#trying the tools from csp

[kalineas]

Winter ❄️⛄

[galaxysodapopdraws]

Yoooo @starrjoy I accidentally turned your moth into a marketable plush whoopsie-daisy sorry! 😋

[toxiccaves]

I made a couple brushes for Sai2!

The first two are an attempt to recreate CSP's default chalk and charcoal brushes, and the third one is a recreation of the splatoon style square brush.

By default the splatoon one is textureless, but almost any texture will look nice when doing the hair coloring. Adjust the density to your liking.

Sai 2's fancier brush engine may run a little slow on older computers, so if anyone can let me know if these are laggy for you, I'd appreciate it! But I think they should be ok 🤔..

Here's the drive link!

PS: If they act weird i think I forgot to set angle control to None instead of Auto!

[ra-vio]

link lonk (wink wonk)

[squea]

i try and use procreate like once a month but i really can’t like i feel it’s so lacking vs other programs like it’s really fun for sketching but painting and rendering it feels like not as fun or in depth unless it’s all in the brushes and i’m dumb as hell for trying to use the default ones

[lunar-jewels]

an artist never truly gets over their first blending tool

[moonsidesong]

i think its kinda funny that ibis paint is regarded as the Broke Artist App or whatever (as opposed to more mainstream programs like csp or procreate) because its free and because of how popular it is with phone + finger artists while im jusg sitting here having used ibis for a cool eight years on purpose.

like i have an ipad and an apple pencil and all theyre very nice and i absolutely could move to a more powerful program i have the resources to do so but my change averse brain has decided they like it here a lot and im not leaving

[fdragon-art]

"Miles!"

...I'mma have to figure out CSP animation tools a different time

[foervraengd]

Mirre’s “How i render gemstones” tutorial!

(note: image above is not what is shown in the walkthrough. It is an example piece)

Ingredients:

Art program that has layers and selection tools

Patience (hubris or stubbornness is fine too)

(recommended) photo references of gemstones and/or prisms

(Optional but very helpful) Knowledge on how to use Reference layers and anti-overflow in Clip studio Paint

For this tutorial i am going to use clip studio’s “anti-overflow” feature. This post is not going to explain how to use that specific setting but you should be able to find guides on how to use it on clip studio’s official website or on youtube.

Please Note: The result of this technique will not 100% represent real life gemstones. These are more simplified but should still make an impression of the brilliance and appeal of gems, crystals and diamonds.

If you don’t work in CSP: the best workaround is to use the polygonal lasso selection tool for the same purpose.

This ended up being a long post so I am putting it under the readmore:

First off; Basic idea on how the light refracts inside a solid transparent object:

Wether it is acrylic, glass, water or crystal, the way light pass through more or less should behave the same as long as it is solid and not hollow inside. Pay attention to how the darkest parts of the stone goes along the inner edges, leaving a ”mid tone” sort of in the center. However, this might vary depending on the light setting. But it is a generally good rule-of-thumb to follow if you’re drawing something not based on a photo. Another thing to pay attention to here is how the placement of the highlight will lit up the inside of the gem in a parallel line. It also shows through on the cast shadow.

Light refraction on a cube:

I have already made two posts on this, so definitely go through them:

CUBE BREAKDOWN POST HERE

But a rough summary from those two links would be: Every side/facet of a gem or a cube etc refracts the light individually and not as one entity (that would make it look hollow and not solid). Think of it like how each piece in a broken mirror individually reflect your face back to you. Like a weird patchwork!

Putting this into practice:

For this tutorial I’m going to be nice to myself and not try to draw perfectly accurate gemstones. Instead I’m gonna draw them with a more ”natural” looking set of facets. Which actually isnt as common in real world as video games makes us think. Some crystals have geometric shapes naturally, but a lot of other stones are not as fancy. Anyway, im taking artistic liberty on these example stones because the technique I’m going to use will work for these just fine.

So, in clip studio paint, I first draw the stones on a vector layer. I give them facets for the front side. Then I duplicate the layer, remove the front facets and replace them with the facets on the back of the stone. The third image here shows both layers visible on top of each other. I now put these into a layer folder and mark the folder as ”reference”.

