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 things I have loved about doing these articles is being able to learn how to improve my own art and experiment with different techniques that normally I wouldn’t try out. I have tried to break out of the bad habit of choosing overly saturated colors all the time, but sometimes I just miss the mark. This week, let’s dull down our colors while also not making our image completely desaturated and also giving it a soft, subtle sort of glow.

In this article we will cover the following topics:

Color Adjusting Your Art

Let’s get started!

Color Adjusting Your Art

Start off with an image. I chose one that I had shaded and highlighted already. You could probably do this before rendering but you’ll want to choose your shading and highlight colors carefully if you do this before finishing shading your art. 

Hide any background layers so that you just have your character art and transparency. We are going to make a merged copy of the character to make our changes to.

Right-click on one of the layers of your character art in the Layer palette, then click on “Merge visible to new layer”. This will make a merged layer copy of anything that is showing. 

(We will need another copy of this merged layer, so go ahead and make one now, it will make a future step easier!)

Create a new layer above the merged copy. I’m going to name this layer “gray fill” so that it’s easy to tell from the other layers.

Select a gray color and fill the layer with it.

In the Layer palette, right-click on the gray fill layer. Go to Layer Settings - Clip To Layer Below. 

The gray color should now only show in the shape of your character. 

Change the gray fill layer’s Blending Mode to “Brightness”. Then lower the opacity until you like the look. This is also the time when you can experiment with different shades of gray if you’d like, as a darker, lighter, warmer, or cooler gray will change the overall look. 

Right-click the gray fill layer in the Layer palette and select Merge with Layer Below to make it part of the first character art copy layer. 

Your art should now look something like this. 

Now select the second merged copy layer of your character art. Make sure that it’s above the previous layer we were working on, then change the Blending Mode to “Color”.

Adjust the opacity of the Color layer until you like the look.

Make another new layer over top of the other layers. Set it to the “Overlay” blending mode. Then select a color from your art and choose a more saturated version of it.

Use the soft airbrush tool to add some saturated color over the character art. I used the color picker tool to choose the area’s overall color, then chose a more saturated version by going to the right on the color settings a little bit.

Once you’ve added some color, adjust the opacity until you like the look.

If you want to, go back to your original layers and make a copy of your line art. Bring the copy of the line art layer over top of the layers we just added. I filled my line art with a dark blue color, then set the layer to Overlay and dropped the opacity to 50%. This brought my lines back with some contrast but also kept them from overwhelming the artwork. 

And you’re done! Below is the image we started with on the left and the adjusted artwork on the right. I think it gives the art a subtle glow and softness.

Conclusion

One of the greatest advantages of creating digital art is being able to play around with different looks and techniques for one image. Though I love the original, there is something I really like about the soft light and low contrast of the altered one, as though the moonlight is reflecting off the snow and lighting up the entire scene! 

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