Hello! My name is Liz Staley and I’m a long-time user of Clip Studio Paint (I started using the program back when it was known as Manga Studio 4!). I was a beta-tester on the Manga Studio 5 program and for Clip Studio Paint, and I have written three books and several video courses about the program. Many of you probably know my name from those books, in fact. I write weekly posts on Graphixly.com and on CSP Tips, so be sure to come back every week to learn more Clip Studio Tips and Tricks from me!

Colored line art, as opposed to black lines, can be a great finishing touch for your illustrations. But honestly, sometimes it’s very tedious to create! But what if we could make line art that colors itself as we add color to our drawing? 

In this article we will cover the following topics:

How I Would Normally Color Lines

Making Self Coloring Line Art

Let’s start coloring!

How I Would Normally Color Lines

First, I wanted to show how I would normally do colored line art so that we can compare the new method to the old one. So what I would usually do is finish coloring my art, then once I’m done I would click on the Lines layer and then use the “Lock transparent pixels” icon to make it so I can only add color to the already existing lines.

Then, I would choose the color of the area I want to change the line art color of with the eyedropper tool and then choose a darker version of that color.

Then I would use a brush tool and go in manually to color in my lineart, being sure to keep the edges where one area turns into another (such as the line where the face meets the bangs) neat and tidy. This can take quite a long time of going back and forth between colors to get the transitions between areas looking good.

Making Self Coloring Line Art

So let’s try this new method to make this process easier! To start we’ll create a copy of the line art layer by going to Layer - Duplicate Layer.

Click the “Lock transparent pixels” icon on the top layer of the lineart, then paint this layer with a color of your choice.

Set this painted line art layer to the “Linear Burn” blending mode. 

Next we’re going to make a new layer between the two line art layers. This is going to be our layer for our flat colors. 

Now start filling in your colors! You will need to make sure the color extends all the way under the lines without going over them, otherwise the lines will just remain black or won’t be colored all the way. 

I did find this part of the process rather tedious and tried a few different ways to make it faster, the best thing might be to select the area outside of the character, invert the selection, and create a new layer beneath the colors with a flat silhouette, then use a clipping mask to the silhouette to keep the flat colors inside the lines. However you still need to be careful with the inner lines to make sure the line is colored without spilling in to the next area. 

Despite the bit of tedium with getting the areas of color just right, there are several big advantages to doing the colored lines this way! It’s easy to adjust the color of the Linear Burn layer by making sure that layer is the active one, then going to Edit - Tonal Correction - Hue/Saturation/Luminosity. Make sure the Preview checkbox is checked to see the color update in real time. 

Once you like the line colors, click OK to save the changes.

Another thing I like about this method is that the line colors update when adding gradients or shading! I used the wand selection tool to select the hair (easy to do once the flat color layer is made!), then added a gradient from light red to purple. Since the line art color is coming from the Linear Burn layer, the line colors adjust as the color underneath them is changed.

Conclusion

Though the setup for this colored line art technique is just as tedious as the way that I would normally do it, it does have several time saving benefits that I really like! I think this is going to be my new method for making colored line art!

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