Word Balloons allows your characters to talk but not only that, it is also is a way to represent how they are feeling. The three most standard balloons are the speech with it’s round shape, shout with multiple sharp edges and the thought balloon with it’s cloud-like visual. Balloons can also be used for sound effects though that is much more rare.
To create standard balloons, you will have to use the Ellipse tool as mentioned earlier. Before you start making them, create a new layer. Create the outline of the word balloon, then hit the Fill icon (i.e. bucket), select the white color underneath and click inside the word balloon you just created. This will create a nice word balloon… which is usually spoken by someone outside of the panel.
To show someone in the panel has spoken, you need to add a tail—the little triangular point at the side of a balloon by using the line or curve tool. After creating the ellipse, add the tail, erase the line that separates the tail and the word balloon and fill it with white. This will create your average tailed speech balloon.
If you don’t like the placement of your balloon, you can move it around by using the Move Layer tool as seen on the right. Make sure you select the layer where the balloon or else something else will move which you don’t want to happen.
Making shout balloons will require mostly the line tool while thought balloons will require the curve and ellipse tool. After you’ve made the basic shape, fill them in with white.
You can take things a step further by overlapping balloons over each other for text-heavy conversations to make one big word balloon.
I should also mention that there are some dialogue that occurs outside of the word balloons. These are usually “mumblings” that the characters say to themselves. There are also cases where the creator didn’t use word balloons in their manga and all that denoted what someone said was a line coming from a block of text.
All in all, use word balloons or not. Create as standard or as unusual a word balloon as you want. What really matters in the end is the words being said and if the readers can understand who said what. Speaking of words, lets move on to just that…