Learn Clip Studio Paint: A beginner's guide to creating compelling art in manga, comics, and animation

This beginner-friendly colored-guide to Clip Studio Paint equips you with all the essential tools to tell your own manga story and develop your digital drawing skills.

Key Features

• An illustrated guide by an award-winning manga and comic book artist
• Explore essential drawing, inking, and coloring techniques to create captivating characters and stories that pop off the page
• Take your first steps into animation with Clip Studio Paint to add movement to your artwork

Book Description

Ever dreamed of creating your own manga art comic books? Whether you're sketching your first character building entire comic panels, this beginner-friendly guide walks you through the essentials of Clip Studio Paint step by step. You’ll master core digital illustration skills – such as layering, penciling, and inking – while exploring storytelling techniques such as panel design, speech bubbles, and sound effects.

This edition introduces enhanced guidance on drawing characters with correct proportions and perspective, customizing brushes, using rulers, and applying coloring techniques that will make your art stand out. You’ll also learn how to integrate 3D models to create dynamic poses and gain an introduction to basic animation.

Written for aspiring digital artists, this book combines practical, tool-based instruction with creative guidance to support your growth from sketch to finished comic. Packed with clear illustrations and updated content, this fourth edition is ideal for those looking to publish webtoons, graphic novels, or manga art.

By the end of the book, you’ll be able to create polished, expressive comics and illustrations with Clip Studio Paint and share them with the world.

What you will learn

• Organize layers to make your artwork easy to edit
• Customize tools and brushes to draw compelling characters
• Implement inking and coloring techniques in your art
• Craft engaging comic panel layouts
• Employ layer masks and screentones for professional results
• Use 3D models to learn poses for your characters
• Explore animation basics to bring your artwork to life
• Leverage Clip Studio Paint's vast library of assets
• Export your creations for various platforms, including print and web

Who this book is for

If you're just starting out as a digital artist want to switch to Clip Studio Paint from a different graphics software package, then this book is for you. While this book is designed for those with no prior knowledge of digital art, intermediate-level users looking to explore the unique features of Clip Studio Paint will also find this book useful.

Table of Contents

1. Image Gallery of Manga and Illustrations Created by Clip Studio Paint
2. Installing Clip Studio Paint Pro and Interface Basics
3. Penciling: Layer and Layer Property Palettes
4. Introducing Clip Studio Paint Brushes
5. Pages and Panels to Shape Manga
6. Erasers, Selections, and the Sub View Palette
7. Using Text and Balloon Tools
8. Getting Started with Inking Tools
9. Material Palette and Inking Special Effects
10. Exploring Vector Layers
11. Creating Your Own Sound Effects
12. Making Layer Masks and Screentones
13. All About Rulers
14. Using 3D Figures and Objects
15. Color Palette
16. Using Clip Studio Paint to Color Your Manga
17. Auto Actions and Your Workflow
18. Exploring Clip Studio Assets and Animations
19. Exporting, Printing, and Uploading Your Manga

Inko Ai Takita, also known just as Inko, is UK based Japanese manga artist / illustrator. Her visual works often imply cross overs of modern & traditional Eastern and Western cultures, which comes from her studies undergraduate and master at Kyoto Zokei university of Art & Design in Japan (gained scholarship on the second year) , and BA Central Saint Martin's College of Art & Design in UK before she kicks off her career as a manga & comic artist in 2009. She has been working with: Guardian Children's book, British Museum, V&A, British Library, TFL, Sony Entertainment Japan. A comic anthology Portrait of Violence (New International, also available on amazon) she took part as a main artist has won The 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards medal. She joined as an illustrator for an interactive web-theatre Flight Paths, and it was awarded the P.K. Walker Innovation in Craft Award from Superfest Disability Film Festival 2021. A manga adoptation of Robert Burn's dark poem Tam O'Shanter (Cranachan) is published in 2019, and available on amazon too. Manga Yokai Stories: Ghostly tales from Japan is just released by Tuttle in Sep 2020 and sold worldwide. Yokai Trail exhibition, a part of House of Setting Sun exhibition at Blackwell the Arts & Crafts center is open from July – October 2021. Learn Clip Studio Paint (Packt) published in September 2021. Her manga adaptation of the first Japanese novel from 1st century Tale of Genji (Tuttle) released in April 2022.

Liz Staley is a visual artist and blogger who loves horses, animation, comics, and true crime. She began her digital art journey using Adobe Photoshop and then learned how to use Clip Studio Paint. She currently writes a weekly blog for Graphixly with art and Clip Studio Paint tips. Although she still loves the medium of comics and animation, her personal art now mostly consists of animal portraits that combine education with conservation. Liz loves horses, dogs, horror movies, anime, and learning the Japanese language.