Just what the title says.

Many artists draw them by hand, but its all personal preference I suppose, and i get the feeling you're looking for a way to do it vector style. For a hand drawn example, check out this (admittedly silly and previously posted by Imaderule34) hentai: http://nhentai.net/g/113060/ The artist just drew the bubble as they wanted then applied a stroke effect to give it the black outline.

Since I don't know SAI's toolbox I'll leave it up to to other users who do to give you tips on how to do it with vector tools. I'm sure it exists, but I'm not sure how to do it without looking at the software.

More hand drawn examples:
post #622876 post #623978 post #625519 post #631972
post #642396 post #650632 post #649874 post #649988

you just have to draw them and write the text by yourself. theres no special "make speech bubble" button and sai doesnt support text.

Mutisija said:
you just have to draw them and write the text by yourself. theres no special "make speech bubble" button and sai doesnt support text.

Which is why I use GIMP to add any text if I don't think my handwriting is clean enough for the situation.

Nyteshade said:
Which is why I use GIMP to add any text if I don't think my handwriting is clean enough for the situation.

Eh, IMO inkscape is more ideally suited to this:

• make bubble(s) by adding an ellipse, adding a triangle, and then Path->Union them. You can also Union multiple circles to make a thought bubble. Gives a very clean, sharp rendering with a lot of flexibility and very little effort required.
• Alt+Left / Right / Up / Down to manually adjust individual character/selection positions within text.

savageorange said:
Eh, IMO inkscape is more ideally suited to this:

• make bubble(s) by adding an ellipse, adding a triangle, and then Path->Union them. You can also Union multiple circles to make a thought bubble. Gives a very clean, sharp rendering with a lot of flexibility and very little effort required.
• Alt+Left / Right / Up / Down to manually adjust individual character/selection positions within text.

This is effectively what I do in Photoshop, but I skip merging the paths and just color full then because I'm a lazy bitch who likes to work with pixels instead of vectors

post #650632

D'aww, duh wittle Wain Siwves picture with her holding duh stwaw...

Seriously though, this would probably be easier on photoshop, since you can actually type on it.

Though I do wonder how you can implement custom fonts, like a Kingdom Hearts style font for example.

GameManiac said:
post #650632

D'aww, duh wittle Wain Siwves picture with her holding duh stwaw...

Seriously though, this would probably be easier on photoshop, since you can actually type on it.

Though I do wonder how you can implement custom fonts, like a Kingdom Hearts style font for example.

There's no text tool in SAI? Weird o.O Edit: GIMP can do that, and it's free, so I guess if suggest using that to add text.

Installing custom fonts is easy, just put them in your computer's font folder and restart any open programs (For windows at least, I have no idea about mac or linux) Making your own font? I have no idea.

Tokaido said:
There's no text tool in SAI? Weird o.O Edit: GIMP can do that, and it's free, so I guess if suggest using that to add text.

I personally can't stand GIMP's interface, but a lot of people swear by it. It's definitely something worth trying out as it's a very powerful and versatile program, even more so since it's free.

For Windows I've also seen paint.net (free) recommended a lot, granted I haven't played with it much so I don't know all of what it's capable of.

For OS X I'd highly recommend Pixelmator ($30 USD). Many consider it capable enough to be a solid Photoshop alternative, even despite the cost. I bought it when it was on sale several years ago, but I haven't ever seen them charge for updates.

Installing custom fonts is easy, just put them in your computer's font folder and restart any open programs (For windows at least, I have no idea about mac or linux) Making your own font? I have no idea.

On Mac it's pretty much the same. Just drop them into /Library/Fonts (all users) or ~/Library/Fonts (current user — recommended) and log out/log in to take effect.

On Linux it may vary a bit depending on distro (probably not much), but if my memory serves me correctly you should be able to just drop them into either /usr/share/fonts or /home/<username>/.fonts. I believe on some distros you can also just open fonts: in your file browser (you may have to be root), but it's been a while so I don't exactly remember which ones let you do that.

