Learn how to use the symmetry ruler in Clip Studio Paint! Ever wonder why the eraser never erases on both sides? This video will show you how to fix that! Then we’ll have some fun with settings and make a mandala!
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Need to add a border to your art work in Clip Studio Paint? This tutorial will show you how! It’s super easy!
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Through is a blending mode only available on folders in Clip Studio Paint (CSP), but what does it do?
When a folder is set to normal, the folder’s blending mode only affects the layers inside it. You’ll notice the difference if you grab a bunch of layers with blending modes set on them and put them in a “normal” folder. Doing this changes the look of the whole project because those layers now only apply to each other.
Setting that folder to Through lets those layers interact normally as if the folder wasn’t there. It’s handy for keeping things organized without actually changing anything.
Want to see the difference this setting makes in a CSP project? Check out this video:
Thanks for reading! Did you know that CSP also does this? Check back soon for more tutorials!
Wanna read about some cool art? There’s lots to explore on my blog!
Is black line art getting you down? Do you want to see how different line colors change your art? Are you just bored and want to play with some stuff in Clip Studio Paint? Great! This is the place for you! Read on for FIVE ways to recolor your line art in CSP!
Pro Tip: Keep your line art on a separate layer (or layers) until you’re ready to merge everything together.
Create a new layer above your line art layer. Clip that layer to the line art layer by clicking the icon with a dotted square on top of a solid square.
Now anything you do on the new layer will only show up where your lines are, kind of like a layer mask. You can turn clipping on and off by clicking the icon again or hide the layer itself. Clipping is super useful since you won’t be editing the line art layer directly and you can experiment away without messing up the bones of your art. It also gives you the freedom to use multiple colors, gradients, tools, and effects.
To recolor your line art this way, it needs to be a raster layer. Select the line art layer, then click the lock with the little squares behind it.
This is the quick and dirty way I recolor all kinds of things, BUT I always (try to remember to) duplicate the layer I’m working with because this changes the existing art. This is the equivalent of alpha locking in Procreate, so all it’s doing is preventing you from making marks in the blank space.
If all you need is to quickly switch the color of your line art to something else, this is your best bet. Select your line art layer, then click on the drop down with the two color squares. Select the color you want your lines to be and it will change.
You can change the color expression of any layer, but this works especially well for anything you where need to make single color changes. You can also toggle it on and off by clicking the icon, so you aren’t stuck with it if you don’t like it later.
Truth time! When I first saw this option lurking in the Edit menu, I thought it was supposed to make my line art match my color layer. You know, convert the lines to the color of my drawing. Then of course I couldn’t understand why it didn’t work! It’s probably because that’s not what this Clip Studio Paint feature does. Convert to Drawing Color changes your layer to the color that you are drawing with.
So for this method, select your layer, then select the color you want. Go to the Edit menu and click on “Convert to Drawing Color” and your line art will change to the color you picked.
You’ll probably want to duplicate your layer before playing with this feature because it does make changes to your work and you can’t turn it on and off.
Finally there’s auto actions. This is a set of predefined steps that you can run automatically to save time. If you find yourself making the same edits to your work every time, an auto action will probably help. If you don’t feel like making your own, there are lots of free ones available for download from Clip Studio Assets. Auto actions for changing the color of your line art are no exception!
There are a bunch for free that you can play around with and some work better than others. Seeing how other users build their auto actions is also a good way to learn new things about CSP!
Pro tip: Lots of CSP assets are labelled in foreign languages. Label them as soon as they’re downloaded so you know what they are later!
Now that you can change the color of your line art, what should we learn next? Drop a comment below and tell me what CSP tutorials you want to see next!
Thanks for reading! If videos are more your style, this info is on my TikTok and YouTube pages!
I’ve been using Clip Studio Paint for a few years now and the vector layer is one of my favorite features. While they aren’t true vector layers per se (you can’t render actual vector art with it), they make line art a breeze! (tl;dr here’s the video!)
