Hello, everyone!
I’m Rizzya, better known as RHAESE on social media and WEBTOON Canvas, where I publish my story, Secret Lies Next Door.
I hope you’re all doing well and excited for my very first tutorial ♥
Many people ask me how I color my webtoon pages, especially how I achieve that soft, hand-drawn effect with delicate lines that aren’t solid black.
In this tutorial, I’ll be sharing all my secrets and techniques—though, to be honest, they’re actually quite simple and practical!
Lineart: Choosing the Right Brush
Before we get to coloring, it’s important to have your lineart ready—since it’s the final step of the inking process. But did you know that the brush you use for your lineart has a huge impact on the style and overall feel of your artwork?
If you’re aiming for a manga pen effect, you can try the regular G-Pen, which comes pre-installed in Clip Studio Paint. It’s clean and practical, but be mindful of double strokes or stray marks when lifting the pen.
For a digital art feel with soft, semi-transparent lines—commonly seen in webtoons—I recommend using brushes like this one:
If you prefer a hand-drawn, textured look, a lineart brush with some graininess can make a big difference. I suggest using a pencil, mechanical pencil, dry pastel, or acrylic-style brush.
My favorites ones are those:
My Personal Secret for a Traditional Look
To achieve a more rustic, traditional feel, I use a single versatile brush for both sketching and inking—this saves me time (laugh). It’s fluid, responsive to pen pressure, and allows for soft, blended strokes with light pressure while creating deeper, darker lines with more pressure.
Let's compare three different brushes so you can see how the choice of lineart brush directly impacts the final coloring process. After all, what we’re aiming for is clean, fluid, yet soft and organic lineart, with subtle tonal variations that enhance the overall effect.
Here’s the same lineart done with three different brushes:
While the G-Pen (pre-installed in Clip Studio Paint) creates a smooth stroke, it’s completely opaque, meaning there’s no transparency in the lines. This makes shading difficult, unlike the other two brushes—Sprouty Crayon 0.1 and Pencil Like—which offer more flexibility.
For my webtoon, I use Pencil Like—my favorite brush for both sketches and lineart. It’s fluid, responsive to pen pressure, and allows for soft, blended strokes with light pressure while creating deeper, darker lines with more pressure. The only downside? It doesn’t offer much stroke variation, meaning you’ll need to manually thicken lines by adding extra strokes.
Now, let’s compare how each brush behaves after coloring, applying the steps I’ll explain shortly:
See how the G-Pen has little to no tonal variation in the lineart due to its opacity? Meanwhile, the other two blend better with the colors, showing subtle shifts—especially in skin tones and the purple and yellow hues of the hoodie.
I emphasize lineart first because it plays a huge role in the final coloring process. A dense brush like the G-Pen may not work as well with the techniques I’ll show next. Instead, opt for a less opaque, more blendable brush for smoother, more natural results.
That said, any brush that isn’t overly dense will work just fine—so don’t stress too much!
Lineart Time!
For the lineart, we’ll start with pure black (R 0, G 0, B 0). Adjusting its tone will come later.
I personally prefer using a normal layer for lineart instead of a vector layer. This choice makes sense for my workflow. If you use a vector layer, I can’t guarantee the next steps will work the same way—feel free to test it and see what works for you.
✦ All drawings on your page should be on the same layer. If they aren’t, you’ll have to repeat the process for every separate lineart layer, which will add a lot more work. ✦
Speaking of layers, don’t forget to rename your lineart layer as LINEART BASE (or any other name that makes it easy to identify).
Setting up your layers properly
With the lineart done, let’s organize everything into folders and layers like this:
﹂ Lineart and Colors Folder
⤷ Lineart layer
↳ Colors Folder
⤷ Color layer
Step by Step:
1. Create a folder for Lineart and Colors.
2. Place your LINEART BASE layer inside this folder.
3. Inside the Lineart and Colors folder, create another folder and rename it COLORS.
4. Create a normal layer inside the subfolder for colors and rename it COLORS BASE.
✎ Any additional effect layers (Normal, Multiply, Darker Color, etc.—except Overlay and Glow) should also go inside this subfolder.
5- Select the LINEART BASE layer and set it as a REFERENCE LAYER.
Now, your Layers panel should look like this:
Now we’re ready for the second stage: coloring.
Base colors - Coloring
Now, let’s select the Colors layer and apply the base solid colors for our webtoon. For this, I use this tool:
This magic wand tool allows you to fill large areas with ease. You simply select the area, and it fills it automatically. But there are a few things to keep in mind:
✎ The tool uses the REFERENCE LAYER (in this case, your Lineart layer) to guide the selection.
✎ To color an entire area, you need to trace outside of it. It’s crucial that there are no incomplete lines; otherwise, the tool won’t work. If the area isn’t fully enclosed or properly selected, the tool won’t fill it (unlike the paint bucket, which just spills color everywhere).
See how:
If it still doesn’t work well, you can change the tool settings to use a layer below as the reference. This way, the tool will work on any area you trace, as long as there’s a layer beneath your color layer filled with some base color.
Just like this:
Note that the fill won’t be completely automatic inside the shapes. You need to be careful to trace within the shape as perfectly as possible, but there is still a small margin of error. It takes a little longer, but it's just as effective.
✎ If you still have trouble getting used to the tool or find it hard to use, you can always switch to a high-hardness brush to manually fill in the spaces:
✎ Keep in mind that filling manually can make the process slower.
Here are some brushes that can help with manually filling in colors:
Now, our panel should look like this:
I usually start by coloring the characters with base colors (using the magic wand tool above, or sometimes a hard brush, or even a blendable one). Once I have a sense of how the color palette will work, I move on to the next step: adjusting the lineart tone.
