Hello! My name is Liz Staley and I’m a long-time user of Clip Studio Paint (I started using the program back when it was known as Manga Studio 4!). I was a beta-tester on the Manga Studio 5 program and for Clip Studio Paint, and I have written three books and several video courses about the program. Many of you probably know my name from those books, in fact. I write weekly posts on Graphixly.com and on CSP Tips, so be sure to come back every week to learn more Clip Studio Tips and Tricks from me!

 

I am a sticker lover - I have a collection of stickers just waiting to be put on notebooks, sketchbooks, storage bins, and even my laptop! Stickers can give people information on who we are as people, and the same can be true for using “stickers” to give your comic characters extra personality and flair. But to add some interest, what if you want to show a sticker that has aged and started peeling? That’s where this week’s tip comes in! You can also use this to show a corner of a piece of paper that has curled over as well.

 

In this article we will cover the following topics:

Creating a Peeling Sticker Effect

 

Let’s get started!

 

 

Creating a Peeling Sticker Effect

First, you’ll need something to create your peeling effect with! I’m making a face sticker for this example, however you could also do this to make it look like a page of a book that’s curled up.

 

If your design is in multiple layers, you’ll need to flatten it. To preserve your original layers in case you make a mistake, click on Layer - Merge Visible to New Layer. Make sure that any layers you don’t want to include (such as “Paper” layers) are not visible when you do this or they will be combined into your sticker design.

 

 

Decide where you want your “roll” to end. I’m making mine pretty large for demonstration purposes. Take the Selection Area - Polyline tool and draw a selection around the area that you want to be rolled over. I decided on the bottom left area of my design.

Once you’ve made the selection around your peeling up area, click on the “Cut and paste” icon in the quick launch bar.

You should now have a layer with your original design and a new layer with the “peeling up” piece of your image on it.

On the layer with the peeling area of the design on it, click on Transform - Flip Horizontal to flip the design around.

After you flip the design horizontally, there will be a bounding box around the outside of your sticker edge. Use this bounding box to rotate and move the edge of the design into place so that it looks like it’s still part of the original design, but folded back on itself.

Once the edge is in place, click OK below the bounding box. Then, in the Layer Palette, click on the “Lock transparent pixels” icon, shown below.

Make sure white is your foreground color, then click on the bucket fill icon in the top toolbar above the image canvas. This will turn your entire “rolled” portion of the image white to look like the back of the sticker.

 

Choose a shading color in the color picker. Then, select the Gradient - Foreground to transparent tool. Drag out a gradient with the shadow toward the rolled edge to make it look curved.

 

At this point I also realized that my edge wasn’t perfectly aligned so I fixed that with the Transform tool to get it lined up.

 

 

Now I want to add a shadow to the main part of the “sticker” as well, however if I just use the gradient tool I will get a shadow on the top left area of my design because of the shape. So I used the polyline selection tool to select just the bottom area of the sticker.

Choose a shading color, then set the Foreground to Transparent gradient tool’s blending mode to “Multiply” in the Tool Property window. Switch to the bottom layer with the main part of the design on it and add a shadow under the rolled edge.

For a little extra realism, I selected the rolled edge layer again, then clicked Edit - Transform - Mesh Transform. Then I adjusted the points in the mesh to make the edge look like it was more curved instead of just folded over.

Now we’re ready to use our design! Combine the two layers into one to make it easy to move around. If you are putting the design on a flat surface, be sure to use the perspective or skew transform commands to match the perspective of the object for a more realistic look. Using the design on a curved surface like a water bottle? Use Mesh Transform to create a convincing curve!

Conclusion

Just as we use stickers on items in real life to express our interests and personalities, these little touches can bring a ton of character to your illustrations or communicate something about a character in a comic quickly to your readers!

 

For more information on CLIP Studio Paint, please visit https://www.clipstudio.net/en or https://graphixly.com