Decided to learn more about Clip Studio Paint, so started watching Clip Studio Ex Fundamentals by Elizabeth Staley.

The course is available on Packt and Udemy.

Creating a Gritty Inking Brush

Create a brush by changing only the brush tip properties:

  • download the Dry Bleeding Water Color free brush from clipstudio.net and import it into Clip Studio
    • a good location for it might be the Brush > Watercolor group
  • in SubTool panel duplicate the G-Pen and name it as Gritty Pen
  • in the Sub Tool Detail panel:
    • set the Brush tip to Material
    • assign Droplet 1 to it
    • assign Dry Bleeding Water Color as a second brush tip
    • set Thickness to 70
    • set Direction of applying to Vertical
    • open the Thickness Dynamics
      • check the Pen pressure checkbox
      • check the Random checkbox and set the Minimum Value to 15
    • open the Angle Dynamics
      • select Direction of pen radiobutton
      • check the Random checkbox and set the Strength to 10
    • in Brush density check the Adjust brush density by gap checkbox
    • set Anti-aliasing to None

Download brush

Gritty Pen sample
Gritty Pen sample

Making a Broken Glass Brush

  • create a new document with Color basic expression color
    • this will force the tip of brush to ignore the current color and use the one we’re using bellow (black border and filled with white at 50% opacity)
  • using the Figure > Polyline draw some glass shards
    • right-click to cancel the last point
  • create a new layer (shortcut: Shift+ Cmd * N)
  • using the Fill > Refer other layer subtool, fill with White the glass shards
  • reduce layer’s opacity to 50%
  • merge the layer with the one bellow (shortcut: Cmd + E)
  • move each shard on a separate layer by selecting it and using the Cut and Paste button
    • you can also select the some part of the image, but you’ll probably get some borders around the shard
  • select a layer and register it as a brush material by clicking Edit > Register material > Image…
    • give some name:
      • Glass Shard 1
      • Glass Shard 2
      • …
    • check the Use for brush top shape checkbox
    • save under All materials > Image material > Brush
    • add some custom tags:
      • custom
      • iborco
      • shard
      • glass
  • duplicate the G-Pen subtool and name it Glass Shards
  • open the Sub Tool Detail panel
    • set the Brush Size to 40
      • set the Brush Size Dynamics to Pen pressure with a Minimum value of 15
    • set Anti-aliasing to Medium
    • set Brush tip to Material and load the shapes (materials) we’ve just saved
      • set the Thickness Dynamics to Random with a Minimum Value of 65
      • set the Angle Dynamics to Random with a Strength of 100
    • in Stroke, set the Gap to Fixed and the Repeat method to Random

Download brush

Glass Shards sample
Glass Shards sample

Creating a Leaf Brush

Using Ribbon to create a brush with a repeating patterns:

  • make a new color document
  • draw some leafs with a black pen
  • add some white background
  • save it as a brush material
  • go to the Decoration > Vegetation subtool and duplicate Grass A and give it a proper name
  • open the Sub Tool Detail panel
    • in Ink make sure Opacity is set to 100 and Blending Mode is set to Normal
    • set Anti-aliasing to None
    • in the Brush tip delete the old tips and the one you’ve just created
      • in Brush Size Dynamics make sure nothing is checked
    • in Stroke check the Ribbon checkbox and Repeat method to Repeat
      • if the brush is not aligned correctly, go to the Brush tip and change the Angle value until you get the correct alignment (the value is in degrees)

Download brush

Leaf Tops sample
Leaf Tops sample

Importing Third-Party Brushes

Importing a single brush:

  • go to the Sub Tool and Group where you want to import the brush
  • from the Sub Tool menu, select Import sub tool… entry
  • select your .sut file from disk

Importing multiple brushes in one go:

  • select the Sub Tool and Group where you want to import the brush in Clip Studio Paint
  • select multiple brushes in your file manager (Finder)
  • drag and drop all the brushes in Sub Tool panel

Using the Selection Tools

  • use Selection Area > Selection Pen to select like using a pen
    • you can enable pressure sensitivity
  • use Selection Area > Erase Selection to deselect like using an eraser
  • use Selection Area > Shrink Selection to select anything completely inside
    • use the Target color to control how the selection detects what’s inside

Note:

  • the magic wand available in other programs can be found in Auto Select

Creating and Editing Layer Masks

  • in the Layer panel, click the Create layer mask to create a layer mask for the current layer
  • with the mask selected:
    • use an eraser to delete (or a pen set in transparent mode)
    • use a pen to reveal
    • only opacity is used to determine what is visible and what’s hidden
    • the color of the pen is ignored
  • you can create a mask using a selection
    • make a selection
    • go to Layer > Layer Mask > Mask Selection to create a layer mask that hides your selection
    • go to Layer > Layer Mask > Mask Outside Selection to create a layer mask that hides everything outside your selection