Today’s topic is my favorite drawing program – Clip Studio Paint. The version I use is Clip Studio Paint EX ver. 3.0.4. I bought it in June 2020, and since then I’ve been using it intensively. For illustrations and comics (especially comics!), it’s absolutely unbeatable. In the following lines, I’ll explain why.
1. Tools – The user interface and commands are quite intuitive. There’s a huge selection of brushes and techniques, and you can add even more with additional brushes. Every tool has basic settings, as well as advanced ones in the Sub-tool Detail Palette, which lets you easily customize tools to your needs.
2. Vector layers – CSP allows you to combine vector and raster layers in your drawing. Vector layers are strictly for linework, and they make it easier to manipulate form, color, line thickness, and more.
3. Rulers - CSP has rulers for perspective and symmetry, which save you time. Once you master how to use them, you can quickly and precisely draw environments - rooms, objects, etc. As someone who studied perspective at university, I can confirm they work great :)
4. Easier coloring – CSP has several functions that dramatically speed up the coloring process for line art. First, you can mark your lines as a reference layer, and the paint bucket will recognize closed areas of that layer while coloring in a completely different layer. Second, you can set the program to tolerate gaps in your closed lines - it will fill inside the line as if the gap doesn’t exist (Close gap paint bucket). If you’re working with scanned line art, you can easily isolate the line layer using the convert brightness to opacity command.
5. Comics – This program was originally called Manga Studio, and that says it all. It offers many options for organizing comic pages, as well as dialogue balloons, effects, backgrounds, and more. You can also find tons of materials and screen tones (what us “old folks” used to call Letraset) on the Clip Studio Assets site.
6. Color mixing – A handy little palette that lets you keep your current colors and mix them, just like on a traditional painter’s palette.
7. Sub-View – Now that I have two screens this isn’t as crucial, but CSP has a small window where you can import all the references you need. You can flip through them, zoom, rotate, pick colors from them etc. It’s convenient because your references are right there, and you can quickly pull up the one you need.
8. Time-lapse – One of the most fun features of CSP. When you turn it on, the program records a time-lapse of your drawing process, and at any moment you can export it as an mp4 file.
9. Tutorials and webinars – There’s a large community of users creating materials, brushes, and tutorials for CSP. The CSP team also periodically organizes free webinars led by advanced users.
10. Price – When I bought it, I got CSP on sale as a one-time purchase license for 99 EUR. Currently, the program works on the principle of “updates are free, upgrades are paid.” As the owner of a permanent license, you can keep using and updating your program, but you won’t get new features unless you pay for the new version. Even so, with periodic updates, CSP is cheaper than Photoshop, which requires a monthly subscription. If you follow Clip Studio on social media, they occasionally offer significant discounts on the program and new versions.
BONUS POINT UPDATE! CSP has 'Companion mode', which allows you to connect your mobile phone (for example) to your desktop (or tablet) Clip Studio Paint, and then your mobile functions as a remote, with customizable tools. This is a great feature if you are working on a desktop drawing display or drawing tablet, because it can give you additional drawing space, since you can have all the tool tabs on the mobile device, as well as give you additional features (such as touch mode) if your display doesn't have it. This does not require an additional licence for the mobile application, you can simply install and use it a free version. More on how to set up Companion mode in CSP on the official website.
These are the advantages that were the biggest plus for me. CSP has many more features I don’t use, such as animation, webcomics, 3D models as references, group work (several users collaborating on one project), etc. The program can also be installed on tablets and mobile phones (for those who need more mobility). I absolutely love Clip Studio and keep discovering new things in it, so I would definitely recommend trying it - especially if you work with comics.