Now, on a layer below the lineart folder, fill with your base tone. Then make a layer on top (if you can clip it to the base tone, do that), this layer is where you decide where the highlight will be placed. In some cases the highlight is only lighting up one single facet - it really depends on the design of the stone. You can also blend and soften the highlight here if it looks good for you, just make sure not every facet is highlighted. The highlight layer should be on top of all the other layers clipped to the base tone layer.

Now it is time for the juicy juicy stuff! Turn on both lineart layers so they’re both visible. I hid the hilight layer here because it was in the way, but might not be needed in your case. Make a layer clipped to the base tone and paint in the darkest tone. This is where anti-overflow helps me out, because when i run my brush over all these crossed lines it will make the stroke pop in and out for each facet. If you dont use CSP, this is where you can use the lasso tool and select every second facet. It will take a bit more time but it should work similarly.

After the darkest tones I then make a layer for the inside light that the highlight has lit up. Here i keep it inside the darkest tone but this might vary depending on the light setting. If it looks good to me, then that’s what i stick to.

The way I approach rendering the facets here is like the grid in the example images above, every shade and tone appear more or less in each facet but the amount is relative to their position. So a gradient wouldnt have a smooth transition; it would be slightly scewed in each square on this example grid. Essentially like how some bathroom window glass panes look like.

Now it’s time to hide the lineart layer folder and check if the gemstones look decent to you. If not, then you can look up some reference photos and analyze where the values group together the most; be careful not to focus too much on the photos 500 million sparkles. Squint your eyes or blur the reference and try to see how the overall values behae.

I, personally, am satisfied with these rocks so I slap on a gradient map (you can manually color in them too if that’s your thing) and call it a day. The lit up inside of a gemstone tend to have a brighter and more saturated color than the mid tone.

Other Examples with this technique:

If you look up ”gemstone types” you can often find images displaying various facet types from more than just front view. These can serve as useful base templates for practicing this rendering technique. The backside of a gemstone is called the “pavillion” and is really useful to have at hand when it comes to painting the inner refractions. You can probably also use 3D models and convert the wireframe into lineart. But that is slightly out of my pool of knowledge.

Applying this knowledge without using a base lineart layer is of course possible. In this painting I followed a simplified summary of how the facets sparkle: Keep the highlight shape to match the front facet design, and all the inner refractions should be more scattered and split up but face a direction towards the center of the gem. Now don’t you think this sort of makes the gems look like eyes? That’s right! You can, and absolutely should, apply this on eyes to create the most sparkly anime eyes ever.

Now, refracted light that lands on the surface surrounding gemstones varies depending on the material - and if the gem is inside a metal frame it usually doesnt create this much refraction around it. But I want to have fun so i decided to break this rule in the name of pretty sparkles. :)

[joshuad17]

Getting away from the fire theme, day 6 is Euphrasia! I've wanted to try something new with most of these, and with this I used CSP's perspective tool for the first time. You'll see me using it a lot more in future drawings.

[meanbossart]

Hey, I was wondering if you had any starter tips for digital art? I'm a traditional artist and have been for years, but I was recently given a tablet and clip studio. I am having SUCH a hard time getting anything to look right: shaky lines, flat/too soft pieces, just an absolute childish mess every single time. I see all these gorgeous digital pieces and have NO IDEA how to get there.

Heya!

So, it's been a very very long time since I transitioned from traditional to digital art, but I DID do proper traditional for a few years; we're talking ink pens, color pencils, markers, watercolor, fancy papers, the works. I did some acrylic painting too but only monochrome (and before anyone asks, these works no longer exist so I can't share them) all that to say that I do have some experience with the former and definitely felt the learning curve when I changed to a tablet.

To get the unhelpful advice out of the way first: It's a different and unfamiliar medium, and there is probably nothing significant that you're "missing" about it except time and exploration. There are pillars to digital art just like there are in traditional art, but when it comes to personal process everyone has their quirks and habits - you gotta mess around and find what works for you. I suggest looking up tutorials and speedpaints on youtube even if you know all the basics or if the style you see doesn't appeal to you; just watching how others do their thing might help you figuring out how you would like to do yours!

Now, for the more practical advice:

-I don't know what kind of tablet you got, but assuming it's a non display, that's an extra hurdle you have to get over in developing the eye-hand coordination necessary to use it. This feels very alien at first but it shouldn't take longer than a few weeks to feel completely natural.

