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!

One of the most important parts of creating color illustrations that look great is learning how to harmonize your colors so that they don’t clash and everything looks like it’s existing in the same space. This week we’re going to take an illustration and harmonize the colors using layer blending modes and opacity.

Let’s get started!

Harmonizing the Color Palette

This is the illustration I’ll be working on this week. I think the colors look fine, but they could be better, especially with the strong colors from the background sunset image. 

I colored my characters each on their own layer and I want to use a clipping layer over both without having to make multiple clipping layers, so we’ll need to combine those layers down. I hid the background layer and then tapped on Layer - Merge Visible to New Layer so that I would get a combined layer without getting rid of my original layers. Then I made sure the combined copy layer was at the top of my layer stack and hid the original layers. 

Create a new layer and set the blending mode to Multiply. Lower the opacity and make sure to select “Clip to layer below”. This layer should be on top of your character art so that the next steps only change the colors of the characters without changing the background colors.

Next, choose a color from your background. I chose a pink color from the sunset. Then fill the Multiply layer with your chosen color.

Select a lighter color from the background and use a soft airbrush tool to add some lighter areas. I chose a yellow color and added it in the highlight areas on the characters.

Next choose a darker color from the background and use a soft brush to add that color to the shadow areas. I added dark purple that I really think helps deepen the shadows on the character in the suit especially!

By the way, if you want to do this harmonization before coloring your image, you can do that! Simply take your color pattern for your image and lay it out on a layer. Then choose a color from that palette and put it over the palette using either a multiply layer or a brush set to Multiply. This will tint all the colors in your palette with one color, harmonizing the entire palette. This is the same thing you would do with paints on canvas by adding one paint to all the others to tint them!

Now let’s add some finishing touches. Create a new layer and set the blending mode to Add (Glow).

Select a light color and use a soft airbrush to add light to the edges of the characters and objects in your illustration. I chose a light yellow since this is a sunset scene, but choose whatever color matches your palette! 

Next I want to soften up these highlights, so select the Blur subtool from the Blend tool category.

Using the Blur tool, I softened the edges of the highlights. Then adjust the opacity until you’re happy with the look!

On the left below is the image we started out with, and on the right is our adjusted image.

You can do this with any image and any colors! The image on the left below was harmonized with pinks and blues, while the one on the right was done with yellows and greens. 

Conclusion

This is a quick and easy way to either finish up your illustrations and make them cohesive or to set up your color palette for success from the start! If you’re unsatisfied with your color pieces but don’t know how to make them better, try this out and see if it’s a good fit for your style. 

For more information on CLIP Studio Paint, please visit https://www.clipstudio.net/en  or https://graphixly.com