Ah, okay. I use a definitely not cracked version of Photoshop CC 2020. I got a couple custom brushes loaded into my software, but no plugins. It's pretty barebones since I began using it as my software of choice in 2018.
Hope that helps.
First, I think there are very few of us who have not sailed the high seas in pursuit of art, so welcome to the crew! I moved on to Clip Studio, so my advice will be very general.
You might consider GIMP if you haven't tried it yet. It's free and it's made specifically to do art. Pretty sure people make brushes for it also for free. It can also do basic vector graphics like Adobe Illustrator does, which is great for panels, speech and thought bubbles, and sound effects. Have you ever done vector work?
Also, there's so many tutorials out there, I don't know what you've seen or not seen! Let's see if I can keep it basic:
-It's perfectly fine to draw traditionally and do digital cleanups and color.
- Make yourself some page templates with panels already in place. Obviously you can print them out if you want to thumbnail or draw traditional.
- Learn to make effects that you can drop in, like speed lines (this is where vectors come in handy, but you can still do it without. It's just a huge pain).
- Use layers and masks if you don't already.
- Learn about how to place type in word balloons. Many people just jam them in any old way.
I'll stop shitting up the thread now, but if you or anyone has more questions I can try to answer them here, in dms, or on a profile. I did a web comic for many moons (hasn't everybody? ) and one of the things I learned was that there is no "right" way, just more efficient ways.
