Compatible with Clip Studio Paint Ver. 3.1.0

Note: If your app was first installed as Ver. 1.10.9 or earlier, your sub tool groups may be different.

 

1. Digital painting workflow

Here, we will introduce the basic steps of digital painting.

While it is possible to paint in a manner similar to traditional mediums, digital painting offers unique features that can broaden your horizons.

 

The basic digital painting workflow combines several tools, as shown below.

 

 

 

Basic painting workflow

 

(1) Paint the base color with the Brush tool. There isn’t any need to be accurate at this point. Try to lay down the rough shapes of the piece.

 

(2) To blend colors smoothly, use the Blend tool or a color mixing brush, and lightly brush over the edges.

Skip this procedure if you want to keep the brush textures.

 

(3) Clean up and adjust the shape outlines with the Eraser tool. If the background is already painted, use the background color for this step. Repeat steps (1) to (3) until you are satisfied with the results.

 

(4) Use the Brush tools or Pen tools with a small brush size to draw the details and highlights.

 

2. Brush features

Let's examine features of the brushes we used in the previous section.

 

 

 

(1) Color mixing/overlapping brushes

 

Clip Studio Paint offers brushes that can mix or overlap colors.

 

Color mixing brushes

Most of the sub tools in the Thick Paint group under Brush are of this type. If you blend in blue over yellow, you can change the color while painting.

 

Color overlapping brushes

Many of the sub tools in the Watercolor and India ink groups of the Brush tool, the Airbrush tool, and the Pen tool are of this type. If you paint blue over yellow, the colors will overlap without blending. If you paint with a brush with a high opacity, only the color painted on top will be visible.

 

Note: How to distinguish a color mixing brush from a color overlapping brush

Brushes that mix colors have the Color mixing setting checked. If you look at the Sub Tool Detail palette > Ink category and notice that this function is checked, then that brush is a mixing brush.

When the Color mixing option is active, you can use the Amount of paint, Density of paint and Color stretch options to fine-tune how colors will mix. Check “4. Customizing brushes” for further details on these settings.

 

 

 

(2) Color blending brushes

If you want to blend colors or smooth the border between colors, use the sub tools Painterly blender (Soothing watercolor), Wet bleed blender, or Textured blender under the Blend tool.

If you first installed the app as Ver. 1.10.9 or earlier, the above sub tools are stored in the Watercolor group and Real watercolor group of the Brush tool.

 

These sub tools cannot be used to color or draw on their own.

 

 

 

(3) Eraser brushes

If you want to erase or modify your drawing, use the Eraser tool sub tool or the Brush tool > Watercolor > Watery brush. You can also use it to lighten the color or adjust the shape.

 

Note: Master transparent color!

In Clip Studio Paint, any drawing tool can be used as an eraser by setting the drawing color to transparent.

You can select the transparent color from the bottom of the Tool palette or select the checkerboard pattern tile on a color palette.

 

Try the preset brushes out, and find one that you like!

 

3. Using the right brush for the job

Although Clip Studio Paint comes with various preset brushes, a lot more are available on “Assets,” the Clip Studio Paint material sharing service.

 

Clip Studio Assets

 

You can access Clip Studio Assets from the menu at the top right of the screen after launching Clip Studio.

 

On tablets: Open the pop-up menu icon on the top of the screen and tap Search for materials to open Clip Studio Assets in your browser.

 

Brushes can be created from scratch, but we recommend beginners to use premade brushes on Assets.

 

How to use downloaded materials

Brush materials downloaded from Clip Studio Assets can be installed in the Download section of the Tool palette.

Select the brush from the Sub tool palette > Download to use it right away.

If you first installed your app as Ver. 4.1.4 or earlier, you can turn on automatic installation of brush materials by selecting Auto-install downloaded materials from the Sub Tool palette menu.

 

You can also auto-install materials other than brushes in the Material palette. Select which material types you want to auto-install from the Material palette menu > Auto-install settings.

 

Note: How to use an asset will vary depending on the type of material. Learn how to import and use downloaded materials in the following articles:

How to download materials

How to use downloaded materials

 

4. Customizing brushes

Once you’ve learned how to use brushes, let’s try customize them and make them easier to use.

Configure the brush settings from the Tool Property palette or the Sub Tool Detail palette.

 

The Tool Property palette displays the main settings for the selected sub tool.

The Sub Tool Detail palette has all the customizable properties of the sub tool.

Note: If you cannot find these palettes, you can access them from the Window menu.

Note: On the smartphone version, you can tap the button on the lower right of the Tool Property palette to open the Sub Tool Detail palette.

 

Note:

To display a setting in the Tool Property palette, select the eye icon next to it in the Sub Tool Detail palette.

 

Depending on the brush, changing some options might not make a big difference, and some brushes may not have some specific options.

Remember, you can test the tool while configuring the settings!

 

Adjusting the paint opacity

If you need to adjust the opacity of the paint, change the values of Ink > Opacity in the Sub Tool Detail dialog, which you can open by clicking the wrench icon on the bottom right of the Tool Property palette. The paint becomes thicker when the opacity level is high and thinner when it is low.

 

Supported default sub tools: All drawing sub tools.

 

If you reduce the opacity level, you can mix the selected color with the color below it.

 

For brushes without Color mixing on, you can change the settings to control opacity with pen pressure or stroke speed by clicking the Opacity Dynamics icon to the right of Opacity.

 

If the Color mixing option is active: Adjust the opacity level by editing the Density of paint > Density of paint Dynamics settings.

Note: If you have Color mixing > Smear set, please make use of the Opacity Dynamics settings.

 

Darkening painted colors

If your colors seem a little dull after being mixed, increase the value of Amount of paint.

 

Supported default sub tools:

Drawing sub tools with the Color mixing option such as the Watercolor group, the Thick Paint group > Gouache, and Dry Gouache.

 

If you do not want to mix the base colors, create a layer above and paint on it. Learn how to use layers in “Basic Layer Techniques for Digital Drawing”.

 

Creating dry strokes

If you want to make dry looking or waterless strokes, lower the Brush Density (flow rate) value.

 

Supported default sub tools:

Drawing sub tools such as the Watercolor group > Flat watercolor brush, the Realistic Watercolor group > Flat Watercolor Brush, and the Thick Paint group > Gouache, Dry Gouache, have brush tip images.

 

Making thinner lines

If you want to narrow the starting and ending point for the brush, adjust the Brush Size > Dynamics.

Reduce the Minimum value of the Pen pressure to 0 and change the shape of the Settings of pen pressure curve as shown below.

 

Supported default sub tools: Sub tools that change their Brush Size according to the pen pressure.

 

Everyone uses pens with different pressure. We suggest users to keep adjusting until you find the right pen pressure settings for you.

 

Changing the brush tip

You can change the brush tip image from the Sub Tool Detail palette > Brush tip category.

 

Click on the Tip shape > Material and click on the bottom right icon to display the list of adjustable settings.

 

Supported default sub tools: All drawing sub tools.

 

The settings of the following tools are: Material: Gouache (default), Material: Real Pencil, Material: Brush, Material: Petit Fog.

 

You can register materials as a brush tip image from the Material palette > Image Material > Brush or your own image materials. For more details, refer to the following articles.

Importing a hand-drawn material and applying it to a tool

 

Creating a flat brush

To use a flat brush, reduce the value of the Brush tip > Thickness to 50 or less, and set the Dynamics of Direction to Pen direction.

 

Supported default sub tools: All drawing sub tools.

 

If lowering the thickness creates gaps between the strokes, close them by setting the Gap of the strokes to Narrow.

Note: This may slow down the program.

 

Creating a spray brush

If you want to scatter and splatter the paint onto the canvas, apply the Spraying effect option.

 

Supported default sub tools: All drawing sub tools.

 

Change the particle size with the Particle size option, and widen the gap between particles by reducing the Particle density and increasing the Brush Size.

 

Changing the paper texture

You can change the texture via the Texture settings in the Tool Property palette.

Note: Pressing the trash can icon will delete the texture.

 

Supported default sub tools: All drawing sub tools.

 

Displaying the paper texture when printing

The sub tools with Texture initially applied are suited for 72dpi digital publishing. When drawing artwork that is meant to be printed, we recommend you to set the Texture > Scale ratio to a larger value.

 

Tap the “+” to the left of the Tool palette’s Texture Density to display the Scale ratio. The scale ratio is set to 28 by default. For printing (350dpi), we recommend a minimum scale ratio of 50.