🌜Presentation 🌜

This is my first post, and my third day using this program. Still learning the ropes of it and such, but I find useful to help newbies who stumbled with the same problems as me 🌜

 

One of the features I missed as an illustrator and photographer was the ability to create a Rule of Thirds template that would fit on any size of canvas, without the hassle of dragging lines and using rulers to divide by hand every single new canvas I create. I found out a way to make CLIP STUDIO PAINT to make that for me by using a similar system analogue to the one I use on other softwares I own. Lets get to it.

🌜Preparing the stage 🌜

First, in order to create the "1 click rule of thirds", we must prepare a few settings. We need to locate the "Auto Action" panel. If you don't know where it is or you happened to close it by accident, you can relocate it by going to "Window" > "Auto Action". It is close to the bottom of the "Window" list.

Once we locate the "Auto Action" panel, now we are going to create an automated action which will draw a clean Rule of Thirds with one single click, but first we need to record the procedure or else the software will not know what you expect it to do for you.

 

By "default" we have a list of automated procedures that can come in handy some time, but we are not going to use this list. We are going to create a "custom" procedure. Click the "Create new auto action set" icon.

Since this is for a Rule of Thirds procedure, the name must be something related to it.

Just ignore I named it in Spanish 🌜

After you create it, a new empty action named "Auto action 1" will ask you to give it a name. It doesn't matter what name you give it, just try to stick to the theme of what we are doing (if you want to rename it just click once in the name and change it to whatever you see fit).

We are almost done preparing the tool to gather our steps. Up to this point we are ready to record our steps, but since I know more than one person will have different settings in their CLIP STUDIO PAINT "Preferences", lets contemplate that first.

🌜Checking "Preferences" 🌜

This step is important. At the start, CLIP STUDIO PAINT give us default settings in our "Preferences". You can check them out by clicking "File" > "Preferences".

(or shortcut CTRL + K)

If we go to the label "Layer/Frame", we will find out the properties for "framing" our canvas (in the good sense). Honestly, I can barely remember the default settings for "Frame Border". This part will tell the thickness of the frame for our Rule of Thirds template. If you have some custom numbers here, I recommend to note them down because we need to change them to something different.

 

I found out that a thickness of 3x3 px would suffice for a clean rule. If you want the lines to be thinner, you can input 2x2 or 1x1, but I believe thicker lines than 3x3 are quite obtrusive, and thinner than that they are quite inconspicuous and hard to the eye. 3 is a sweet spot.

When you are ready, save the changes by clicking the "OK" button.

🌜Recording our steps 🌜

Now that we have all set, lets ask the "Auto Action" tool to record the steps it will reproduce.

 

First make sure you are on a clean new canvas to be safe. Resolution doesn't matter.

Clean canvas with a random tool selected and "Auto Action" prepared to record.

 

Remember, after we click that shiny rec-button (the small red circle at the bottom of the "Auto Action" panel) almost "everything" we do inside the software will be recorded until we click the stop-button. The steps are straight-forward, be mindful to don't stray from the order I give or the results will not be the ones you desire.

 

1. Click the rec-button at the bottom of the "Auto Action" panel.

2. Go to "Layer" > "New Layer" > "Frame Border folder".

3. Name it something meaningful like (Rule of Thirds). Line width of 3 px with no "Anti-aliasing" (it doesn't matter if it draws a border or not but it looks cleaner to me with a border if you wonder why I left it ticked).

4. [[THIS STEP IS OPTIONAL]] - Sometimes for the sake of order, it is good to give layers different colours to define the uses of each one or the stage of development in them. For procedural layers like this one, I like to use "Purple". You can change this by clicking the gray square on the top of the "Layer" panel.

5. Go to "Layer" > "Ruler - Frame" > "Divide frame border equally"

6. Here make sure to leave "Number of vertical divisions" and "Number of horizontal divisions" ticked, and input 3x3. Click "Fit to Side Direction of Frame" so that our template will fill any size and shape of canvas. Lastly, click "Not change" so that it doesn't create a new layer but modify the one we created. Click "OK" when done.

7. Click the stop-button on the bottom of the "Auto-Action" panel.

You are finished! 👏

The sample above is with the default white paper layer invisible, to make the lines to stand out. As you can see, the lines fit the thirds and all the thirds are transparent so you can see below the layer 🌜

 

These steps will be recorded forever in your "Auto Action" panel, and whenever you click the play-button with your newly custom steps, it will repeat all the previous steps for you. One click to save time forever! ⏰

 

It will work on any canvas, be it square or widescreen. Just remember, if you ever change the "Preferences", as mentioned before, it will affect these lines and make them unsuitably thicker. Wish the "Auto Action" could record the changes in "Preferences" too, but it currently doesn't :(

🌜Afterword 🌜

I hope this tip was useful to newbies and veterans alike. It is my first contribution to the CLIP STUDIO community. If you liked it, show the love with a 💝

 

Con mucho aprecio:

 

Lunática ~ 🦉