Introduction

Hello! My name is Susan and today I would like to show you three time saving tips for laying down flat colors on your comic.

 

If you are a comic or Webtoon artist then you know how much time and effort go into making comics happen, so any way we can speed up the process is very helpful!

Tip #1- Color Palette

Having a separate canvas dedicated for a color palette saves me a lot of time and energy when coloring flats! Instead of having various reference images open, you can quickly access multiple character's color palettes from one spot. Holding down ALT will temporarily switch to the eyedropper tool, so you can grab the colors as you need them. My characters tend to change outfits each chapter, so I have different layers that I can switch between while still keeping one color palette canvas.

Tip #2- Shortcuts and Toolbars

Utilizing Clip Studio Paint's shortcuts and toolbars have been a huge time saver for me. I always use the most familiar ones such as CTRL+Z, but when I found myself using a lot of the same tools over and over again, I decided to take the time to learn some of them. It may seem small but being able to quickly switch between tools at the click of a button really helps speed up the art process overall!

 

The main two shortcuts I will be using for my flat colors are 'W' for the Auto Select tool, and 'G' for the Fill Bucket tool.

Also the selection quick toolbar is an amazing feature, it has all sorts of functions to edit your selection. From here you can deselect, increase or decrease, and fill the selection area with one click, it is perfect for fast paced work!

Tip #3- Selection and Fill Tool

This is where the real work happens! Once I have my color palette set up, I start creating and naming layers for the different flat colors, it helps to stay organized! Making sure that my line art is closed off, I go in with the Auto Select tool and begin selecting the skin area. Use the 'Expand Selected Area' option on the toolbar to expand the selection by 1 pixel. This helps the colors bleed under the line art, avoiding the grainy look the fill bucket can sometimes make.

Then using the fill bucket tool, I fill the selected area with the skin color. This covers the majority of the skin, and with a little bit of touching up, it takes care of flats super fast! I repeat the same method for the other layers, until I have a finished panel.

Outro

These tips are pretty straight forward, but when combined I find myself breezing through flat colors! I hope this was helpful to you, and good luck on your creative projects! :)