Introduction

Hi!

In this post I will show you how to achieve a watercolor effect without the use of watercolor brushes.

Brushes

The tools that I will be using:

* Felt pen

* Soft airbrush

* Kneaded eraser

* Blur

Canvas texture

In order to make the watercolor effect more apparent, I will add a paper texture to the digital canvas.

You can do that by going to:

Material > Monochromatic pattern > Rough paper

 

 

Now just select and drag it onto the canvas and resize it if the paper grain looks too big.

If you want the paper texture to be visible on the whole canvas - in the Layer tab, set its Blending mode to Multiply and lower the Opacity to around 20.

 

 

If you want the paper texture to only be visible on the painted parts - in the Layer tab, set its Blending mode to Overlay and lower the Opacity to around 40 (this is what I do in the end).

Technique demo

To keep it simple, I am going to demonstrate the painting process on a circle:

 

 

1. Shape

First, draw the general shape of your object with a light grey color using the Felt pen.

2. Color

Next, create a New layer (1.) and turn it into a Clipping mask (2.). This will ensure that the color stays only on top of the shape from the layer below.

And just airbrush some color over it. Use a few different hues to make it look more dynamic and interesting.

3. Erasing

Now, select the layer with the grey shape and start lightly erasing the middle, keeping the edges mostly intact.

4. Blur

As a finishing touch, you can slightly blur some of the edges to make it look like when real watercolors bleed.

Sakura flower

Sketch

Brushes

In order to make this step easier, I made some free brushes which you can find and download from the Clip Studio Assets.

To download and use them, follow these steps:

1. Click on the red Download button

2. Wait for the material to finish downloading

3. Open Clip Studio Paint

4. Go to Material tab

5. Find the downloaded materials and drag them into a Brush Sub Tool

Sketching

First sketch out a branch.

These are usually made up of one main, thicker branch and thinner Y-shaped branches that stem from it.

Keep it loose and organic.

On a new layer use the sakura brushes to add some flowers and rearrange them onto the branches.

Shape

Now you can color over the flowers on a new layer and when you are done, remove the sketch layer by long pressing on it and selecting Delete layer.

Make sure to keep some holes in between petals or flowers so that their silhouettes can stay recognizable as well as making it look more traditional and spontaneous.

Color

Now airbrush some color on a new Clipping mask layer.

 

 

Make sure to overlap some neighboring hues to make it look like the colors are bleeding into each other.

Erasing

And now start erasing some of the base layer. Remember to keep the edges sharp.

Blur

Next, I just blurred random edges. Just try to not overdo this step.

Finishing touches

To make it look even more like traditional watercolor, you could add some splatter dots around the painting. I also darkened the centers and some of the edges of the flowers.

Make sure that you do not darken the blurred edges - only the sharp ones.

Done!

Timelapse

You can check out the timelapse on my YouTube channel: