Prepare Your Canvas

By default, Clip Studio adds a white "paper sheet" to the background of our canvas, but if you double-click on the image of that layer, the following window will appear.

Choose a dark color, preferably. It will help to better appreciate how the neon effect is progressing.

Click "OK" and you're done! You'll be ready to start.

Draw the Shape You Need

Or you can also use any font you have, if you need to apply the effect to text! I will choose a rounded font so that it resembles a neon bar more.

I recommend using pure white instead of a light color of the one you are going to use for two reasons: it makes it easier to change the neon color later, in case you change your mind, and; it will give an effect more similar to that of a neon bar.

With 3 shapes and 1 text, I will illustrate the example.

Duplicate Your Layer

Once you are sure your shape is ready, and you are prepared to apply the neon effect, duplicate the layer.

You can find the option by right-clicking on the layer. On my part, I have configured a quick access, but that is a topic for another tutorial.

Note: For TEXT LAYERS, I recommend making a copy of your text in case you change your mind and need to modify it later.

 

But it is not a mandatory step.

For the text you are going to use, you will need to rasterize it, and then duplicate it.

 

You can find the rasterize option by right-clicking on the layer. This will be useful for it to act as a drawing layer and not as a text layer.

Enlarge and Color Your Duplicated Layer

You can easily select your shapes with CTRL + click on the IMAGE of the layer you want to select.

Once selected, you need to look for the "Expand selected area" option. You may have it in your quick access shortcuts, but if not, you can find it by going to the "Select" tab at the top of the program.

You can choose the size to increase that best suits you, but I recommend not putting a very high number.

 

I will increase it by 5 px.

Keep the expansion type on the second type, and click OK.

And fill with a saturated color of your preference.

Don't be afraid if it's too strong; you'll see how it adapts.

Gaussian Blur

To start, first you will have to duplicate your layer containing the colored shape, so that you have 3 layers according to your shape:

1. Original white

2. Enlarged colored

3. Duplicated colored

Position yourself on the second layer (the enlarged colored one) and look for the Gaussian Blur option in the Filter tab at the top of the program.

The following window will appear, where you can choose the blur level. In my case, I will choose 10. I recommend keeping the blur level light on this layer.

We will repeat this same step for the duplicated color layer, but with a much higher blur level. I will use 150.

This way the shapes will appear to affect the environment more with their glow.

Extra Tips

You can give a slightly more realistic bar effect by erasing small parts of your shape or text.

First, on your main layer, apply a layer mask, which you can find in the quick options of your layer menu.

With a soft eraser, or a soft airbrush in eraser mode, you can start removing small parts of your shapes (not completely), somewhat like removing "fill" but keeping the outer lines.

 

Prioritize this effect in corners or where your lines intersect. You can look for neon bar references to appreciate where it is more common for the glow not to be as intense.

Another effect you can add with this layer mask is to erase parts of your lines and leave them rounded where they don't connect, giving the sensation of being bars.

I recommend that if you are going to erase parts of your lines, do it before duplicating layers and applying Gaussian blur, so that your duplicated layers have the same shape as the original and the glow follows that shape.

To better manipulate the blur of your duplicated layers, you will need to apply the layer mask to your duplicated layer by right-clicking ON THE LAYER MASK and selecting "Apply Layer Mask":

After that, you can continue with the tutorial steps without problems.

As a final tip, you can change the layer mode of your Gaussian blur layers to "Add (Glow)" if you have shapes underneath that it might affect. This way the glow adapts according to the tones it is on top of.

With this effect activated, the intensity can be much higher, so if you consider it necessary, you can adjust the opacity of the Gaussian blur layers.

Result

And that would be the result!

 

Thank you very much for reading, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to express them in this post :)