ready to throttle something from frustration, so I would switch to an easy page for a break.
But finally, I finished retouching that first panel. It looks good, too. Particularly thanks to the lovely specks of snow I can sprinkle about to hide the few instances of not-perfect alignment. :P Thankfully, the 2nd FX on this page has a background of parallel vertical lines. Of which I had the perfect match in my Claymore screens file. A complete background replacement over the original Japanese, make sure the characters in the panel aren't covered up, and it's done.
However....dealing with that hidden nightmare of the first panel completely drained me. I only made it through half of my quota yesterday before I had to call it quits. Alas, Clay v11 p46 has three FX on it. So guess how my day began today?? At least only the first panel held that nasty surprise, this last FX is completely Clay-difficulty-average.
While I was painstakingly recreating the background of panel 1 yesterday, I couldn't help but wonder. Do the mangaka have any idea how much effort the foreign-language artists (or at least this particular one) invest in preserving the original? Do they even care? If I were replaced with someone who did a half-assed job on Claymore retouch (which, JIC you haven't figured it out, is god-awful and incredibly difficult) would Yagi-sensei notice? Would he mumble to himself about the change in quality, maybe compare the new name to mine, and wonder about the change? Or is it all just noise to them...since they only care about the original version and the chapter they are working on now?? /pointless speculation
And you can bet I'm snagging that retouched version of panel 1. Should a similar panel be hiding in my future, no way do I want to suffer through this again. I forgot how much time and effort my filched Clay screentones file saves me. Ghaaaaaa! *clutches the file to her breast* I love you, wonderful Clay screentones file!!! It was a fraptuous day when I decided to begin snagging tones to create you!!! Caloo! Calay!!! *chortle chortle chortle*
Except, it should have been pink. >< Yesterday when I began to retouch that first panel, it didn't take me long to realize that none of my filched tones would work. None of them. Not even tweaking the angles by rotating small sections within each tone paste would make them fit...the original artwork was too varied, too odd, and that waving sword's speed lines in the middle of everything kept mucking up the works. When this happens and none of my filched tones will work--very very rare, thanks to the size of my tones shortcuts file--the only path left is painstaking retouching with what you have available in the original panel.
Which...
can...
take...
forever.
Usually when I tackle orange and pink pages, I'll complete one FX, then switch and finish an entire yellow or green page of a different title. Then I come back, and handle the next FX, then do something else, etc. Thus, the effort of an orange or pink Page from Hell is spread out over a couple of hours. But with this page of Clay?? I retouched a few inches, would find myself ready to throttle something from frustration, so I would switch to an easy page for a break.
But finally, I finished retouching that first panel. It looks good, too. Particularly thanks to the lovely specks of snow I can sprinkle about to hide the few instances of not-perfect alignment. :P Thankfully, the 2nd FX on this page has a background of parallel vertical lines. Of which I had the perfect match in my Claymore screens file. A complete background replacement over the original Japanese, make sure the characters in the panel aren't covered up, and it's done.
However....dealing with that hidden nightmare of the first panel completely drained me. I only made it through half of my quota yesterday before I had to call it quits. Alas, Clay v11 p46 has three FX on it. So guess how my day began today?? At least only the first panel held that nasty surprise, this last FX is completely Clay-difficulty-average.
While I was painstakingly recreating the background of panel 1 yesterday, I couldn't help but wonder. Do the mangaka have any idea how much effort the foreign-language artists (or at least this particular one) invest in preserving the original? Do they even care? If I were replaced with someone who did a half-assed job on Claymore retouch (which, JIC you haven't figured it out, is god-awful and incredibly difficult) would Yagi-sensei notice? Would he mumble to himself about the change in quality, maybe compare the new name to mine, and wonder about the change? Or is it all just noise to them...since they only care about the original version and the chapter they are working on now?? /pointless speculation
And you can bet I'm snagging that retouched version of panel 1. Should a similar panel be hiding in my future, no way do I want to suffer through this again. I forgot how much time and effort my filched Clay screentones file saves me. Ghaaaaaa! *clutches the file to her breast* I love you, wonderful Clay screentones file!!! It was a fraptuous day when I decided to begin snagging tones to create you!!! Caloo! Calay!!! *chortle chortle chortle*
Ahhh...detailing my little lettering adventures here is wonderful stress relief. And I've decided to add this entry to My Manga Method. It's called "work" for a reason, though I still love it. And Clay, too. *hearts for all her Clay characters* And yes. They are mine.