Hello everyone, Today we will go for some magic class with magical software ‘CLIP STUDIO!!’

 

This workshop tutorial will show you how to make a magical effect for the summoning scene. You can apply it to enchanted your illustration

 

Or add it to your animation scene with some transformation.

This tutorial contains 3 main parts, how to create the symmetrical summon ring with the symmetrical ruler tool, how to make the simple rotation loop with the Object tool, and how to apply it to your animation scene.

 

My tutorial mainly focuses on how to create things with Clip Studio’s tool. You can easily follow it step by step if you’re very new to the software, or get some idea to improve your working method if you’re already expert with the tool.

Let’s start!!

Video tutorial

Part 1 : Draw the summon ring

To make the summon ring is easy with a Symmetrical ruler

You can draw the symmetrical shape that can rotate in one point perfectly

However, the symmetrical ruler works better with a hand-drawn summon ring.

 

Sometimes when you add shape after, the center of rotation for the object will not the same as the center of the symmetrical ruler

 

This image is supposed to be 90 degrees rotatable but when making it in a loop, you can see that without the symmetrical ruler centered at the center of rotation, it can’t be 90 degrees perfect rotation.

(it has a bit of jumping on the looping. However, this problem can also fix with rotation to 360 degrees but you will need a longer timeline to keep it smoothly slow)

If you draw it with the grid it can be rotated perfectly

 

You can also put the symmetrical ruler draw inside the grid later with the material transformation method

Tips :

The rotation angle I mentioned here will help you optimize your file, the more narrow means you will need fewer frames to make it rotate slowly

 

From these examples: for the same speed,

If 90-degree symmetrical use 16 frames to rotate in a perfect loop,

The 60-degree symmetrical will need only 12 frames,

And the 180-degree symmetrical will need 32 frames.

 

(don’t worry, it’s not necessary just in case you need the file to be a bit smaller)

 

Make some plain design for the ring, I use the symmetrical ruler to help with the design

 

You can find it in [Ruler] subtool, here I use 8 lines symmetrical with checked on line symmetry

 

Hold [Shift] and drag the line at the middle of the canvas, it will snap to the vertical, horizontal, and 45-degree alignment of the canvas.

Here I will make 2 levels of the summon ring, to make it look detailed and detailed when moved.

 

Simply draw it in 2 layers separately

For drawing the rune that may not need a symmetrical ruler,

you can hide the symmetrical ruler or disable the snap to a special ruler on the command bar.

 

Tips: try to keep your design in a clean shape to be easy to create the vector ink on the grid. Using the geometry shape will make it a more neat look.

 

Next step, we will draw the vector line for the design

 

Enable the grid, go to [View > Grid]

 

Then set up the grid with [Grid/Ruler Setting]

Set the grid to match your work detail, give some gap between the line for easy to drag the shape.

Lower the opacity of the ink layer, and create a new vector layer

Make sure you enabled the snap to grid

Start with the circle part, I use the Ellipse tool in [Figure] subtool

Drag from the intersection on grid line that touch top and left side of the circle edge

The circle will snap to the grid, drag down until it fit the sketch line

You may adjust the grid later when working on smaller details

Here I adjust the grid to the square shape inside the circle, you can see the grid before adjustment is not lay on the line, it will not be able to draw on actual sketch

Use the rectangle or polygon tool [with rectangle figure] to draw the square shape

For other polygon shapes, you can select polygon in figure choice and set the number of corners

Create a new vector layer and draw a triangle like the way it appears on sketch

If we just draw the shape overlapped other, there will be some side of the shape that overlapped, here the bottom of the triangle will be overlapped to one side of the square

To avoid the overlapped lines, use the [Control point] tool in [Correct line] subtool with the split mode to split the side from the triangle

Then you can simply delete the line with the vector eraser mode in the eraser tool

Here is the technique I use for part rotation since Clip Studio not yet provide the feature for the move and snap object to the grid

(and I want to make it as vector layer ink, so I will teach you how to make it perfectly in Clip Studio)

 

draw circle in a new vector layer, cover all the shape

 

Hold [Shift] to select triangle layer and the blue circle layer

Create the free transform edge, [Edit > Transform > Free transform]

 

Or [Ctrl + T]

 

Now you can hold the [Shift] key and rotate the shape to the direction you want (in 45 degree step)

Click [Ok] or press [Enter] to commit the transformation

 

With this method, you can easily rotate everything around the center of rotation.

