MangaPad new sideline project

OK the plan is blog a a project from start to finish. I will also post links to prototype of the software. The most current version will be found at Ryuuguu.com

I first though about a manga program 2 years ago but it was only one of many ideas. Then I looked at some of the tools I had seen coming out recently and thought I could do a good manga composition program with these and it would run fine on an iPad or browser.

First I looked around for what manga iPad apps were new. I had looked a couple years ago. I did not see anything like what I wanted to make but I did see one that had a similar end product. The idea behind Manga pad is that it will allow artists who already have art work in digital format to compose panels in to scenes (like pages) then publish this to iPad or browsers. Each panel would also have a transition. Such as sliding in from the right. Looking at my prototype will give you an idea of what I mean. Press the gold button at the bottom to go to next frame. The original manga KinyuRival is by a friend. The app I saw was by CyberManga and is also called CyberManaga (app). It also has voice actors and is multilingual something I had not considered. Also I saw on their website that they are interested in making a manga composer for PCs aimed at independent artists. There were no updates about the composer software so I contacted them and got a friendly enthusiast reply from Kohei Nishino. He is a professor of managa at Kyoto Seika University. Since April is the start of the school and business year in Japan it is a very busy time. Hopefully we will meet when things have gotten less busy.

Next post I will discuss some of my first draft UI design ideas.