The convenience and fun of digital art with professional illustrators of “Small S”

In this series, professional illustrators will introduce the convenience and fun of digital art to other artists who rarely draw on computers.

 

When first creating art, many people turn to the familiarity of pen and paper, but many are interested in digital art as well.

However, you might be worried about how to use the tools and software.

 

Therefore, this series introduces the basics of Clip Studio Paint so that beginners can use it with ease to enjoy creating their art.

Clip Studio Paint is a drawing software that is often used by contributors to the Japanese illustration magazine “Small S” as well as professional illustrators.

It has the advantage of allowing artists to easily do things that are difficult or even impossible when working traditionally. The software has a lot of useful functions to learn.

 

Over this series, you can learn and draw alongside real beginners to digital drawing software as we introduce some tips for digital art!

 

Artists for Part 2: Kabako and Asamane

Kabako (Japanese: 河馬子): A professional artist who uses Clip Studio Paint. Her work has also been used in social games and featured in “Kikan S” and “Musume Type” magazines.

Asamane (Japanese: あさまね): A junior-high school student who normally inks with traditional pens and colors with watercolors or Copic markers. She has created digital art on smartphones using “ibisPaint”. Next year, she will go to a specialized school in order to become a professional artist.

 

 

 

Continuing from the previous part, the artists for this part are Asamane, a newbie to digital art and Kabako, a professional illustrator who uses Clip Studio Paint for her work.

 

We will watch Asamane create her first art with Clip Studio Paint and focus on some important points for beginners.

Kabako will help out on more difficult areas.

While giving advice on how to create digital art, Kabako will show us her own drawing process.

 

Watch these two artists create their works and try out Clip Studio Paint for yourself!

 

Utilize those useful features to increase the quality of your work!

■ Change the atmosphere of the image by choosing a mode! Blending Modes

 

Hint: The useful blending mode for line art layers - [Linear Burn]

Kabako: Compared to [Normal] and [Multiply] layer modes, the line blends better with the colors. I usually set the layer mode to [Linear Burn] because it darkens the line art.

 

There are 29 different blending modes! Add various effects to your work by using those modes with efficiency.

Tonal correction layers are also available. Let’s use them for the finishing process!

 

 

 

■ Paint with all your heart; the colors will not exceed the lines! [Clip at Layer Below]

 

Kabako: An essential function!　

This function is so useful that I cannot paint without it! I think it’s exclusive to digital coloring.

No complicated settings are necessary; simply click the button on the [Layer] palette to enable clipping. A red line will appear on the clipped layers as a validation of the operation.

 

Kabako: Shaped like a “hole”, the icon is easy to recognize!

 

 

 

■ Overcome difficulties with rotation and vertical/horizontal flip! [Rotate/Invert] the view

 

Kabako: I use it especially for drawing lines and adding sharp colors to the hair.

I usually rotate the canvas to draw lines at a preferred angle. I feel that Clip Studio Paint might be the software offering the best rotating and inverting functions.

As you can change the angle within simply one click, no stress is involved!

 

You can use the horizontal flip to check the balance of the drawing.

In addition, even if you have difficulties drawing faces on a certain side, you can draw the face at a preferred angle and then flip it easily.

 

I also often flip the canvas on the vertical.

I especially use this tool for hair drawing. The lines are dull when I move the pen from the bottom to the top, but if I flip the canvas on the horizontal, I can draw beautiful lines from top to bottom. These lines tend to straighter and smoother.

 

 

 

■ Use two different functions to draw efficiently! [Eyedropper] tool

 

[Obtain display color] acquires the actual colors displayed on the screen.

[Pick up color from layer] acquires the original colors displayed on the layer, regardless of the blending mode.

 

Hint: Kabako’s essential feature - [Color History] palette

Kabako: This function records the colors you used within Clip Studio Paint.

It records the colors precedently used, allowing you to use them for different work.

I use this function frequently because it is very useful!