 

Copy the layer and repeat the steps, you can use the same blue circle for all the parts.

 

When finished, merge the layers, don’t merge the blue circle with the finished shape, so we can use it for other parts rotation.

For the moon shape, I draw 2 overlapped circle and erase the unwanted part

 

[important!] the shape symmetrical must be aligned with a grid line that projects from the center of rotation only!

You may see its size is too large for the sketch we made.

 

Create free transform to scale it.

[Important!] DON’T scale the image with click and drag (because it will not snap to grid) you must set the scale ratio in the tool property panel only (make sure you set the [keep aspect ratio] checked)

Hold [Ctrl] and use [↓] key (crosshair key on keyboard) to move the shape down to its position

(you can also move with [move] tool and hold shift to keep it align)

 

Make sure your drawing is still inside the blue circle

repeat the same steps as we did to the triangle parts

For some part that not able to rotate with 45-degree step, set the rotation angle in the tool property (here I’m moving the + )

I use 25 degrees for one side and -25 degrees for another side

Then I merge the layers and move like other parts, with this method, you don’t need to calculate all the rotation angle for each object

 

You can also flip it to place it on other side

The star is made like this

When finished, merge all in one layer and erase the unwanted part

The inner summon ring is finished.

Draw the outside ring with the same method

(for the rune, disabled the snap to grid and just write it inside)

If you want to change the thickness of ink, you can use the object tool

Hold [shift] key to select multiple vectors part

And in tool property, you can adjust the brush size

The summon ring is ready

Part 2 : Apply the summon ring to the illustration

In this part, I will add the moving summon ring to the illustrator I made

Prepare the file to import

 

[Right-click on the layer > File object > Convert layer to file object]

Convert with drawing area

With this method, you will easily save the file with transparent background and well crop with no change on the center of rotation.

Now time to animate it.

 

Open the file, and add more offset to the image by [edit > change canvas size]

 

Add some pixel to both dimensions of the canvas

We need to make an offset to create the blur version of the ring to use as the light effect for the summon ring.

 

Copy the layer and rasterize it

 

Then use the filter [Gaussian blur]

Adjust the strength to create the soft light effect

Then apply the rotation movement to the ring and the effect layer, I will use the layer keyframes feature to help with the transformation.

 

Create a new timeline with the setting of framerate 8 fps (for animated illustrator)

 

Select both layer and enable the layer keyframe

Select the first frame and click the create [Linear interpolation] keyframe icon (will appear in green)

Also create keyframe at the end of the timeline

Select the drawing with [object] tool at the last frame, set rotation angle in tool property panel to 360

Note: you must select only one layer to edit the value

 

Drag the last keyframe to the end of the timeline to remove stopgap of the loop

 

You will get the perfect rotation ring

(the summon ring will rotate 360 degree in 24 frames)

If the ring move too fast, you can insert more frame to make it move slower

 

Right click on the timeline and [insert frame]

 

Set the amount of frames you want to add

Now the summon ring will rotate 360 degree in 72 frames

Save the file in 2 files, the ink line and blur effect line

 

Delete the effect layer and save the file

 

Then [Ctrl+Z] to undo, delete the ink layer and use [Save as] to save in other file

Repeat the step with the inner ring too.

 

I switch the rotation angle to the inner ring because it is 90-degree symmetrical

So instead of starting from 0 and rotates to 360 in 72 frames like the outer ring,

I started from 180 and rotates to 0 in 72 frames (rotate only half round when outside rotate to full round)

 

Outer ring (rotate full round clockwise 0 >> 360 degrees)

 

Inner ring (rotate half round counter clockwise 180 >> 0 degree)

It will rotate in perfect loop like this

We will have 4 files

Apply to the illustrator, create the new timeline with the same framerate setting as the ring file.

