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'll be continuing our series of how to create your first illustration in Clip Studio Paint. This series assumes that you are familiar with digital illustration in general, but may be confused about how to get started with the features specific to CSP. In this article we will be covering inking your illustration. Inking is my favorite thing to do, so I'm also including some general inking tips!

In this article we will cover the following topics:

Why You Should Use Layer Colors For Inking

Inking Tips

Let’s start inking!

Why You Should Use Layer Colors For Inking

The first thing I do in my inking process is to change the Layer Color of my finished sketch layer. With the finished sketch layer selected, click on the Layer Color icon in the Layer Property palette. 

Your active layer will change to a light blue color. If you want a different color, simply click on the blue rectangle by the Layer Color options in the layer palette (they will only show after turning the Layer Color option on!)

You can tell which layers have Layer Color turned on by the two small colored squares over the layer color expression icon in the layer palette, indicated by the arrow in the screenshot below.

So why do I insist on using the Layer Color option on my finished sketch before starting inking? Well, the primary reason is that it makes my ink lines easier for me to see. However, another very important reason is that turning on the Layer Color makes it immediately apparent if we start inking on the wrong layer! Any marks made on this layer will now show up as blue, no matter what color is selected in the color picker. If you've ever gotten through inking an image and then realized you did half of it on the sketch layer, you know how painful it is! Using Layer Color means that you can no longer ink on the wrong layer.

Once you have your finished sketch layer’s Layer Color set, create a new layer over your sketch layer for your inked lines.

Inking Tips

The use of line weight when inking can indicate highlight and shadow, distance of the object from the “camera”, and can also add interest and dynamism to a still illustration. So how do we use line weight effectively? 

First, establish where your light source is in your scene. You can do this mentally, but if you need a visual reminder when you first start doing this, try drawing the light source or direction of the light rays on another layer in a light color to give yourself a reminder as you ink. For this example, I'm going to use this sphere with a light source behind and to the left.

Because of the location of the light source, the lightest part of the sphere would be at the top left, with the shadow getting darker as the line goes around to the bottom right. So, as the inked line goes away from the light source it gets thicker to indicate shadow. If the line is very close to the light source or the highlight is particularly strong, you can break up the line at the highlight or have it completely disappear.

If you have issues with keeping your lines steady, you can adjust the stabilization on any of the Clip Studio Paint drawing tools. Note that increasing the stabilization will increase lag between the movement of the stylus and the appearance of the line.

Clip Studio Paint's default pen tools for inking can accommodate a wide variety of art styles. Aside from the Calligraphy Pen, they are all pressure sensitive, but some are more sensitive than others. Try them out to find one that you like, or search the Clip Studio Assets library for hundreds of user created brushes!

Another tip I have for inking is to be confident and also to zoom in on your drawing while inking! Let's compare some lines I made on my drawing with each other. The inked lines below were made with the Real G-Pen tool at 100% zoom on the canvas. (You can tell your current zoom by looking at the bottom left of the canvas area)

These lines seem shaky even though I inked them using my usual techniques. They don't look smooth and confident.

Let's try again, but this time zoomed in to 200%. These lines look a bit better, but if you look super close you can see some shakiness to them.

However, it is important to remember that you are probably the only person who is going to see your art this close up! So let's keep the 200% lines, but zoom out to 50% and see what they look like. Now they seem much smoother and more confident!

Typically, I ink at around 200-250% zoom depending on the size of my canvas. Note the variation of line thickness in the hair (my light source for this illustration is going to be on the right hand side).

Another thing I find difficult with inking at times is making long sweeping vertical (or close to vertical) lines, because of being zoomed in and the limitations of my screen size. This is a good time to use the canvas rotation feature! This can be found below the canvas to the right of the zoom controls. We can either click the left and right circle arrows, or use the slider to control the rotation. Personally, I like the slider better than the arrows! To reset the rotation, click the icon to the right of the rotation controls. This will reset the canvas to its original rotation. 

Here is my finished inked drawing, ready for coloring! Come back next week for the coloring process.

The playing card is from this Clip Studio Asset: https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1783669 

The belt brush can be found here: https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=2044864 

Conclusion

So much of inking is practice and making your lines confidently, however having a digital tool that you feel comfortable with, using stabilization, and also having a few tips and tricks can make it a less painful process along the way!

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