Hey everybody,
Ahh feels good to be back, how long has it
been, a week?
Oh…Ohh.. well, this thing seems highly inaccurate
doesn’t it?
Let me fix that.
You may have noticed that I haven’t been
as active on YouTube as I would like to be.
The reason for that is a rather big project
that I’ve been working on: A comic.
It features Ian, the character I made a video
about way back.
And it’s going to be a dumb boyslove story
that is totally worth spending all my time
on ;)
It is far more time consuming than I expected.
And then convention season started and it
was just hard to focus on videos as well.
But I am back on it!
Although the comic isn’t finished yet, working
on it has taught me some time-saving tricks
that make working on it more efficient.
So whether you are working on a comic yourself
or are just interested in the creation, get
cozy, grab a drink and lets get into it.
First up this tutorial will focus on the program
ClipStudio Paint.
Over the course of working on this project
I found no other tool that had so many helpful
features.
I’ve come to enjoy them so much that I wanted
to share them with you.
This video is not sponsored, but ClipStudio
if you are listening, hit me up ;)
When I started, I struggled a lot with the
question of what medium I should use.
Should I go traditional or digital.
As I love working traditionally, I was drawn
to the thought of creating everything on paper
and just scanning the results afterwards.
So I did the layout sketches for the pages
all scribbled on paper and started working.
But I learned very quickly that there are
some major benefits when it comes to working
on a comic digitally, especially when you
are inexperienced with telling a story like
I am.
So even though I already did layout sketches
and planned the pages beforehand, I often
found myself very insecure with my initial
plans when it came to actually working on
the pages.
But when I worked digitally and there were
some panels I disliked, some faces I would
have liked to zoom in or just editing the
position of speech bubbles, there was no problem
changing it in an instant.
On paper I would find myself in a bad situation,
because it’s impossible to just quickly
try and rearrange things without having to
trace your panels all over again.
Look at how slow this is.
Of course this isn’t an issue if your are
confident in what you are doing, but even
then it's always nice to have more options.
That's why I decided with the first page that
I will have to go digital with my project.
And there are even more benefits, which we
are going to have a look at now.
If you’ve seen my 10 Digital Art Tips video,
then you know that personally I prefer Photoshop
for digital painting.
But lineart, in my experience, tends to come
out better in ClipStudio.
Besides that, there is another reason why
I think ClipStudio is better suited for comic
projects.
I’m mostly referring to the assets it provides.
So let's take a look at the integrated 3d
models.
The first time I saw them I wasn’t really
sure whether they’d be useful to me.
Over the years I had tried working with different
3d models as references but never really felt
them to be helpful.
Either the anatomy looked off or it took way
too long to get the models in the right poses,
so it wasn’t really time saving after all.
Working on the comic forced me to give them
another chance and it turns out that they
can be immensely helpful for drawing your
character and working with new and exciting
perspectives.
For this page I used them for every panel.
I also used a background model but we will
have a look at those later.
So, how do they work?
First some basics:
When you open the materials and drag the 3d
model into your work area you will notice
that along come some symbols.
These are buttons that are used by pressing
and holding them and then dragging your pen
around.
The first set of buttons manipulates the camera.
The first button lets you rotate the camera
freely around the model.
The button right next to it lets you move
the camera around the scene.
Use the third button to zoom in and out.
Next up are the buttons with the little cube
icons.
Moving the model around is split into two
different modes.
The first button lets you move the model up
or down and left or right.
This lets you place characters under or above
the ground.
The last button is used for moving the model
along the ground.
You can move them to the right or left and
further into the foreground or the background.
These two move modes complement each other
as they only ever let you move the model within
two dimensions at any time.
The remaining set of buttons are used to rotate
the model.
The first button generally lets you rotate
the model in any direction.
The next rotation button locks the rotation
to a specific axis.
Imagine putting a painting on a wall and rotating
it there.
That is the only way this button lets you
rotate the model.
The other rotation button turns the model
along a vertical axis.
So if you want to turn your character around
to face the other way, use this button.
By double-clicking the arrows and circles
around the model you can achieve the same
kind of movements and rotations.
Use whatever feels more comfortable to you.
Lets get us an example.
Say you want to show your character in a certain
pose, maybe he sits on a chair in a classroom.
So I start with a rough sketch of what I have
in mind.
It doesn’t need to be accurate, just enough
so we have something to work with.
We drag the character on our canvas and start
modeling.
Position your model so it lines up with the
sketch.
Next, we start adjusting the individual body
parts.
Click on the body part you want to move and
it opens the options to tilt and rotate said
parts in any direction.
It takes a bit of practice but you will quickly
get the hang of those functions.
Double clicking shows some anchor points where
you can move the limbs as a whole, or even
precisely change the direction the model is
looking in, which makes things a bit easier.