-On that note, if there is a significant size discrepancy between the tablet and the screen you are looking at, that might mess you up. Try adjusting the size of the CSP window so it fits the size of the actual drawing surface you are using more closely.

-Every drawing tablet's pen has pressure settings that can be tweaked to your liking, I for one always make it a little softer than the default.

-BRUSH STABILIZATION! That's a setting every individual brush (and almost every tool, I believe) on CSP has. It does as advertised: stabilizes your brush strokes. A lot of people like this set between 8-20 depending on the brush, and it can make a huge difference to the way you draw.

It is usually always visible in the tool properties, but if not, you can toggle it on through the "sub tool details" menu by clicking the little wrench symbol on the bottom right.

Hopefully this has been helpful at all. Good luck!

[godbirdart]

Hey Tobias, aside from your incredible artworks themselves, I also absolutely love the detailed abstract backgrounds you sometimes put on portraits and I've been wanting to try my hand at something in the same vain. I was considering trying Illustrator for those, since I normally use CSP and while I love it, it kinda feels pretty horrible at anything geometrical and shape-y, so I was also wondering what software you use for them if you'd like to share!

oH you mean like the geometric shapes in these?

that is 1000% Clip Studio Paint. I use it for, quite literally, all of my work. Pixel art, illustrations, animations - it's all Clip.

The upper backgrounds of those pieces are done using the Symmetrical Ruler and Shape tools, as well as maybe a brush or two for flair.

The Symmetrical Ruler is under the Ruler tool:

it lets you draw symmetrically on the canvas like this [the purple line appears so you know where your mirrors meet]

note: sometimes your brush needs to have snapping enabled to work with a ruler tool - especially if you're using a fancy custom brush from the assets shop.

you can fix this by going into your brush's settings [clicking the little wrench on your selected brush] and then toggle on Enable Snapping under the Corrections section:

Regarding the Shapes tool,

It's technically called the Figure tool but I'm calling it the Shapes tool. For those unfamiliar, Clip doesn't come with preset shapes beyond your standard lines, rectangles, and circles; BUT you can easily create your own triangles and hexagons and whatnot with the Polygon subtool.

Change the number of corners to that of the shape you want and tada! SHAPE. The number of corners can go up to 32 - at which point you're essentially just making a vaguely chunky circle so I mean, have fun.

I'm gonna pause here because this post is already getting a bit long, but if there's somethin specific you want me to elaborate on feel free to ask.

[leidensygdom]

hello!! i love your art so much, your colors are beautiful and your characters are just so 👁️👁️ and i adore seeing them on my dash :)

i had a question about how you do the details on your fabrics: how do you keep the patterns on clothes on a body looking so,,, clean and readable while also making it make sense on the form under it?

like the cape/sleeve(? idk what it is but it looks cool as hell) on the magnolia commission pattern looks so cool and it's still readable on the fabric (like, if i wanted i could probably do a silly sketch of it) BUT ALSO it seems to make sense with the folds so it doesn't just look unnatural and stiff?

i'm so sorry this is kind of a long ask but like. would you be down to talk about your process for patterns on clothing? it's cool if you're not, that's totally fair, just figured i'd ask

have a wonderful day!!

OOOH Thank you so much for the ask!! I wanna do a more in depth tutorial, but I tend to make patterns in two different ways, with one being fully hand-drawn and the other playing with mesh transforms or the... Uh, liquify CSP tool? Let me find examples

This is an example of a fully hand-drawn pattern. No trickery here- Only trying to eyeball everything. It's kinda a lot of work to draw it manually, but it's the more convenient option if the character I'm drawing doesn't have files for the patterns, or if the files are a bit too different from my usual style, as they could potentially not look great with my linearted or painted style

And then- For cases such as Nolia's cloak, I did the entire pattern as a separate file, then placed it using Photoshop's mesh transform!