 

Kabako’s tips for painting/shading the hair

Kabako: Choosing a base color that is slightly brighter than the actual hair color supports a better shadow contrast. For example, I use a brown base color for dark colored hair such as black hair.

I paint a huge portion of the hair to add the first wave of shadows. If you can identify the overall volume of the hair, it becomes much easier to draw the shadows.

I draw a second wave of darker shadows with the [Multiply] blending mode. I paint those on spots always covered in shadows such as deeper parts of the hair, below the ears and on the hair whorl.

 

① Kabako: I will now start to edit the hair. I clip all the folders upon which I want to add effects and use the [Airbrush] to add skin color to the surroundings of the face. The hair color became brighter and softer.

② Kabako: I use the [Dense Watercolor] brush to add skin color on the tips of the hair around the face. The shade is sharper than the one used on step ④. I also add a glimpse of blue on the tips of the long hair to create perspective.

③ Kabako: I use blue for highlights. I set the layer to [Glow Dodge] to obtain a lighter blue. Set on the [Normal] blending mode, I also draw accents of blue below the larger highlights.

 

④ Kabako: I create a layer set on [Overlay] mode and place it above the painting layer to make the silver hair shimmer.

I am now preparing the luster color. I paint an orangeish color around the skin and blue/purple color on the depth of the hair.

When you place an [Overlay] layer with these colors on top of the left figure, the hair shines white as seen on the right figure.

 

⑤ Kabako: I add extra hairs at the back. Adding loose hair boost the smooth texture of the hair and make them stand out.

 

Asamane’s hair painting time!

Let’s paint based on Kabako’s tips!

 

 

 

■ Use the two filling tools productively!

 

[Refer to Edit Layer only]: Paints the whole part, which is useful to apply base colors.

[Refer other layers]: Useful for painting parts of the line art or patterns.

 

① Kabako: I recommend you to use a bright shade as base color of the hair. The contrast between the hair and the shadow colors increases the sharpness on the screen.

② Kabako: Even for white hair, I recommend you to add a little bit of color. This will help the shadows to blend naturally with the hair.

 

③ Asamane: I rotated the canvas to help the brush movement. As I learned to “paint larger shadows first”, I use a wide brush. I kept painting until I was satisfied.

④ Kabako: If you treat the hair portions as round cylinders when you color them, you will understand their volume better. I usually draw rounded shadows. It might be a good idea to focus on the shape of the head or the roundness of the hair chunks while coloring them.

⑤ Kabako: Don’t add shadows everywhere - only at certain spots, such as behind the neck and ears, boundaries of the hair, etc. This makes the shadow even more clear and impressive. Let’s add some thin lines to represent the darker shadows.

 

⑥ Asamane: Based on Kabako’s advice, I added shadows. As I usually paint the whole hair the same way, it felt refreshing to add shadows of different sizes within distinctive areas.

 

⑦ Kabako: Once you finish painting the shadows, extract the color of the skin with the [Eyedropper] tool. Applying the skin color with the [Airbrush] on the bangs, behind the neck, etc., increases the clarity of the skin and makes the character look more vibrant.

⑧ I add some loose hair. I am working with the G-pen to draw sharp lines. As the loose hairlines are added on top of the line art, I am making sure they are sharp enough to blend well with it.

 

Kabako’s eye-painting using various blending modes

① I draw round pupils on the [Linear Burn] layer and add shadows on the [Multiply] layer.

② I trace a highly saturated circle on the [Glow Dodge] layer and make the bottom shine.

 

③ On a normal layer, I use a soft purple color to paint the shadows of the eyelashes. I also use the same color to make the pupil brighter.

④ I use some yellow highlights on the normal layer and add some reflections on the [Add (Glow)] layer.

 

⑤ I also add some highlights on the [Color Dodge] layer. I am using a color with high saturation here.

 

Asamane’s eye-painting using different brushes

① I draw a pupil and shadows with the [Dark Watercolor] tool, a clear drawing brush.