When you’re working with a vector layer, you’ll have some additional options available for the eraser tool. Under the tool properties, check the “Vector eraser” box. This will give you the options to erase part of the line, a whole line, or a section of line until it meets another line. I almost always have it on this last option so I don’t have to worry about my lines crossing where I don’t want them to. When adding sections of hair or fur, cleaning up lines and points can be done with a few strokes!
This feature is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it can help you quickly fix lines that aren’t quite right without having to totally redraw them. BUT! When you’re having “one of those days” it’s really easy to get sucked into fiddling with the same line over and over again when it would have been faster to redraw it.
You can move individual control points, which is useful for fixing the taper and length of the ends of lines. You can also change the weight of your lines with a bunch of different options. I like to thicken up certain lines to make specific elements pop or narrow a few lines to make things like hair more interesting. This is also useful for making emotes and other graphics pop – just run it around the outside edge!
I find that the other adjustment options take longer to mess around with than to draw a line again, but definitely give them a try and see what works for you! Some of this will work on raster layers too, but a lot of times the end result is messy. Maybe there are other settings to help with that, but it’s way easier to just start with a vector layer.
Vector magnet makes your lines sort of stick together when they get close together. It’s another double-edged sword, but handy when you need to match up the ends of your lines. You can adjust the strength, but turning it all the way up will usually cause distortion in your line art. If you’re having this problem, just take it down a level or two.
Not all tools work the same on a vector layer and some don’t work at all. I will 100% color my line art layer every time without something to get my attention when I’m not, well, paying attention. Sure, you can alpha lock your line art, but my brain just can’t seem to make that a part of my work flow. Thankfully, the fill tool (paintbucket) doesn’t work on vector layers at all, so that’s my first hint that I’m on the wrong layer. Other tools like the airbrush don’t behave the same way on a vector layer and the strokes look weird. Again, it tells me to check my layer!
These are just a few reasons to use vector layers in Clip Studio Paint. I’ll cover more later, but for now here’s a little video demonstrating everything we talked about:
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Last month (have I been starting ALL of my blogs this way??) Peter Paul Rubens was the artist I chose to write about. For the project I created a color set based on the palette he would have used in his paintings. I uploaded the color set to Clip Studio Assets because I want you all to be able to have fun with it too! I didn’t get a screenshot of the post, but here’s the text:
Title: Rubens Palette
Description: Colors based on the paints Peter Paul Rubens actually used. Enjoy!
I added an image with swatches and color names and that was that, right? NOPE! A couple days later, Celsys (the company behind Clip Studio) yanked it for “possible copyright infringement.”
The first question I had was:
What about publicly researchable color hex values for an artist that’s been dead for hundreds of years is COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT??
I emailed support right away asking why and they quickly replied – with my own text as the explanation:
“We have received many reports from several users…” What? Who? It was downloaded maybe 10 times! This email clarified nothing! So I asked what specifically violated their policies:
And the reply:
There it is! My post was deleted for using a name. A wildly famous historical artist’s name, but that really was the only reason. There wasn’t anything copyrighted in there.
Celsys, like so many other companies and service providers, have wildly overbroad language in their policies and guidelines. I get it, they need to cover their butts and using “catch-all” language allows them to quickly moderate blatant copyright infringement. This includes no names. At all, apparently.
This is why you can scroll through all asset posts and see content that is obviously from major manga and anime franchises (*cough cough* NARUTO *cough cough* SAILOR MOON *cough cough**), but because it’s called “ninja” or “sailor” no one cares. Now are all of these thing necessarily copyright infringement? Not at all, but the point is that Celsys doesn’t seem to care as long as you don’t call the thing what it is.
The color set is back up, but now it’s called “Baroque Palette”. Same text as before, but it says Baroque instead of Rubens. So far it hasn’t been taken down, so I guess it’s fine now! I’ll be using the same palette for the Artemisia Gentileschi project (I know, the month is almost up and it’s not done yet – ACK!), so stayed tuned for some dramatic Sesame Street lighting!
The color sets are fun to put together and I like the idea of putting something sorta educational up for others to use. If you have an idea for one, let me know and I’ll post it to Clip Studio Assets! Just no names…*wink wink*