Quite frankly though this takes a lot of time
and, as I said from the start, positioning
the puppet from scratch every new panel can
be very time consuming in itself and therefore
a bit inefficient - especially when it comes
to the hands.
To make this process more convenient there
are predefined poses.
I often find myself browsing through the catalogue
and just picking something that is already
pretty close to what I want, so I have a base
to work with.
For the sitting character I just pick the
pose I like and drag it onto the 3D model.
From there I can refine the pose to my liking,
like changing the arms … maybe he is writing
something.
The hand gesture can be changed separately
by clicking on the hand you want to edit and
dragging a hand pose on it.
When you are done with posing you can save
that pose for the next time.
You can even use the saved pose on different
models that are also available.
Another helpful tool are the backgrounds and
objects.
Unfortunately, these aren't as universal as
the character models that you can use for
almost any character and purpose.
As you have quite a limited set here, their
usefulness depends on what is available and
whether it matches the scenery of your story.
But still it’s worth checking them out as
they can turn out to be incredibly helpful
when you find the right one, as it solves
some problems when working with scenery and
perspective.
And if you can’t find what you are looking
for in ClipStudio’s own catalogue, maybe
you can find and download models made by the
community in the asset section.
This is where everyone can offer models and
objects to download.
But back to the tools we have, since conveniently
for our classroom scenery there is a model
available.
The lighting is adjustable.
With some backgrounds this is really necessary
because I don't know what happened here…
someone should turn the light on.
The great feature of these models is that
you can easily drag them on your canvas and
then literally place your characters and objects
in the scenery by just dragging them in as
well.
They will adopt the perspective of the set
and then it's just your job to get the pose
and position right for your purpose.
As we have already created a sitting pose,
all we have to do is to drag it onto the character.
Then comes a bit fine tuning by using the
position tool.
Move the character through the scenery.
If you notice that he floats, there is this
“ground” button that pulls him down again.
So when we have placed the character or even
a few of them we can start adding objects
like books, pencil cases, and pens.
Just drag the objects in and set them up to
your liking.
You can even change the scale ;D Maybe you
are writing a story about chair-kun, always
sitting behind his first love senpai-senpai,
but too shy to talk to him.
Once you are done, all you need to do is use
your work as a reference for the drawing you
had in mind.
How close you stick to the reference is up
to you of course.
The next great feature are brushes.
Similarly to the 3D models, you’ll find
plenty of brushes that come with ClipStudio
itself or brushes created by the community.
But of course, you don't want your comic to
look like it’s just an ensemble of brushes.
I’ve used a bunch of highly detailed and
useful brushes in this forest scene, but it
doesn’t really come together nicely.
There’s hardly any depth and it overall
looks pretty noisy and without focus.
These are all great tools and there is nothing
wrong with using them, but used too excessively
they might change the perception of your work.
If their use is easy to spot, they can’t
be unseen and it might become a distraction
when the reader notices the same brush used
all over the place.
So when possible I recommend to be subtle
and integrate and edit them to your needs.
As it always is, there are loads of different
ways to do that.
You can combine different brushes together
for example.
But let me demonstrate that.
I want to draw a forest background, so first
I do a rough sketch of my composition - what
perspective I have in mind, where the trees
are going to be etc.
The first brush I am going to use is for basic
grass.
It’s not really detailed, but it helps to
give the drawing more depth.
Then I start on a different layer using a
leaf brush and roughly giving the tree tops
some shape.
Next I use a clipping mask on top and use
the same brush but solid black this time to
create some shadow.
I use a hatching brush to make the shadows
look lighter on the bottom part.
To make the seam on the top part look more
natural I make a selection to stay inside
the lines and use a foliage brush.
To add more depth underneath the tree top
layer, I use the leaf brush in solid black
again and draw some trees that are more in
the background.
Now for the trunks
I use a few lines and fill them with color
so they are not transparent.
On top I do a clipping mask and fill the space
with a bark textured brush.
Then I use a layer mask and a leaf brush to
erase the tip of the trunk to make it blend
better with the tree top.
For the bottom part I use some grass brushes,
so the trunk is connected to the ground as
well.
As the tree in the foreground is a bit more
detailed, I use another brush for the trunk.
Then I roughly paint the root by hand and
try to make the transition subtle by adding
and covering some details.
The rest is basically the same steps as before,
until we call our landscape finished.
We can add some falling leaves or more flowers,
it’s up to your taste.
Here are a few other examples where I used
different brushes to create a forest scene.
Last but not least I want to show you how
I created the thumbnail for this video.
The comic will still take a bit of time, but
hopefully it will be finished soon.
It will be available as a comic book in my
online shop.
If you don’t want to miss any updates on
the comic, like when it’s about to be released,
sign up to the newsletter that you can find
in the description, or follow me on Instagram
or Twitter.
Again, please excuse the rare video uploads.
If all goes well, I’ll upload more often
in the future.