② Then, I add some dark color on top of the eyelid’s shadow, which creates a contrast.

 

③ I add bright color to the shadows and blur the pupil with the [Highlight] airbrush.

④ I add highlights using the [G-Pen] and the [Soft] airbrush to brighten the bottom part of the eye.

⑤ Using the [Tone Scraping] tool from the decoration options, I prinkle sparkles on the pupil.

 

Kabako’s tips for painting: Add more details to the shadows to increase the perspective and three-dimensional effect

■ Adding a sense of depth and transparency to the socks

 

Kabako: Once I added some shadows to the [Multiply] layer, I paint a light blue shade.

To enhance the demarcation with the skin, I extract the skin color using the [Eyedropper] tool and draw softly on the socks line using the [Airbrush].

The skin color creates a sense of transparency, making an effective contrast with the blue shades of the back.

 

 

 

■ Improving the three-dimensional effect of the uniform’s pleats and shadows

 

Kabako: I use yellow to draw shadows on the [Normal] layer. Then, I use purple to add shadows on the largest pleats below the breast and the waist, etc.

I conclude by adjusting the colors. I create a layer set on [Glow Dodge] mode and add some blue to the area encircled by the dotted red line. The shadows became a little bluish.

 

Kabako’s finished illustration

I made little adjustments with a [Tonal Correction] layer and the work is completed!

The ears and the fluffy tail are looking so cute! Adding blue colors as shadows or reflections to elements such as the cushion and the pupil makes the character and other items blend in a nice way.

Kabako used 226 layers to draw this illustration. Not only did she divided the layers for drawing, but she utilized various blending modes depending on the layer.

 

Asamane's finishing process: Using the [Tonal Correction] layer to improve the quality of the image

I open the [Layer] menu > [New Correction Layer] > [Level Correction] dialog box and move the triangle (Control point) under the [Input] histogram. When I move the black triangle from the left to the right, the contrast of the illustration increases.

 

I also use functions such as [Color Balance] to adjust specific colors or [Hue/Saturation/Luminosity] to change the overall color tones.

 

▼ The color tone was blueish, transparent and giving a cold impression before the adjustments.

▲ This is the color tone afterward. The overall saturation increased, and the skin turned a little bit red for a more vivid illustration.

 

Asamane’s finished illustration

The beautiful white hair and the texturized skin are the strongest points of Asamane’s illustration.

Although Clip Studio Paint was new to me, I enjoyed using the clipping function, the blending modes, and various brushes through the whole creation process!

 

 

 

■ Comments from Asamane

I drew my first digital illustration in this lesson. Thanks to Kabako and her advice, I managed to complete my piece of work!

I might have only drawn one piece, but I think I’ve learned a lot from this lesson.

I used to blur the shadows of the skin, but I understand now that sharp ones are a way better! I also think that controlling and limiting the number of shadows on the hair is a great idea.

Although I won’t study digital drawing until I graduate, I want to try again on my own using the techniques I learned today.

 

 

 

■ Kabako: For those who want to draw

All drawing tools have something in common: spending more time using and practicing each of them improves the quality of work!

Clip Studio Paint offers many useful functions for illustration production.

When I started drawing, I did not know how to use all of them, so I tried various functions, brushes, layer modes, etc.

I think this software can express so many things even if I cannot understand all the functions. Even if you are not comfortable with digital drawing, I believe that you should try it to get new skills as mastership is achieved within the practice and knowledge of many different things.

In the next part, other useful functions will be introduced via a brand-new illustration!　We hope you will enjoy it!

 

 

 

What is Small S (スモールエス)?

It is a Japanese illustration magazine first published in 2005. With the slogan "A magazine for tutorials and submissions", it features special articles with step-by-step tutorial guides for illustration making, alongside many illustrations submitted by readers. It includes artworks made both traditionally and digitally. Readers can submit their illustrations online.

Note: The website is only available in Japanese.