Here's a WIP file from when I placed all the patterns after finishing the lineart, where you can see them in full contrast. I tend to keep my patterns in different files- The black parts here are not joined with the base color of the cloth, so I can bring nice highlights and texturing when they're meant to be golden inlays, for example. Now, the Photoshop mesh transform is a bit finnicky to use, and I don't have any proper step by step of it- I could potentially record how I do it someday. But let's take the humble cylinder and demonstrate it quickly:

So, the mesh warp tool is the one on the right- You can see these sort of blue lines creating a mesh. I'm sure CSP has it in it's pro level or something? Correct me if I'm wrong. You play around with the different sections, move it to the right place, and put it on the cylinder. This is a very simplified form. You can make many subsections to your meshes (that's 3x3- you can have stuff such as 20x20) for when you have multiple folds.

And then you can just shade your pattern accordingly so it fits the volume of the drawing, and- ta-daa!

This is by no means an easy method. Sometimes you can get away with the Liquify tool (which CSP has and it's very decent), which I've used when the pattern in question was over a simpler surface with few folds. It takes some practise to use that well, and it isn't gonna be the best for complex ones, but it's also an option. Let me do a lil compilation of some patterns I've done and which tools I used for each!

The tool I use highly depends on the time I have, the level of finish for the drawing, and so on. CSP's liquify is probably the fastest but gives simpler results, drawing them manually works better with some styles and more organic/less geometrical patterns, the mesh tool takes a bunch of time but it's great for small repeating patterns that are meant to be very precise or geometrical.

If people would be interested in it, I may someday do a video tutorial of me doing a pattern and then putting it over a folded cloth. I do hope this can help a bit tho!!

[akanemnon]

hopefully i'm not too late but can i ask what kind of tools you use when drawing twinrunes i reall like your art style and are a big inpiration to me in art

So I'm gonna try to list everything I use to make the comics:

my graphic tablet is a 13 inch (16:9) HUION Kamvas Pro 13 It's a relatively inexpensive screen tablet and I work well with it

for drawing I use Clip Studio Paint

the lineart I make with a simple lineart brush I got from a FREE starter brush pack made by Marc Brunet. You can find it easily if you look up the name.

most of all the general brushes I use are already built into CSP (the rest you can find on the CSP Material Asset store. ALL THE ONES I USE ARE FREE TOO!)

since all the comics follow the same panel format, I made a file that I can always reuse to make a new comic

to make things easier for me, I have a folder with all the references I need for drawing and writing

And that should be about it I think? Hope that helps!

[3liza]

everyone suggesting alternatives for Photoshop is inevitably not actually using most of the Photoshop functionality, which to be fair is probably the vast majority of the potential Photoshop userbase.

the reason Photoshop has been industry standard for 30 years is that it does almost everything and has almost always done almost everything. it has had a few weird slow adoptions, for example it didn't support basic live mirroring while drawing until the 2010s (ish). it didn't have recovery saves or auto saving until about then. it's never been the absolute last word in real media synthesis, that was Corel Painter for years and now I think CSP is probably the king. illustrator is better at vectors. etc. but Photoshop can do all of those things well enough to prepare a professional grade, print-ready artwork from RAW file to layout to text to retouching to total from-scratch illustration, in one step, with layer and channel separation, multiple types of masking, adjustment layers, lossless file object placement, vector text transformation including all standard print layout tools like kerning, like spacing, comprehensive font support, and both true font variation and faux transformation like fake bold and fake italic. and clients and print workflows are expecting PSD files and file preparation for this reason. Krita, as an example of a popular program suggested as an "alternative to Photoshop" which I have used for hundreds of hours to do professional and personal work, is great for drawing but has a completely unusable text engine, you can't make a webcomic with speech bubbles easily and quickly in Krita. it was like pulling teeth even trying to put "BABY SLUT" on my Lethal Company skin with Krita. but you can lay out an entire magazine in Photoshop in an afternoon, and people do (print preparation is whole other topic I'm not saying vogue is prepared solely in Photoshop, it isn't, I'm saying you CAN do it in Photoshop)

I have never paid for an Adobe product, I am not pro Photoshop, I am pro getting my work done. I would absolutely love for there to be an actual Photoshop alternative, but there isn't. there are individual alternatives for individual features of Photoshop, and if you are working in a limited professional scope or you just want a drawing program or just want to make your webcomic or just want to do pixel art then one or two programs will replace Photoshop for you. everyone who, like me, has to do RAW editing, fashion retouching, print and web layout, pure digital illustration, vector illustration, text and graphic design, and all the rest of the crap I have to do in a format that's accepted by publishers and the rest of the various workflow destinations it's just not realistic. which is why it's great that Photoshop is completely trivial to pirate at any stage of its development you care to install,including versions prior to the introduction of the AI crap, the cloud crap, and the rest of the crap no one serious is actually using unless their manager is forcing them to

