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!

I absolutely love cel shading, but sometimes a drawing comes along that just needs a softer style. Normally I would just do a blended style but for the illustration I’ve been working on I really wanted a more watercolor style of coloring. So this week, let’s create a watercolor look easily using only ONE default paintbrush and the Blend tool!

In this article we will cover the following topics:

Painting Hair

Painting Skin

General Tips

Let’s start painting!

Painting Hair

For this illustration I used a brush that was a default subtool in the older versions of Clip Studio Paint called “Opaque Watercolor”. You can download the older default subtools at the following link: https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1842027

OR if you want to use the newer default tools, the “Round Watercolor” brush from CSP V2.0 and up will work in almost the same exact way! The only difference is that Round Watercolor has a bit more texture than the old Opaque Watercolor brush.

In my article last week we worked on laying down the flat colors for this illustration, with each hue on its own layer, as shown below. 

This preparation will make our lives easier because now we can select each color on its own and make our painting process faster.” Right-click on the Hair color layer and go to Selection from Layer - Create selection.  

The contents of the layer will now show a selection around them, as shown below. 

Next I’m going to make a new raster layer named “Shading”, then set the blending mode to Multiply and the opacity to around 50%. (You may want to change the opacity later depending if you want your shading to be more subtle or more intense.)

Next I used the eyedropper to select my hair base color. Double-click on the foreground color swatch in the Clip Studio Paint toolbar to open the Color settings. Then I’m going to choose a dark, less saturated purple color for my shading. 

With the Opaque Watercolor (or Round Watercolor, depending on which default sub tools you have) brush, start painting in your shadows. The selection will keep the shading from going outside of the hair. 

Remember to keep the direction of the hair strands and the direction of your light source in mind as you are shading. I decided on a light source coming from the right-hand side, so the left side of the hair strands will be darker. I like to press down hard on the stylus with the watercolor brush to get the darkest shades and shape of the shadows, then go back over using a very light pressure to blend a bit. If you want even darker shadows in some areas, choose a darker shadow color. For hair these deep shadows are usually behind the neck and ears and at the ends of the strands that are farthest from the light source.

For more color variation, make a new raster layer with a Normal blending mode. Then choose a slightly more saturated shade of your flat color. Go over where the shadows meet your base color lightly with this saturated shade to add some variation and interest. 

To create highlights, make a new Raster layer and set the blending mode to Screen. Now choose a very light color (mine is almost white but not quite white for the hair highlights). Use the watercolor brush to brush the highlight color where the light would be hitting the hair the most. It also looks nice to use a very small brush to add some light strands going in to the darker areas as well!

Note that if you want to make even brighter highlights that really pop, you can create a new layer and use pure white, either with the watercolor brush or a Pen tool, to create very bright highlights that will make the hair look super shiny!

Painting Skin

I started off this section by selecting the skin flat color layer, then right-clicking it in the Layers palette and clicking “Selection from layer - Create Selection.” 

For a cute look, I’m going to use a pink color on a new layer to add blush to the character’s cheeks, the tip of the nose, and the ends of the fingers. (If the character’s knees and elbows are visible it is also a good idea to add some blush color to those areas as well, but my character’s knees and elbows are covered!)

To soften the edges of the blush, you can use the Blend tool. I used a desaturated purple color on the previous Shading layer (Multiply blending mode, 50% opacity) to start blocking in the face shading. Leave a little bit of the shadowed side of the face open for a bit of ambient light if you want - I feel like this keeps the face details easier to see.

Use a darker version of the shadow color to add darker areas for more contrast, especially under the chin and under the bangs. For a smoother look, use the Blend tool to smudge colors together and smooth a little of the brush texture if it looks strange in places. 

Like with the hair, I also used a more saturated shade of the skin base color along the edge of the shadows to create some more color variation to the skin. Then I used a very light pink color on the highlight layer (Screen blending mode, 100% opacity) to add light areas to the face and hands. 

General Painting Tips

Now that you know the painting process you can continue with the other areas! However, here are a few more tips.

Make similar colored areas easier to tell apart by shading with different tones. For instance, there is white on this character’s bunny ears and tail, and also white on the clothing. I shaded the ears and tail with a purple color to tie it in with the hair, while I shaded the clothing white with a blue-gray tone. 

For complex areas, like the striped stockings, I did not select the area from the base colors layers. I wanted to shade and highlight the stockings together so that they would look like one object. So I went to the line art layer and used the Wand selection tool to select the stockings, then used the appropriate shading and highlight layers to render them. This made sure that the lines of the shading and highlighting lined up and looked cohesive. 

To make objects look shiny, such as the boots, use very dark shadows and very bright, strong highlights. If there is another object nearby you can also softly brush some color from that object on to the shiny object to create a reflection. 

Conclusion

Next week we will finish up this illustration by creating some easy but beautiful and detailed eyes, as well as some eye makeup!

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