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!

Now that I have a tablet that can run Clip Studio on it, I’ve been trying to find ways to create more art while I’m away from home or away from my desktop PC. Sometimes it feels very clunky however when you don’t have access to keyboard shortcuts! That’s where Companion Mode with your smartphone comes in, which allows you to quickly change tools, zoom and rotate your canvas, and more while drawing on your tablet. 

In this article we will cover the following topics:

Connecting Your Tablet and Smartphone

Companion Mode Features

Let’s get drawing

Connecting Your Tablet and Smartphone

I will be doing this with my Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 and my iPhone 13 running iOS version 17.6.1. You will need Clip Studio on both of your devices. If you do not have a mobile plan for Clip Studio you will be limited in the amount of time you can use Clip Studio, however the device running Companion mode does not count toward your time. Also you can do this with your phone and your desktop without needing a mobile device plan for Clip Studio as well. 

To start, I launched Clip Studio on my tablet. 

If you have projects that you’ve synced from a desktop device that you want to work on with your mobile device, make sure that you are signed in to your Clip Studio account. Then click Projects and click the “Cloud” tab to see any projects that you’ve chosen to sync to your Clip Studio cloud storage. 

I decided to open one of my synced projects to work on. Now it’s time to connect my smartphone for Companion Mode. Click on the “Connect to Smartphone” icon, shown in the red square in the screenshot below. 

This will bring up a QR code.

Open the camera on your Smartphone and scan the QR code.

Because this is my first time doing this with these two devices, my phone then asked for permission to find and connect to devices on my local wi-fi network. Tap on Allow to continue.

I then got the following message about Companion Mode failing, which I figured was because it was the first time I had done this and needed to turn permissions on. Tap on Scan QR Code.

If you are asked to allow Clip Studio access to the camera, tap on Allow.

Point the camera at the QR code again to scan it. Your phone should switch to Companion Mode, which we will go over the features of in the next section!

Companion Mode Features

The first screen you’ll see in Companion Mode allows us to switch between several common tools and perform operations like Undo and Redo with the tap of a finger. If you have Quick Access sets created on your tablet, they will also show in this part of Companion Mode, giving you access to your common tools and operations quickly.

Going to the next screen by tapping on the icon at the bottom of the phone screen, we’ll find the color picker wheel, including shortcuts for black, white, and transparent. The sliders at the bottom of this screen also control the tool opacity and brush size. 

Screen 3 allows us to move the canvas around with touch gestures. We can also undo and redo with a two and three finger tap on this screen, making it easy to go back and forward while drawing without having to switch back to the first screen.

It’s still surreal to me that I can make a gesture on my phone and have the file on my tablet change! 

Tapping on the next icon shows us the Sub View window for Companion Mode. Here we can import images from our phone’s camera roll and use them for reference or to create a color palette from. 

Speaking of color palettes, the next screen in Companion Mode is a color mixing palette! The icons directly below the main mixing area are pre-set colors you can choose from if you want. The second line of icons shows your current active color (mine is the darker teal color from my sub view photo), then a few tools. These icons, from left to right, are:

Clear: clears the mixing area

Brush size: sets the size of the brush for the mixing palette.

Brush: Put down chosen colors on the palette.

Blend: Mix colors together on the palette.

Eyedropper: Choose blended colors from the palette.

Options: Change the background color of the palette or reset the color palette.

Lay down your colors and blend them, then use the eyedropper to choose a color.

Selecting a color from the mixer on the phone makes it the active color on my tablet, allowing for fast drawing and painting!

The next screen on Companion Mode is a Webtoon Preview window. This isn’t so useful if you’re working on a single illustration. However, if you are a Webtoon creator, this is a great way to see how your comic will look on a mobile device and check the pacing and text. 

The next screen in Companion Mode offers several buttons that act like common keyboard key shortcuts for your currently active tool. In the screenshot below, I had the brush tool active, so it displays the shortcuts that would normally be tied to the Shift, Ctrl, and Alt keyboard buttons of a keyboard. 

The final screen in companion mode shows a few settings we can change. There is a dropdown menu for how to align buttons in landscape mode with settings for Align left or align right. Since I’m left-handed and used Companion Mode with my right hand, I set my buttons to align right.

There are also options for how to show the Quick Access set list, whether to use Vibration or not in Companion Mode, and to disable your device going to sleep while in Companion Mode. Turning this checkbox off means that your phone will default to whatever the sleep settings in your operating system is, so you may have to unlock the device if you go idle.

Finally, I wanted to cover what to do if you navigate away from Clip Studio on your tablet! I went to check my email on my tablet and noticed the following message on my phone when I went to go back to Clip Studio.

To go back to Companion Mode, make sure you have gone back to Clip Studio on your tablet, then click on “Yes” to try connecting again with your phone. If this doesn’t work, tap on Connect to Smartphone on your tablet’s Clip Studio interface, then tap Scan QR Code on the phone to reestablish the connection. 

Conclusion

I’ve never liked using art programs on my tablet much because of feeling like it takes so much longer because of the lack of shortcuts. Using Companion Mode on my phone to fill in for keyboard shortcuts seems like it’s the solution to that issue, and I’m looking forward to creating art when I’m on the go!

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