✦ Introduction

Hello everyone! I'm back with a new tutorial, this time explaining some tips to improve your emotes (Though it also works for stamps!). You can either watch the video above or read this page, whatever you prefer! I hope you find this very helpful and if you have any question, please don't hesitate to ask!

✦ Step 1 - Sketch

First of all, create a new file of 400x400px and 150dpi. If you're going for a stamp it doesn't need to have a square shape.

 

An emote is a very small picture that serves as a fast reaction to something, so if we are drawing a character, the expression must be the only focus.

A helpful thing to do is to also open a new window of the same canvas to see how it's looking from far away.

REMEMBER: Keep it simple, we don't want to put many details into such a small canvas!

✦ Step 2 - Lineart and Colouring

There are many styles you can work with, but personally I'm going for a colourful cartoonish style, so I will be using the default MARKER tool to make the lineart.

To colour it simply use your usual method. I create different layers for each part, then use clipping masks to shadow it as you can see in the picture below:

✦ Step 3 - Thickening your lineart

This part is very important when making your emotes look clearer.

Make the outer lineart look darker and bolder. To do so, first merge all the layers into one (Make sure to have a transparent background!) and simply do the following, just change the Edge color into the one your lineart is. You can also add an additional white outline by rasterizing the layer your emote is in and apply the edge effect again.

✦ Step 4 - Adding text (OPTIONAL)

Some emotes or stamps may contain text. Since CLIPSTUDIO PAINT has a text tool, you don't need to use any other program here. But remember, if you're gonna make an emote, make sure to use a font that's easily readable.

Just like in any other layer, you can use clipping masks to add shadows or any other effects to your text.

✦ Step 5 - Resizing

Now that we are done with the standard version of our emote, we will procceed to resizing it. To do so, simply click on "Edit" ＞ "Change Image Resolution" and write the following:

IMPORTANT: To make your emotes look clear in such small canvas, apply the following effect.

You can see the difference here.

On the left side, we have the emote WITHOUT the effect, and on the right side, the one WITH the sharpen effect.

The most common size variations are 28x28px, 56x56px and 112x112px.

✦ Thank you for reading!

Thank you for reading and I hope you found this helpful!

You can see more of my work here: