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Hi there. I am going to show you how to make Mandala Art in Clip Studio Paint.

LET'S START

Firstly, open up Clip Studio Paint and create a new file. Remember the dimensions as you will need them later. Mines are 800px by 800px.

Remember to save your document somewhere.

Now you need to find the center of your canvas.

To do that you make the ruler visible by going to 'view' then click on 'ruler'. You should now see the rulers at the top and to the left of work space.

Now to find the middle of the ruler.

Remember your canvas dimensions then divide them by two. Mines were 800 by 800 so my center will be located at 400 on both rulers.

Now all you have to do is move your cursor until it lines up with 400 on both rulers. That will be your center.

Additionally, there is another way to find your center without calculating. Make sure ruler is still visible. You first go to 'view' then click on 'grid/ruler settings' then on the settings of the grid ruler, under the 'origin of grid/ruler' heading you click 'center' then 'ok'.

On the rulers, you will now see '0' (zero) placed at the middle of the ruler for you. You have to now just line up your cursor with the zero on both rulers and that will be your center of the canvas..

 

Of course, your design doesn't have to be in the middle. Just remember where the center of your art will be. But it will make it easier to use it for a brush or as a repeated pattern.

 

SYMMETRICAL RULER

Now that you now know how to find the center, it is time to make the rulers that you will need to make Mandala Art.

 

Click the ruler icon at the left bottom corner of the software.

From the sub tool, scroll down to 'Symmetrical Ruler' and click it.

 

In it's tool property below, set the number of lines to the amount of divisions you want.

I will set mine to twelve.

 

Also, ensure that the'create at editing layer' option is unchecked. This will create the ruler on a new layer and not at the editing layer-which is the one you are currently working on.

 

To create the symmetrical ruler at the center line up the cursor at the center of the rulers like what we did earlier. Then click on the canvas without letting go, drag and then unclick.

 

Notice how a new layer is created with the symmetrical ruler. I named this layer 'sym-rul'.

DRAWING

To turn off the ruler, just turn the visibility of the symmetrical ruler layer off.

Whatever you with any brush in any of the sectors will be repeated in the other sectors as well.

Also, to turn off the ruler just turn the visibility of the layer the ruler is on off. If you want to quickly clear a layer just press the 'delete' key on your keyboard.

 

ADDITIONAL RULERS

When making Mandala Art you might need more than just one ruler and it won't always need to be symmetrical.

The first one I am going to show you is easier explained when you see how it works, so I will show you how to make it first.

Duplicate your first ruler, by duplicating the layer it is on. You do that by clicking on the layer, then go to 'layer' at the top. Click it then scroll down to 'duplicate' and click it.

You will now have two rulers.

 

You are going to transform one of them by rotating it so that one of it's sectors is made up of half of two different sectors from the other original ruler.

Click one of them then, then press CTRL+T on your keyboard.

Go over to the Transformation settings and ensure that the mode is set to 'scale/rotate'.

Also, set the center of rotation to 'center.

Finally, the most important part, set the rotation angle to '15'.

How I got this 15 was by dividing 360 degrees by 12 because I have 12 line of symmetry. This results to 30. Therefore, each sector is 30 degrees. To rotate all the lines so that each one is positioned at the center of a sector on the other layer you set the rotation angle to half of 30 degrees which is 15. Thus each line will be rotated 15 degrees .

I named this layer 'sym-turn'

As shown below, you can see how each symmetrical ruler works when one is visible and the other is not verses when both are visible. You can even merge both these layers but I will keep mines separated as I might want to use only one and the other a different time while making my design.

Now for another ruler you might need for your Mandala Art. This is a Circular ruler.

 

Create a new layer. While on this layer,click the ruler icon to the left. Choose 'Special Ruler'.

Then in the tool property below, set the special ruler to 'Concentric Circle'.

Ensure that 'keep aspect ratio' is clicked. Also, click on 'create at editing layer this time so that the ruler is placed on the new layer you created.

Now that you have set up your concentric circle ruler, it is time to position it in the center of the canvas.

Line up your cursor at the center first. Then release your click with the cursor still in the center. Then left click and drag out your circle. The size doesn't matter.

I named this layer 'Circle'

Create a new layer for your art. When you click on this new layer, you will notice that the Concentric Circle ruler disappears and you can no longer draw a circle.

Go to the 'circle' layer which has the Concentric Circle ruler. On the layer to the left of the layer name, you will see a triangle. Right click it and you will see a menu pop up. Ensure that the 'Show in all layers' option is clicked.

 

After you've done that , you will notice that you can see the Concentric Circle ruler no matter what layer you are on.

However, if you want to turn the Concentric Circle ruler off, just turn the visibility of it's layer off.

 

This last ruler is really easy.

 

Now you might also want to add shapes to your design. The big ones that sort off divide your deign into sections.

You will simply create a normal Symmetrical ruler like the one you did first. But the number of lines you choose will depend on the shape you want to make.

For example, if you want to make a square you will choose four lines. To make a triangle you will choose three lines and so on.

 

When you make the ruler you want, you create a straight line across one of it;s sectors. You will see that lines will be repeated on the other sectors that connect to form a shape. Now This line line does't have to be straight or horizontal to the angle of a sector. You can even make them different widths and groups multiple of them right after the other to create cool designs.

For the video below, I created a square by using the linear ruler tool to draw a line across a sector of a four lined symmetrical ruler.

As you can see I tried to shrink the art while keeping it in the center via the transform tool at first but it kept moving it. So I later used 'Ctrl+T' for the transformation then while holding down the 'Alt' key I was able to shrink the art along the center of the canvas.

 

I then selected a brush and with the four lined symmetrical ruler layer visible I drew a straight line across one of it's sector by clicking my line start point then held down the 'Shift' key while I drew my line out to the end point of the line.

Speed paint of the entire process below.

For the circular art pattern, i just used a heart pattern brush, went to the tool property and set the 'angle' to 'Direction of line'. This allowed the individual icon of the pattern to turn depending on how you turn your line while drawing.

 

When you are done with your mandala art you can even use it to make a brush or a pattern.

Hope you found this tutorial helpful. Bye bye.