Edit: Oh, and making custom fonts is a lot more involved than many people give credit for. You basically have to vector each character and map it all out using Unicode (you can technically draw them too, but vectoring allows them to dynamically scale, so there's little reason not to). It isn't all that difficult in and of itself, but making that font actually usable takes a significant amount of time and effort (e.g., readable, good kerning—making sure every character looks good next to each other, emphasis on print vs. digital, etc.). A bad font can also cause random issues or even prevent a system from booting in some cases (though it's not as bad as it once was).

parasprite said:
I personally can't stand GIMP's interface,

Before Creative Cloud came out I really tried to get into it, but yeah, I hate it too >.< it was just the first free image editor with a text tool I thought of :P

parasprite said:
a lot of stuff about fonts

Interesting stuff! I figured it wouldn't be too hard with Mac, and only a little complicated with Linux, but that's good to know.

Making your own font is hard, and very technical. it's not an undertaking for the uninitiated. I know just enough about it to know that I should leave it to others XD

Tokaido said:
This is effectively what I do in Photoshop, but I skip merging the paths and just color full then

.. so, do you mean using the Ellipse selection tool and maybe freehand selection tool with Add mode instead of replace? You can do that in GIMP, too.

AFAICS GIMP doesn't have a great interface, but neither does Photoshop. Who likes/dislikes which of them seems to depend mostly on which program the person used first.

(Krita has a better interface than either, for an artist, IMO)

parasprite said:

On Linux it may vary a bit depending on distro (probably not much), but if my memory serves me correctly you should be able to just drop them into either /etc/share/fonts or /home/<username>/.fonts. I believe on some distros you can also just open fonts: in your file browser (you may have to be root), but it's been a while so I don't exactly remember which ones let you do that.

/etc is for system-wide configuration.
The correct directory is /usr/share/fonts.

Also (not Linux specific), GIMP manages any fonts you put in the fonts/ subdirectory of your gimp config directory. This is handy if there are fonts you only want to use in GIMP.

savageorange said:
/etc is for configuration.
The correct directory is /usr/share/fonts.

Whoops, I knew that didn't sound right. *corrects*

Tokaido said:
There's no text tool in SAI? Weird o.O Edit: GIMP can do that, and it's free, so I guess if suggest using that to add text.

Installing custom fonts is easy, just put them in your computer's font folder and restart any open programs (For windows at least, I have no idea about mac or linux) Making your own font? I have no idea.

Alright then. Thank you for the clarification.

savageorange said:
.. so, do you mean using the Ellipse selection tool and maybe freehand selection tool with Add mode instead of replace? You can do that in GIMP, too...

Sorry for my typo, I was on my phone. I meant "color fill them." However, if you want me to get specific I can, I was just skipping the exact details because I figured no one cared for the minutia:

And I don't disagree at all. GIMP can do most things that Photoshop can, and it's free. I highly recommend it for anyone unable or unwilling to buy photoshop. The reason I stick with photoshop is because 1.) I know photoshop well 2.) it's more powerful than GIMP in that it's has a deeper tool bag for more advanced users. Things like blending effects, layer masks, and filters are simply unavailable, and I use them a lot. 3.) GIMP seems to not be very good at things like antialiasing and the few blending effects it has, I've had probems getting them to work properly.

Tokaido said:

Thanks for the explanation.

And I don't disagree at all. GIMP can do most things that Photoshop can, and it's free. I highly recommend it for anyone unable or unwilling to buy photoshop. The reason I stick with photoshop is because 1.) I know photoshop well 2.) it's more powerful than GIMP in that it's has a deeper tool bag for more advanced users. Things like blending effects, layer masks, and filters are simply unavailable, and I use them a lot. 3.) GIMP seems to not be very good at things like antialiasing and the few blending effects it has, I've had probems getting them to work properly.

Blending effects? Do you mean layer modes? If so I'm not sure what you're doing -- GIMP has most of the same layer modes as Photoshop, though there are a few conflicts (where the same name means a different formula in Photoshop and GIMP). If you meant layer styles or adjustment layers, fair enough.

Layer masks -- incorrect, as far as I know; Gimp has had layer masks (and I've been using them) since GIMP 2.6 or earlier. Maybe you mean masking an entire layer group? It doesn't have that yet.

Your antialiasing comment could refer to a range of things, I guess it might be talking about the brush rendering mainly? That would certainly be a fair critique, you currently need to use a linear colorspace (and probably 16bits per channel) to get best antialiasing. Something that you can only do in the current dev version, 2.9, not in 2.8.

Filters: eh. I could say the same about Photoshop -- it doesn't have a GMIC plugin, which from my POV is a pretty serious defect.

Personally I wouldn't use either GIMP or Photoshop for -making- art, though, only postprocessing type of stuff. They're too full of unrelated crap.