My Manga Method, Part III: the key sheet
This third step in my work method is the most important because it determines my work load for the entire volume. As such it is the one that enables me to meet my deadlines without killing myself, and has taken the longest for me to develop. And I'm still tweaking!
This part is actually rather fun. ^^ For reference, I almost always have a copy of the original Japanese manga tanko/volume. Usually these are sent to me by the editor, but I have bought my own once or twice. Having the original paper volume while I work is an enormous help in lettering. With it, I know where the page will be trimmed on full-page FX (you don't want a letter chopped off when the book is printed), finding a page with something on it (is this tone used somewhere else in the book? *flip flip flip* Where was that scene again? *flip flip*) and the incredibly important ability to determine each page's level of lettering difficulty. Aye, there's the rub!
When I first began lettering manga, I worked straight through each volume. This wasn't too bad with Nana, since that series is rather easy--aside from the odd concert or train ride. But with Skip and Claymore, I would hit several pages in a row of comedic insanity or battles. Each page would take hours to complete, and my page quota for that day would be completely ruined. Thus, I learned to spread out my work load by mixing the difficult pages in with easy pages--which almost always meant I letter out of page order. Of course, this also meant I could no longer read a story straight-through as I lettered, but that was a small price to pay for keeping myself sane!!
Here's how it works: on half a sheet of paper, I have the numbers 3-212 typed out in neat rows, with the numbers nicely spaced out. These numbers represent the pages for a manga volume. Before I begin lettering, I flip page-by-page through the original manga tanko to determine each page's lettering difficulty and highlight that page's number on the sheet of paper with the appropriate color. I also note chapter breaks, title pages, quarter columns, and 2-page spreads on the sheet.
If you've noticed my shigoto updates, those colors I always mention (pink page, orange page, etc) are the result of this. The "hotter" a color, the more difficult the page. I use six different colors to indicate difficulty:
Blue - the easiest. These pages require no text or FX. All I have to do is make sure the image isn't crooked and erase any black specks that marr the artwork.
Green - relatively easy. These pages are text-only, or mostly text with "easy" FX that require no touchup. While it might take some time to paste in all the text on a dialogue-heavy page, that is pre-lettering work and does not affect my daily quota. All I need to do is tweak the dialogue's placement in addition to what I do for Blue pages.
Yellow - average. These pages contain text and a few FX, but nothing too time consuming. Yellow is the most common page difficulty. On these pages, I complete a few FX and everything already mentioned.
Orange - rather difficult. These pages contain one or two heavy FX, or sometimes a whole slew of simple ones. Orange pages take about two hours for me to finish. Like yellow, I complete the FX and everything else already mentioned.
Pink - Page from Hell. In other words, extremely difficult. >< Occasionally this will be from one huge FX with a horribly intricate background that must be matched as perfectly as possible (Claymore. Oog.), but they can also be from a slew of hard and medium FX all on the same page (Skip, Claymore, and Honey, too). A pink page takes 2+ hours to complete. O_o I tend to spread one out during my entire work day so it doesn't suck me dry.
Purple - the rarest page, thank the manga no kami. *headdesk* Only truly nasty pages earn this designation. *shudder* Purple pages are truly Pages from the Innermost Circle of Hell, and tend to crop up every 400 pages or so, on average. Usually in Clay, Captive, or Honey. :P
I've also begun noting pages that fall half-way between color levels. I mark these with a dot of a different color. I imagine saying "yellow with green dot" and "yellow with orange dot" will explain things. ^^V
The biggest factor in determining if a page with FX is yellow, orange, or pink or please no purple is the background underneath that effect. If my English FX doesn't cover up every little speck of Japanese, then I have to hide that Japanese. And if I'm doing my job properly, I have to hide it so you can't tell it was ever there. If the background is plain white, then it's a breeze. Slap some white over the original and you're finished. Sadly, this usually isn't the case. Two things make FX patching hell: gradiated tones and lines. Or in the case of Claymore, both at the same time. X_x I think I'll save more info on this for later.
Back to the preparation! I've flipped through the entire book and determined each page's difficulty on my lovely manga-volume-at-a glance key sheet. I can now see the overview of the book. Does it start easy (lots of green and yellow) and become more difficult (lots of orange and pink) towards the end? Or is it the reverse? Is the entire book going to be a nightmare? Or will it be an easy ride for once? However the book appears, this color-coded key page lets me bounce around the entire volume, spreading out the difficult pages, or doing only easy pages on a particular day if I feel exhausted, or doing several hard ones if I'm full of energy. As I compete each page, I mark it out with a nice heavy X over the page number on this key sheet. Thus, I can randomly move through the volume to my heart's content, knowing exactly which pages I've completed and what I have left.
While I'm flipping through the volume to determine difficulty, I also mark page numbers in the actual tanko. Page numbers are not printed on pages with bleeds (when the image goes all the way off the page) or if there's some artwork in the way. This can mean that for some titles, shoujo ones in particular, page numbers are rather rare. In Skip, for example, I remember one volume only had ONE page number in it. ONE. This lack of printed page numbers can make finding a specific page rather difficult when I need to go flipping through a volume. So I place small bookmarks with "10", "20", "30", etc written on them at the appropriate places inside the book. If I need to flip quickly to check something on page 112, I can use the bookmark to instantly find page 110 and go from there. When I've finished lettering the book, I remove the page number marks and place them in the next volume. ^^
To access previous installments, use the "my manga method" tag.
Last tweaked on 5-16-09