Hi folks,
I know how to make speech bubbles (both with vector tools and pre-made vector symbols) but I was wondering: is there a way to have the lettering automatically adjust to the balloon’s border?
I mean, can I have the text tool not crossing the speech bubble’s boundary, even moving with the balloon when I resize it, with no need to transform the text box later to make it fit, or obsessively check the preview? If yes, how?
The reason why I ask this is because the text preview isn’t totally accurate and, if I resize the text box later with the transform tool to make it fit, it would be difficult to keep exactly the same size across speech bubbles (as it wouldn’t depend on standard font size anymore, but could get accidentally stretched). I hope I explained myself.
Plus, it would be just easier if there was a way to simply type in text that starts a new line on its own when necessary. I got used to this no-brainer feature in CSP and I wondered if there was a workaround to do the same in Krita.
Why not use @Daniel_Zotin’s “Rogudator’s Speech Bubble Generator”?
This plugin has everything you need, if I’m not mistaken. Then you don’t have to reinvent the wheel again…
Thanks Michelist,
I already knew about that plugin but from the video tutorial it seemed to me that it was bound to only two types balloons: rounded speech bubble and thought balloon. But I haven’t actually tried it so I might be mistaken. I’ll come back to say how it went.
Since I don’t draw manga or comics, I didn’t take a closer look at the plugin when I fixed it back then. But I am sure the speech bubble scaled dynamically with the text, and found it nice that the “arrow” of the speech bubble could be placed in different directions.
There are also some vector libraries from other authors out there with a wide variety of shapes and borders from straight to zigzag lines, only there you have to manually adjust the bubble to fit the text.
Since Daniel’s plugin is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0, you can extend the part with the bubble shapes to your liking and save at least some of the work. It would be nice if one could link the vector libraries with his plugin, if it was that easy, which it is not. That would save a lot of work.
I just tried it. It’s a nice idea but as I expected it’s not what I’m looking for. Only rounded or squared balloons and the text ends up being quite pixelated. Sorry but I don’t have the skills to improve on it.
I will keep using the nice speech bubbles created by David Revoy and Kaichi and resize text with the risk of it being slightly unequal across balloons.
Unless someone else can tell me how to connect text boxes to vector shapes. Some people also choose the approach of writing text first then add a balloon behind it, on a lower layer. That’s not my favorite solution as I like to plan those shapes first for composition reasons, but it’s a possibility.
I’ll dabble with it until I or someone else maybe come up with extra tips. Not a big problem after all, just a bit tedious. Thanks
Yes but it came more natural to me to approximately calculate the size of a speech bubble first, so that it won’t create tangents, cover figures etc. But until Krita adds this feature it’s probably best to start from text indeed. I’ll write about this possible improvement in the suggestions section, people would love it especially now that many are boycotting CSP.
I found a temporary workaround thanks to @Lesqwe56. This can be done in the free software Inkscape, like shown in this tutorial: Wrap Text Around a Shape in Inkscape 1.2 - YouTube
Now that I think about it I also saw David Revoy doing lettering with Inkscape in a video on comics.
Update 1: the possibility to make text responsive to vector shapes, so that it never overflows them is real in Inkscape. Padding can also be adjusted very easily.
Update 2: I tried the Lazy Text Tool plugin for Krita and it gives me countless errors and makes the software crash. The creator was honest in admitting there would most likely be bugs, so I don’t blame it on them. Just letting you know that it won’t likely solve the problem highlighted by this thread. The “wrap mode” sounded promising but I can’t even test it cause Krita explodes as soon as I activate the plugin.
Update 3: I gave Rogudator’s speech bubble plugin another try and, in all fairness, it’s better than I first thought. Indeed - although the word balloons shapes it generates are only two - vector editing works well on their border so I can modify their shape later if necessary. I’m grateful for the plugin that I judged unfairly at first. Even if it doesn’t allow for the most sophisticated tasks, it may really be a no-brainer for basic word balloon creation, without needing to change software.
Here’s another short and sweet tutorial on how to make speech bubbles in Inkscape: Powerful flowed text in Inkscape 1.2! - YouTube
It can be also done by importing word balloons from Krita’s vector library, although it’s a bit more laborious cause you need to ungroup the specific bubble from the vector symbols sheet then paste it onto another page and ungroup it from its tail. Only then you can flow text into the main shape.
This is not possible from Rogudator’s plugin so I thought of putting it out there for those who like using speech bubbles made by David Revoy and Kaichi and would like text to automatically flow into them.
Hello, I discover your questions after 3 years. i have the same questions today that you had, about having a vector text which adapt to the speech bubble, and be able to create my own in krita and save it in the speech bubble vector library. Did you find new answer for all of these questions ??
Thank you for your answer
(About the rogudator’s speech bubble plugin, it is really nice for begginer but have few things missing to be usefull for regular comic book creation : pixellised result (no correction possible), (all text in a vector layer is more usefull for correction or to change if for a translation in another language), no customisation possible of the speech bubble form, the space between text and speech bubble can’t be customise, the tail can’t be customised or place more freely.)
I think you will find the below linked topic interesting, and even more so the results, some of which you can already benefit from in the Krita Next Nightlies.
However, this is still a work in progress, and if you want to work with nightly versions, you will need to get into the habit of making more backups of your work than you would with release versions, which are considered stable. Nightlies are pre-release versions intended for testing new features and sorting out bugs, so they may be buggy and thus jeopardize your work. If you find backups tedious or unnecessary, nightlies are not recommended (and even with release versions, working without backups is a recipe for disaster)!
