The CSP Pencil Experience ✏️: Improving your Pencil Art!

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iridescentmist

If you found this TIPs Article helpful, don’t forget to drop a like and comment once you’ve reached the end. Enjoy!

Introduction

Hey there fellow artist! Welcome to my TIPS article.

When I first bought CSP, I plugged in my drawing tablet and then looked for the pencil tool. Why the pencil tool? Well… whenever I use the pencil tool, I don’t really feel pressured into making a complete illustration, making the lines perfect, and ensuring this and that looks good. I feel comfortable with doodling and goofing around with the pencil tool because with just a few strokes, I can make something I think looks cool and I don’t even have to worry about it being perfect or not. That’s the certain charm I get from using a pencil, and I want to share it with you!

Here is one of my doodles which I made not too long ago when I wanted to de-stress.

So, with that being said, allow me to share with you 4 ways I utilize the pencil tool in CSP!

P.S. I am not a professional artist and these tips are targeted to beginner artists who have just started their CSP journey. ^^

TIP 1

✦ SKETCHING WITH A PENCIL TOOL

I usually use the pencil tool to sketch because I find it more efficient and I get my work done faster. Personally for me, when I sketch with a regular brush, I find it hard to create line art on top of the sketch (on a different layer AND the sketch layer having a reduced opacity, of course) because both layers look similar and it feels like I'm going nowhere or I’m barely making any progress…

And it usually ends up with me giving up, saving the file, and never to open it again…

So, by using the pencil tool to sketch, it becomes easier for me to do the line-art with a regular brush. Here’s a trick I use,

Trick #1 - Transparent Pencil

You can make your pencil transparent by pressing “C” or this button.

Your pencil basically functions like an eraser, but a textured eraser!

With that function, you can have more control over how you erase sections of your illustration because you are erasing it as if you were drawing with a pencil.

Look, the left apple is drawn with a textured brush and a textured blur, while the right apple is drawn by a pencil. For me, just by using the transparency function on the brush, the right apple looks more cleaner and more defined. Maybe you can try this trick when you’re shading the hair!

Trick #2 - Lasso Fill Tool

This lasso tool will help you immediately add color to your sketch.

We all had that one moment where we are filling in colors to our characters and we just give up halfway because it takes too long, right? With this tool, you can color your sketch in an instant!

How to do this?

Step 1: Set your layer with the line art/sketch as your reference layer. Press the icon which looks like a lighthouse to turn your layer into a reference layer.

Step 2: Add another layer below the reference layer.

Step 3: Select a color of your choice.

Step 4: Use this lasso tool and draw a shape around the sections you want to be filled with color.

Note: This tool is like a bucket tool so before you do Step 4, make sure that there are no gaps in your sketch.

TIP 2

✦ USING THE PENCIL TOOL TO ENHANCE YOUR HAND-DRAWN ILLUSTRATIONS

(reference from the Fantasy/Sci-fi movie Everything Everywhere All at Once)

When I am too lazy to set up my drawing tablet, I end up drawing on paper. There are some times where I happen to like the outcome so much, I take a picture of it, then import it into CSP and just go crazy!

You can enhance your hand-drawn drawings by refining it with the many tools in CSP. Just like this, (Follow along if you want!)

Allow me to share my workflow whenever I import my sketches on CSP!

Here is the image I took of my illustration on my sketchpad,

Adjustments

I import this image into CSP, resize it, and then adjust the brightness and contrast so that the sketch will look more visible. Although this is optional, I suggest you do this so that your sketch will be more clearer.

Edit >> Tonal Correction >> Brightness/Contrast

Adding Shadows

I create a layer above the photo, set the layer blending mode to “Multiply”, and then reduce the opacity of the layer. I add shadows to areas that block the light source. I repeat these steps 3 times as seen in the image below.

Adding highlights

After adding the shadows, I create another layer on top, set the layer blending mode to “Add (Glow)”, and then add highlights to areas which the light directly hits and blur some parts when it goes further from the light source. (In this illustration, the light source is at the right side)

Polishing

This is basically the last part of my workflow, I add several layers on-top or below, change the layer blending modes, and just experiment with what’s available and see if I like the result!

Note: I use a brush with a pencil texture to maintain the same consistency and texture with the real drawing.

Trick #3 - Half Tones

Basically, a half-tone are those continuous dots you see in comic books. Like this,

Look at this illustration of a cute bird <3

I utilize half-tones in this illustration to add more detail to the shadows and highlights. It makes your illustration look less plain and more interesting. See for yourself!

Half-tones create a gradient-like effect which is why you see some artists use half-tones when shading or adding highlights. It adds variety or a pop! to your work.

I don’t have that much money in real life, the nearby art shops don’t sell half-tone stickers and it’s really tiring to manually add the dots/lines yourself, so why not just install a half-tone brush from the CSP Asset store?