Then import the ring and the effect into the canvas with [File > Import > Create file object]

Import altogether by select multiple files

Select all the ring layers and use [Move tool] to move them together

Use the free transform [Ctrl+T] to adjust the size

Set the effect object blending mode to [Add(Glow)] to create the light effect

 

To recolor, the ring, use the layer color for effect, you can click on this icon or in the layer property panel

Select color and click the bucket to apply on the bar

Add more light by create the new later with glow mode above all ring layers

 

And paint the extra light with soft airbrush

 

Add also effect of light on the character by copy the outer ring effect and move over the character

Clip the light effect to the character to make it not leak out to the background

To make it more natural, create new layer and paint the light area with soft airbrush

Create selection by Right click > Selection from layer > Create Selection

(or hold [Ctrl] and click on layer thumbnail)

 

Then right click on the effect layer and [Layer Mask > Mask outside selection]

Hide(or delete) the airbrush layer (we no longer need it)

Result

Part 3 : Apply a transition to the summon ring

I will make it floating and rotating in the air for my scene, like this

Also shift the position a bit for making it a more dimensional look

For the animation scene, I will also add the transition to make it appear at the right timing of the timeline.

Start from making the animation scene

you can study how to make frame-by-frame animation with vector layer from the previous episode of my tutorial

Prepare the files (.clip) separately, I will use framerate at 24 frames per second here

Make sure all the files have the same frame rate

 

Create a new file for the scene. I will use the movie preset and set the framerate to 24 frames per second

Import all object file to the canvas

[File > Import > Create file object ]

 

Tips: Select the frame where the object (summon ring) suppose to appear, when you import the object, it will appear at the timeline position

Select all object, create free transform and put it in the position where it must appear at the timeline

Set the paper color to see the effect more clear when you work on it

Apply the layer effect and color to the object layers (the same as we do in the previous part of the tutorial)

Add the transition movement to the ring to make it animated with the scene, enable the layer keyframe for the summon ring objects

There is some gap where character casting to the summon effect appears.

Create a Smooth interpolation keyframe at that point for each ring, it will be the endpoint of effect transition.

Move the inner ring a bit with [Object] tool

You can copy the keyframe and paste it on another object, it will copy the position property of the keyframe. So you don’t need to carefully move it.

The inner ring will appear before, so I create another keyframe before the endpoint.

At the frame where the ring start appearing, scale it down to small size

Also adjust opacity at the point

At the timeline, you can show the timeline for opacity by clicking at the [+] icon

You can also copy and paste it

Repeat the steps with outer ring, shift the keyframe a but back for make it appear after the first ring

For the light effect, paint on the layer with add(glow) mode

Also set the opacity to match the transformation of the rings

Note : I make the light overlay separately for the outer ring and the inner ring.

 

Increase the opacity of light layer at the end point of the transformation as finish casting effect

 

Also apply the light on the character by creating a new layer with add(glow) mode above the character object

 

Paint the light and clip to character object

 

Varies the opacity level related to timing of the animation

Magic happened

Bonus part : Additional effect for transformation

Here is the final render for the scene, with the camera effect and the light transformation effect.

The effects are created with the frame-by-frame animation method

 

Create a new animation folder and blank keyframe mapping to the object keyframe (it can be mapped perfectly because the scene and object has the same framerate )

 

Create selection of character object

Expand the selection area

And fill color to the first keyframe in animation folder

Deselected the object [Ctrl+D] and apply blur filter

Put the layer into a folder by dragging to the folder icon

Make the selection of character again and fill the color on new layer

Then lock transparent of blur layer and fill with the light color

Repeat the steps with other keyframes

Also apply the showing frame related to the object

And enable layer keyframe and set opacity to object

Setting the folder to add(glow) mode will make it look more enchanting!

For the additional light effect : create new animation folder and draw the light effect with pen tool

Tips : I add particles with droplet airbrush

I apply the effect also on the transformation animation

You may use the auto-action method for time saving on the keyframe task, check the tutorial from Mattlamp :

You can use the animation folder to paint also the extra highlight detail on the object.

I add the camera effect to make it shaken with the effect of the summon ring

Put all the layer into 2d camera folder

Rotate the camera with object tool at the timeline point where effect happens

The keyframe will automatically appears on timeline

Rotate camera randomly on the timeline to create camera shaken

And here is the final result!!

I hope my tutorial give you some idea about working with the magic effect for your project

 

Have a nice day!! Happy animating!! <3