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Clip Studio Paint 4 introduces a long-awaited feature: the Puppet Warp tool. It’s perfect not just for subtle tweaks, but also for bold, creative transformations.

 

Most artists use it for adjusting poses or fixing proportions, but this tool goes far beyond that!

In this tutorial, we’ll explore how to use Puppet Warp’s options to not only refine your work but also inspire new artistic possibilities!

🟨 Understanding Puppet Warp

💡 First thing first: like with any transformation, back up your original layers before using Puppet Warp.

 

You can find the Puppet Warp tool under Edit > Transform > Puppet Warp.

 

💡 For quicker access, consider creating a shortcut for it, or adding it to the command bar or Quick Access palette:

Puppet warp can be applied to:

 

📌 one or more raster layers

📌 a folder containing raster layers

 

⚠️ If your artwork is in vector format, you’ll need to rasterize it first.

 

 

🟧 Mesh and Pins

Once activated, the tool generates a mesh based on your layer’s transparency. If a layer contains separate elements, like two characters, and there's enough transparent space between them, Puppet Warp treats them independently:

Clicking on the mesh adds pins that act as transformation joints:

 

📌 Dragging the center of a pin moves the area.

📌 Dragging the circle around a pin rotates it.

Combine moving and rotating for best results!

📌 A single pin can move and rotate isolated parts without deformation:

🟧 Simple Example: Waving Arm

To lock a section in place, add at least two pins at either end of the connection 1️⃣, and inside the locked area 2️⃣. Experiment with pin placements—use Ctrl-Z as needed to find the best locking formation for the case.

To bend the arm, place pins at the elbow and wrist, and move and rotate them as needed:

📌 If the shape warps oddly, add more pins to maintain structure.

📌 You can remove pins by Alt-clicking them.

📌 Select more pins at once:

 

🔸 Drag over the pins you want to select (you need to start outside the mesh).

🔸 Click pins while holding Shift.

💡 Temporarily hide the mesh and pins by holding Space:

🟧 Options

The Sub Tool Detail palette gives us additional options:

 

📌 Change the Mesh density according to the level of detail. If the warping makes jaggy shapes, try raising the mesh density.

📌 The Expansion setting controls how the mesh connects:

🔸 High Expansion connects elements so they move as one unit (but doesn’t connect objects completely separated by transparency - the boy’s and the girl’s meshes won’t connect).

🔸 Low Expansion keeps areas separate, good for finer details.

📌 Uncheck Show Mesh to hide mesh but keep the pins:

📌 Rotation angle allows setting a specific angle to a pin:

📌 The Order buttons let you decide which overlapping parts go to the front:

🟨 Puppet Warp and Liquify: A Dynamic Duo

The Liquify tool complements Puppet Warp perfectly. While Puppet Warp handles broader structural changes, Liquify is great for subtle refinements afterward:

🟨 Tips for Effective Use

🟧 Shape Clarity

Figures with non-overlapping parts are easier to manipulate. On the contrary, a character with hands in pockets and shoes touching limits the tool’s ability to isolate limbs. You’ll still be able to adjust the overall posture, but not each arm or leg:

🟧 Working with Loose Drawings

Since Puppet Warp relies on transparency, it doesn’t work well with open shapes…

 

Enclose your lineart or fill it with color first:

🟧 Separate Layer Strategy

The locking system isn’t flawless. To avoid distortion at the connection, place body parts, like wings, limbs, or clothing accessories, on separate layers and warp them individually for more control:

🟨 Practical and Creative Uses

🟧 Add Motion to Repeated Elements

Puppet Warp excels at creating movement in ribbon-like shapes. Start with a straight version of an element, then duplicate it and apply pins to create dynamic variations:

📌 Low Expansion value allows you to move the whisker separately:

📌 When parts overlap in the wrong order, use the Order buttons in the Sub Tool Detail palette to control their front-to-back stacking:

If your pins become too messy, remove and re-place them as needed:

Use Liquify for final cleanup.

 

 

🟧 Surreal Landscapes

Puppet Warp is fantastic for building surreal or whimsical environments. Let’s create dancing skyscrapers by adding, moving and rotating pins gradually from the base up:

📌 To make a knot, use the Order buttons to bring loops to the front and back:

Use additional pins to smooth out bulges. Once done, refine the shape with Liquify and fix the lights.

 

 

🟧 Warping Sound Effects

Want your sound effect text to flow with the scene? Rasterize a copy of your text layer. Use Puppet Warp pins to bend and stylize individual letters:

To warp the entire word as one shape, raising the Expansion value doesn’t help us…

⭐ This is the trick:

 

📌 Draw a rectangle around the word on a new layer

📌 Group the rectangle and the text layer in a folder

📌 Lower the rectangle’s opacity or hide it

📌 Activate Puppet Warp

Now, Puppet Warp will recognize the whole folder’s shape, even if the guide layer is hidden!

 

Thanks to this trick, you can bend the text into an arch or wave:

🟧 Pattern Wrapping on Clothes

To make a tattoo or graphic design wrap naturally around an arm or fold, you can either turn it into a ribbon brush, or Puppet Warp it.

 

If the pattern design isn’t continuous, add an extra hidden layer to enclose the whole design, like when warping the whole text effect above.

 

Use gradual pin placements to bend the shape to follow curves or folds:

Liquify helps refine wrinkles and overlaps:

🟧 Subtle Tweaks

Sometimes an object needs just a nudge. Puppet Warp is great for minor adjustments to clouds, background scenery or various effects from fire and water to aurora.

 

Instead of redrawing, simply warp the elements slightly into better flow or alignment:

🟧 Adjusting Character Poses

The most common but incredibly powerful use of Puppet Warp is pose tweaks, especially for comics and webtoons.

 

💡 To avoid lags or unintended warping, make a merged copy of the character.

 

Use pins to fix stiff angles and make the pose more expressive:

💡 Reuse similar panels by tweaking the same artwork—great for saving time without compromising quality!

🟧 Dynamic 3D objects

You can apply Puppet Warp and Liquify to rasterized 3D objects too. This helps add dramatic faux perspective or a fish-eye effect to vehicles and other props:

The minivan model used:

🟧 Animation

Simple animated loops like a flickering flame can be created by duplicating an image and warping each frame differently with Puppet Warp and Liquify:

A base for character animation loop created with only 2 puppet-warped duplicates of parts (body, wings and scarf, on separate layers), which were assigned to 4 frames.

🟧 Drawing Aids

Puppet warp can also help you in unexpected ways—the animator needed this elephant’s trunk straightened, but imagining the lights would be hard. I first drew it curved to get the lights right, straightened it with the puppet warp and added final fixes in the straightened version:

🟨 Conclusion

Puppet Warp isn’t just a fixer—it’s a powerful creative tool. With practice, it becomes second nature in your digital art process.

 

So start experimenting and bring your art to life in new ways!

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🌟⭐✨ If you enjoyed this tip, it will make me happy if you give a like so that I know I’m doing things right, eventually leave a comment on where I could improve :) ✨⭐🌟