[remidiy]

We Don't Gatekeep Art Resources | A Comprehensive List

Here's a list of some of the tools/sites I currently use or have used previously for works/studies. I'll separate it into Software/Utility, Reference, and 'Other' which will be just general things that could help you map out things for your experience with art. **[Free highlighted in pink, paid highlighted in green. Blue is variable/both. Prices Listed in USD]**

Software/Utility:

2D

Krita Painting app (PC) (my main digital art software on PC for 5+ yrs)

Clip Studio Paint [PC] [CSP 2.0+ allows for 3d modelling within the painting app and a lot of other cool features] [apparently allows up to 6 months free trial]

Procreate (12.99) [iPad/iPad Pro] (the GOAT)

Artstudio Pro [iPad/iPad Pro] (An alternative to Procreate if you enjoy the more traditional art app layout) -- I find this app handy when Procreate is lacking a feature I need, or vice versa. (you can easily transfer files between the two, but keep in mind Procreate's layer limit)

2D "Collaborative Painting/Drawing apps"

Magma Studio

Drawpile

Discord Whiteboard

Gartic Phone (Pretty decent for 2d animation practice, but has a hard limit on frames)

3D

Blender [3D Modelling, Sculpting + Layout] (PC)

Sculptris [PC] (it's an old unsupported version of Zbrush, but can help to get ideas out, and functions better than browser sculpting apps

Nomad Sculpt [iPad/iPad Pro] ($20) Works pretty well if you prefer a mobile setup, but it is a bit intense on the battery life and takes some getting used to

References + Study

Magic Poser [ PC and Mobile ] Has both free and paid versions, I've made do with just the lite version before

Artpose ($9.99) [Iphone + Steam]

Head Model Studio [IPhone] A 3D head, with both a basic blockout version for angles, and a paid version with more detail

Cubebrush [simply search "[keyword] pose reference pack"], they usually have good results + they frequently have sales!

Line of Action [Good for Gesture practice + daily sketching], also has other resources built in.

Quickposes Similar to Line of action, more geared toward anatomy

Drawabox | Perspective Fundamentals Improvement modules (Suggested by @taffingspy )

Sketchfab, this skull in particular is useful, but there is other models that can help you study anatomy as well.

Pinterest can be good, you just have to be careful, usually you're better off just finding reference pack if you have the money, sometimes certain creators have freebies as well

Artstation Marketplace can be decent [make sure to turn on the Aye-Eye filter so it doesn't feed you trash], a colleague of mine recommended this head model for practicing facial blocking, there is also this free version without lighting.

Local Art Museums [Unironically good for studying old "master work" if you're into that, or even just getting some inspiration]

Brushes + Other Useful software:

I personally have used both of these brush packs before making my own

(I actually don't know how to share my daily brush set because I frequently switch between Krita, Procreate, and ASP, but once I figure that out I'll be sure to do that lol)

Marc Brunet's Starter brush pack [Technically free but supporting him for this if you like it is ideal, there's some good brushes]

Dave Greco Brush Pack [$3]

Gumroad in general is a good place to find brushes and art resources. *Note; for Krita specifically, brush packs are a bit weird, so it may require you to find different packs, or import them in a particular way

PureRef [PC] - Reference Compiler/Moodboarding

VizRef ($3.99) [iPad] - Moodboarding/Reference Compiler

Artist Youtubers/Creators that helped me improve/guide me along as a self-taught artist from when I first started digital art to where I am today:

Proko

Marco Bucci

Sinix Design

Sycra

Hardy Fowler

Lighting Mentor

Winged Canvas

Moderndayjames

Swatches

Chommang_drawing

Marc Brunet (YTartschool)

+ Observing a lot of speedpaint art by people whose work I enjoy on social media/youtube, trying to dissect their processes

If you've gotten this far, first of all, congrats, you can read a lot, and second of all, thank you for reading and I hope this helps! I'll continue to come back and update this if I find any new resources in the future, or if my processes change :)

Much Love,

-Remidiy