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!

This week we are continuing our explanation of new features in Version 4.2.1! This time we’ll learn how to use Puppet Warp in Simple Mode! I will be using my iPad for the examples in this article. 

In this article we will cover the following topics:

Using Puppet Warp In Simple Mode

Let’s get warping!

Using Puppet Warp in Simple Mode

If your Clip Studio Paint is in Studio Mode you’ll need to switch to Simple Mode. Thankfully there are two ways of doing this! One is to tap on the Clip Studio Paint logo in the top left corner to access the menu, then tap on “Switch to Studio Mode.” Or you can tap on the Switch icon in the bottom left corner of the screen on your mobile device. 

Whatever bit of your art that you want to apply Puppet Warp to should be all on the same layer. If they aren’t you can either merge them (I like to Merge To New Layer to preserve my original layers!) or you need to select all the layers that you want to include in the warp. I decided to merge my character’s layers to a new layer for this example. 

Once you have the layer (or layers!) that you want to warp selected, click on the Move/Transform tool on the left side of the screen. 

The Move/Transform window will come up. At the top right tap on the “Puppet Warp” heading to switch to the Puppet Warp mesh. 

Before starting to warp, we need to add “pins”. I like to think of these pins as joints for my character, so I tend to put them where joints might be located! To reposition this character’s head, I first tapped on the mesh to place a pin at the neck, then tapped to put a pin at the top of the head. Now, using the upper pin, we can “bend the neck” using the lower pin as the anchor. 

I have noticed that sometimes when I only have a few pins dropped that the entire character will rotate when I try to move one pin. If this happens I’ve found that dropping a pin around the middle of the character/area will help to anchor it and prevent the entire thing from rotating. 

You can continue adding pins to your character and moving them to tweak the pose. I like to even add pins to tails and hair to adjust them as well! If you need to get rid of a pin, simply tap on it to select it, then tap on “Delete Pin” in the Puppet Warp options. 

Below is my original pose on the left and the puppet warped adjustment on the right! 

Another new feature added to Puppet Warp in this version is the ability to move pins up and down. To show this I’ll switch to a different drawing than the one above so it will be easier to understand. 

I want to adjust the pose so that this character has their left foot (our right) in front of the other. However, the opposite is occurring in the screenshot below! So I’m going to tap on “Move up” while I’m on the pin of the foot I want in front. 

Now the feet are the way I want them to be positioned! You can move pins up and down depending on if you want the area around the pin to be in front of or behind what it’s overlapping. 

Conclusion

Puppet Warp is a great tool for easily tweaking and perfecting your character poses, so having it available in simple mode is fantastic for artistic work flow! 

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