You might ask, "Why didn’t you adjust the tone earlier?"
The reason is that without a defined palette—without seeing the solid colors—I can’t tell whether the lineart needs a warmer or cooler tone. So, I wait until I have a clearer idea of the main colors to adjust the lineart more easily.
Adjusting the Lineart tone
With the base colors ready (or almost ready!), it’s time to adjust the lineart so it’s not too dark and to give it more nuance. This will make your webtoon feel much more charming!
Here’s how:
Step by Step:
1. Duplicate the Lineart BASE layer.
2. Select the Lineart OVERLAY layer and go to EDIT > TONAL CORRECTION > GRADIENT MAP.
3. In the new window that opens, click the black box below the options [Color: Main drawing color/Sub drawing color/Specified color ⬅︎ this option must be selected].
Choose the color that will be applied over the Lineart BASE.
Personally, I choose dark red, as this works with nearly all skin tones, hair, and eye colors. If you want a cooler tone for the lineart, you can go for cobalt blue or deep purple.
4. After that, with the Lineart OVERLAY layer still selected, change its blending mode from Normal to Overlay.
5. Next, select the Lineart BASE layer and reduce its opacity from 100% to around 60-70%. Adjust manually to your liking.
Now, your lineart is adjusted! Don’t forget to lock both layers at the end of this process,
And that step is done! Look how the lineart looks so much softer now:
✎Now, anything you do in the BASE COLORS layer beneath the LINEART layers will impact the tone of the lineart. Areas that should be darker need to be adjusted using the BASE COLORS layer.
Using the BASE COLORS layer, I paint in the eyelash and eyebrow areas, adjusting the tone to a more natural one, like this:
If you're still not satisfied with the Lineart OVERLAY tone, you can adjust it further by going to EDIT > TONAL CORRECTION > HUE, SATURATION, LIGHTNESS... or simply pressing Ctrl and U. Use the Hue slider to refine the tone to your liking.
Now, let’s complete our process by making a good rendering!
Rendering
Now, you can add different tones to the solid colors.
Personally, I do this step in the same BASE COLORS layer to make the process easier and more streamlined. However, you can always create layers above the BASE COLORS layer and use them for halftones, shadows, blush, etc.
For good rendering, I recommend my own multi-purpose brush:
It has a smooth, watercolor-like texture, but if you apply more pressure, it becomes thicker and denser, allowing you to achieve solid color density. It’s also a perfect blender. You won’t need to keep switching brushes! With just this one, you can achieve all the effects needed for skin, clothing, hair, blush, highlights, and more!
Of course, feel free to explore other brushes and tools available in Clip Studio’s vast Assets catalog.
With gentle strokes, start adding different tones to your base colors. Since you're working on a webtoon, the rendering doesn’t need to be overly detailed—just enough to create contrast and draw attention.
Some webtoon artists prefer to focus mainly on shading the skin in most panels, saving detailed rendering for key moments in the story.
Now, this is how our panel looks:
After a solid round of rendering—adding shadows, water effects, details on trees, grass, and all the essential elements—it’s time for the special effects!
Adding highlights, shadows and Special effects
If you want to add highlights using ADD (GLOW) or OVERLAY layers, you’ll need to create these layers above the Lineart and Colors folder. Your layer setup should look like this:
Glow
Overlay
LineartandColors(Folder)
LineartOVERLAY
LineartBASE
Colors(Subfolder)
- BaseColors
This way, anything painted on the GLOW or OVERLAY layers will affect both the colors and the lineart layers.
Take a look on my own setup layer:
✎ If you want to add effects behind the Base Colors layer—such as flowers, patterns, or background tones—place them in layers below the Lineart and Colors folder.
So, that’s what our panel looks like after adding the highlights and the tree shadowing:
We just need a few more effects and final touches to make it perfect!
Final Adjustments
Softening the Lineart
First, I'll adjust the Lineart BASE layer by shifting the chromatic triangle cursor towards gray. This will lighten certain areas of the lineart, making the lines appear softer and more delicate.
Since the base lineart is still black but set to 66% opacity, using a lighter shade, like a medium gray, will make the lineart appear lighter. This way, the overlay lineart will stand out more, giving the impression that the lineart is colored.
You can soften areas with more light exposure or places where you want a lighter, more delicate look. I usually do this on clothing folds, inner body lines (like inside the ears), etc.
Use the blending brush for a more organic result.
Adding Atmospheric Effects
Webtoons, like illustrations, rely on visual storytelling, and the images should enhance the mood of the scene. In this case, our characters are having a picnic at Ibirapuera Park, a warm and special moment. Since the tone is soft and beautiful—matching the shoujo art style—we can add some dreamy atmosphere with subtle sparkles or "kirari" effects.
There are many assets like these available in Clip Studio Assets, but I'll share the ones I used for this scene, along with another effect I frequently use in my webtoon (even though it’s not featured here).
The kirari effects are made in the GLOW LAYER.
To complement the purple trumpet tree (Ipê Roxo) in the background, I’m also adding some flower effects. Unfortunately, there weren’t any ready-made Ipê Roxo brushes available (laughs), and I didn’t have time to draw my own, so I used this brush instead:
✎Remember to paint the flowers on a Normal layer above the Lineart and Colors folder and under the Glow layer.
Oh! I'll also color the panel lines to better match the overall composition.
And now, here’s how our scene looks:
Wrapping Up
I hope you found this tutorial helpful and easy to follow! If you enjoyed it, don’t forget to like and share it with anyone who might need it. If something wasn’t clear, feel free to ask in the comments—I’ll do my best to help!
Thank you for reading, and happy creating! 😊
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