Video

Intro

Hey everyone! I’m Spencer from StartManga, and today I’ve created a detailed tutorial about how to create characters using the 3D model tools available in Clip Studio Paint! If you’re a beginner artist or trying to make your life a little bit easier, the 3D tools in CSP are the perfect way to speed up your workflow and improve your drawings!

 

Let’s get started!

 

NOTE: I am using the version of Clip Studio made for iPad, so my display/workspace may be a bit different from yours. Don’t worry, the icons and process are very much the same!

Finding 3D Materials

We’ll start with finding where the 3D materials are located.

 

 

The 3D materials folder has a cube icon in it. If you’re on PC, it may be on the right side of your workspace, so look around for it!

In the menu, Clip Studio gives you tons of options to choose from. For this tutorial, we’re focusing on Head models and Body. Heads are found in the “Head” dropdown menu, and Bodies can be found in the “Body type” or “Pose” menues, as well as “Character” for some items downloaded from the asset store. Let’s look at how we can manipulate the Head model.

Head Models

Head models are complicated at first glance, but once you get used to it, they become the perfect tool for drawing characters!

TOP

1: Rotate Camera

2: Translate Camera:

3: Camera Depth

4: Translate Object

5: Rotate Object

6: Rotate on Single Plane

7: Rotate in 3D Space

8: Move Along Plane

9: Snap to Model

 

BOTTOM

10: Select Previous Object

11: Select Next Object

12: Show Object List/Open Sub View

13: Camera Presets

14: Centre Object

15: Move Object to Grid

16: Reset Scale

17: Reset Rotation

18: Register Head Model

We also need to understand the manipulation tools on the model. These come in the form of a grey circle and a fer colourful tools for scaling, translating, and rotating.

Red and Blue represent the horizontal axes. Green represents the vertical axis.

 

The cube icons can be used for scaling the model on the associated axis. The arrows can be used for translation along that axis. The semicircle lines are used for rotation along the associated axis. The grey circle is used for scaling the object as a whole.

These options are further explored in the video, but the names indicate their use well, and you can experiment with them to manipulate your models!

Next we’ll look at the sub tool detail menu, which gives us far more customization compared to the basic icons. CSP gives you plenty of default models to base your characters on.

 

In the “Head model” menu, you can adjust sliders to alter your models appearance.

Below that, in the “Facial features” menu, we can change each part of the face. This includes height and width of sections, angles of the eyes and nose, thinness of neck, lip height, etc.

“Outline” lets you add outlines to the model, which can ease the drawing experience after modelling.

“Shadows” lets you choose whether to have a light source, and lets you toggle the cast shadow on the ground plane.

“Light Source” lets you change the lighting scheme, including light direction and intensity, colour and more. The same options apply for ambient light.

Body Models

Now let’s move on to the body models. These models are a little more complicated than the head models, but are the same in their core functions. The differences lie in the bottom toolbar and the manipulation of different body parts.

CSP let’s you edit individual parts of the body on a premade rig, making pose design super quick and simple!

 

By selecting a body part, you can alter it’s position, and other parts of the body will move at the same time.

 

Let’s look at some of the new icons in the bottom tool bar, and see how we can work with the rig more fluidly!

Any unmarked icons have already been covered with the head model.

 

19: Register full body pose as a material (AKA save pose)

20: Flip model horizontally

21: Set pose to default

22: Register body shape (AKA save custom body shape)

23: Apply pose to model (Default poses, Posemaniacs, etc.)

24: Fix joint (allows you to lock a joint so body parts past that joint don’t move as you move a given body part. E.g. locked knee means you can move lower leg without moving uper leg)

25: Release all locked joints

26: Modify body shape

Let’s take a closer look at how we can modify the shape of the body.

When altering the body in the sub tool details menu, there are quite a few ways to go about it. First we can alter the body overall in the ‘3D drawing figure’ menu, changing the shape of the entire body, as well as the gender of our character.

We can also select a specific part of the body and edit that. Here we are editing the neck. Each bodypart has different sliders customized to it’s possible proportions.

 

Let’s now choose a pose for our character! We can either choose a pose already download in CSP, or we can use the connected Posemaniacs site to choose a custom pose. I use Posemaniacs in this example:

Below is the final pose, which I will turn into a character!

Below this is the final drawing:

I hope this tutorial helped you learn to use the 3D model tools in Clip Studio Paint, and I wish all the best for your future character art!