Trick #4 - CSP Asset Store Materials

Everything. Is. In. There. Go check it out! (I don’t think I need to explain this…)

The CSP Asset store offers many brushes, materials, and textures, which I use in this TIPS Article and whenever I want to rizz my crush with my fantastic skills 🫦

Jokes aside, using the pencil tool to enhance your hand-drawn illustrations helps u achieve the same texture and that pencil feel. So basically, its still your IRL drawing…

But just cooler 😎,

(reference from the “Cooler Daniel” meme)

TIP 3

✦ USING THE PENCIL TOOL TO RENDER

Using the pencil tool to render your illustration gives it an organic, dreamy, and grainy feel, similar to a children’s story book.

When I was making this illustration for my character, I wanted it to look less solid, more grainy, and neatly messy. In order to achieve this effect, I used a pencil tool to render and color everything.

The same goes for this illustration! I used a pencil tool most of the time while creating this.

Trick #5 - Combs

Combs are like half-tones that adds variation to your illustration. Think of it as the small pencil scratches you add on paper or on your sketches! I, personally, use combs as a way to blend 2 colors to make my art look less plain, especially at the areas where the shading or highlight and base color meet.

For example, take this branch with leaves.

I simply drew the branch and downloaded a leaf brush from the CSP Asset Store. But, I wanted to add something that would make my branch unique and stand out. So, I used a comb brush, eye dropped/color picked from certain areas and created 1 small stroke from it.

Trust me, it’s actually very easy! It’s all about color picking and creating strokes at the shadow, highlights, and base color.

Trick #6 - Paper Texture

Whether you want a background to make your digital doodles look less plain or a filter to give your art a boom boom! (paper texture), then the paper material is your answer!

Here is an illustration before and after using a grainy paper texture as a filter.

(Before)

(After)

The grainy texture gave the illustration an ominous and horror feel, which was the initial feel I wanted to go with when I was making this. Aside from a grainy texture, there are many other textures to try on. Check the links found at the end of my TIPS Article and take those textures for a spin!

You want to know how to use textures as a filter? Here is my personal step-by-step guide. Follow along if you want!

Step 1: Prepare your illustration, preferrable with no background.

I decided to draw a sticker of my OC, Irene. It felt a bit plain, so I wanted to add a grainy or paper texture to it.

Step 2: Download an image of a grainy texture.

Go to the CSP Asset Store and download the Monochrome Texture Pack Update (ID：1849906) and look for the grainy paper.

Step 3: Click on “Windows”, scroll down and look for “Material”, and click on “Material Download”. There you can find your downloaded textures.

Step 4: Click on the selected texture and drag it above your layer.

Step 5: Clip the layer on the illustration below it.

Step 6: Set the layer blending mode to “Multiply”.

Did you notice how some functions such as “Alpha Lock” cannot be accessed? To be able to use that, do this.

Step 7: Right-click on the layer with the image material/texture and then select “Rasterize”.

Step 8: Turn on “Alpha Lock” on that layer and change the color of the image to your liking. By changing the color of the image, it will turn out less dark which was my previous problem before rasterizing the layer.

Step 9: Reduce the opacity.

Here is the final result!

I tried a different texture on the sticker, using the same steps, here is how it looks!

TIP 4

✦USING OTHER TOOLS

There are times where we want to draw something but we can’t. Most of the time, its not about the skill, it’s about the tool. One time I was sketching something and I tried to smear it with my thumb to give it a dramatic effect but I ended up ruining the entire drawing… So, I tried to redraw it on CSP and I used a textured blur and… voila! It definitely looks better than my thumb-smudged drawing.

Here’s another illustration where I used the textured blur to help render the shadows,

So, if you can do all of that, why limit yourself to a pencil tool when there are many other tools available at your disposal in CSP? Don’t be scared to try out other tools and functions! Trust me, when I was new to digital art, I was really hesitant on using the blur tool and filter functions because I thought that I did not need it. Simply because of that, it took me a long time to improve.

Trick #7 - Textured tools

Textures are what makes pencil-drawn illustrations unique, so with the help of textured tools, add textures to places that seems fit! An example is small background I made with a gradient. I wanted the background to be more than just a gradient so I used a textured brush and the eyedrop to blend the colors, a textured blur to blend it, a star brush to add more details, and a half tone brush to make it pop a little.

Speedpaint

In this speed paint, I will apply all the aforementioned TIPS and TRICKS, enjoy!

Also, you can find all the brushes and materials used at the end of my TIPS article. If any of the tools I used caught your attention, don’t hesitate to check it out!

End

Now that we have reached the end, I hope that you had fun reading this TIPS article and maybe learned a thing or two from this!

I didn’t want to stick to just talking about the CSP pencil tool because I personally think that what differentiates the CSP pencil tool from a real physical pencil is that the CSP pencil tool is really flexible, adjustable, and accessible to everyone who has CSP and it comes with other tools too so that you can enhance your entire drawing experience. For me, that is already a huge bargain <3.

Remember to always have fun when you draw! Grab that pencil because the sky’s the limit.

Don’t forget to drop a like and comment, let me know your thoughts!

Thanks for stopping by! ♡