Wacom Intuos + Manga/ClipStudio
September 12, 2018 11:15 AM Subscribe
I recently got a wee Wacom Intuos tablet and (Formerly Manga) ClipStudio Paint Pro with the intention of developing my (Quite poor) drawing/cartooning abilities. If you have recommendations for tutorials/resources, neat tips, links to interesting resources (Palettes, etc.), I'd love to hear them! I'm particularly interested in comic-related applications; currently I'm farting around with colouring old black & white comic art (Hence palette recs), but anything you suggest would be appreciated!
Whew boy. Okay. So, let me start by saying that my own drawing abilities are quite poor, but maybe that's actually good for the purposes of this question, because I've spent the last few months basically looking for ways to recreate an art school education for myself, and I think I've got a pretty good grasp of the resources that are out there.
You don't specify how much you know about drawing/cartooning, so I'm going to break down this post into sections, and you can skip any section that doesn't apply to you.
===I CAN LITERALLY ONLY DRAW STICK FIGURES===
You want to start with the classic, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. The pop neuroscience is bunk and you can skip it, but this book will singlehandedly convince you that realistic drawing is actually within your grasp. Read it carefully all the way through. You don't need to do every exercise, but do a couple per chapter to make sure you comprehend the concepts involved.
After that, read this article and then this this article.
These two articles get at the heart of something that I struggled to figure out on my own, which is that there are two types of artists. The 'atelier' trained artist is trained to observe a particular scene really, really closely, ignoring any outside information ('that's an eye!') that gets in their way. The 'art school' trained artist is trained to break objects down into basic shapes and then combine them together. The 'atelier' artist can draw with insane photorealism, but won't be able to draw from imagination. The 'art school' artist can draw anything they want, but probably won't be able to 100% accurately render a still life.
That's an oversimplification, of course- art school artists do learn how to observe, and atelier artists do learn things like anatomy, but I've found the distinction is still useful because drawing 101 tutorials tend to either be in the atelier or the constructionist school and it can be hard to put the pieces together if you don't understand where each tradition is coming from.
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is explicitly in the 'observational' vein, and after reading it, I was left clueless about how to actually draw from imagination. So, after reading that, I would recommend reading all 15 lessons on Drawabox.com, which is the best 'intro' to constructionist drawing I've seen.
Oh and here's another really good explanation of 'drawing methods' (watch all 5 videos in the series).
===I CAN KIND OF DRAW, BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW TO IMPROVE OR WHAT THE FUNDAMENTALS ARE===
One piece of advice you're going to keep hearing again and again and again as you start on your journey to improve is to Focus on the Fundamentals. I was extremely annoyed by this advice, not because I'm lazy and don't want to do basic exercises (...though I am) but because I had no idea what the fundamentals actually were. But almost any mistake in your drawing will fundamentally come down to some weakness in your fundamentals.
So what are the fundamentals? The best explanation I've come across is this youtube video, which also helpfully breaks down the relative importance of the fundamentals per specialty (you won't need to know as much anatomy as a landscape painter, for instance). If you want more explanation, here are two articles.
I'm going to assume you did watch that video or read one of those articles, and give you my suggestion for improving each of those fundamentals.
PROPORTION AND PLACEMENT: Honestly, Drawing on the Right Side is pretty comprehensive about the techniques you can use here. I like this Proko video, which talks about common mistakes. If you didn't click with Drawing on the Right Side, try Keys to Drawing, Drawing for the Absolute Beginner, or Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner (yes they're different books). Notice that they all say 'Drawing' on the title- proportion and placement is fundamentally a 'drawing'/'observation' skill. Then, well, a ton of practice.
FORM AND CONSTRUCTION: Drawabox is the best resource on this, but for more: How to Draw What You See, and the infamous Loomis books (out of print, most easily found online).
PERSPECTIVE: For perspective 101: Perspective Made Easy. For the advanced stuff: How to Draw. If it's still not clicking: the relevant weeks on this site. Good perspective is something even very very experienced artists struggle with, so don't feel discouraged if it doesn't click at first.
ANATOMY: Proko's channel is good, as is Sycra's. Figure Drawing for All It's Worth is Loomis' most famous book as far as I can tell. Figure Drawing: Design and Invention emphasizes gesture, which is a crucial element to good figure drawing along with anatomy.
COMPOSITION/VALUES/COLOR THEORY: Haven't reached this point yet. Ask me in a month or two. I plan on starting with Framed Ink for composition, and James Gurney's books for value and light- they are very, very commonly recommended.
A lot of the above books come from Concept Art Empire's recommendation lists, but these I can vouch for personally, as I've read them.
===BUYING ALL THOSE BOOKS WOULD COST ME THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS===
♪ Having fun, isn't hard, when you've got a library card. ♪
A lot of these books can also be found through... uh... clandestine methods.
Or just stick to Drawabox and Sycra and Proko's youtube channels, or any one of the 298209834 art youtube channels there are. Now that you know what you're looking for, it's going to be far easier to find useful videos- you get a lot more out of "eye anatomy drawing" then just "how to draw" in my experience.
===UHHH THANKS FOR ALL THAT I GUESS, BUT I HONESTLY JUST WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT HOW TO WORK DIGITALLY===
Welp, sorry for doing the female equivalent of mansplaining. Hopefully the above will be useful to others?
Ctrl+Paint is the most commonly suggested free resource in my experience.
Go on Tumblr and find digital artists with styles you admire. They are often very forthcoming about the tools and process they use; often they'll have a #process or #faq tag.
I keep linking Concept Art Empire, but honestly they have such a great wealth of beginner-friendly material. You have to dig through the fluffy blog posts ("List of Art Quizzes You Can Take Online") to get to the good stuff, but what's good is really, really good.
===...AND CARTOONING?===
Sorry, I can't help you there. I will say though that if you understand the fundamentals, cartooning should come naturally- ultimately it's just drawing + composition. Maybe read Scott McCloud's Making Comics? Also, Framed Ink.
posted by perplexion at 1:32 PM on September 12, 2018 [11 favorites]
You don't specify how much you know about drawing/cartooning, so I'm going to break down this post into sections, and you can skip any section that doesn't apply to you.
===I CAN LITERALLY ONLY DRAW STICK FIGURES===
You want to start with the classic, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. The pop neuroscience is bunk and you can skip it, but this book will singlehandedly convince you that realistic drawing is actually within your grasp. Read it carefully all the way through. You don't need to do every exercise, but do a couple per chapter to make sure you comprehend the concepts involved.
After that, read this article and then this this article.
These two articles get at the heart of something that I struggled to figure out on my own, which is that there are two types of artists. The 'atelier' trained artist is trained to observe a particular scene really, really closely, ignoring any outside information ('that's an eye!') that gets in their way. The 'art school' trained artist is trained to break objects down into basic shapes and then combine them together. The 'atelier' artist can draw with insane photorealism, but won't be able to draw from imagination. The 'art school' artist can draw anything they want, but probably won't be able to 100% accurately render a still life.
That's an oversimplification, of course- art school artists do learn how to observe, and atelier artists do learn things like anatomy, but I've found the distinction is still useful because drawing 101 tutorials tend to either be in the atelier or the constructionist school and it can be hard to put the pieces together if you don't understand where each tradition is coming from.
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is explicitly in the 'observational' vein, and after reading it, I was left clueless about how to actually draw from imagination. So, after reading that, I would recommend reading all 15 lessons on Drawabox.com, which is the best 'intro' to constructionist drawing I've seen.
Oh and here's another really good explanation of 'drawing methods' (watch all 5 videos in the series).
===I CAN KIND OF DRAW, BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW TO IMPROVE OR WHAT THE FUNDAMENTALS ARE===
One piece of advice you're going to keep hearing again and again and again as you start on your journey to improve is to Focus on the Fundamentals. I was extremely annoyed by this advice, not because I'm lazy and don't want to do basic exercises (...though I am) but because I had no idea what the fundamentals actually were. But almost any mistake in your drawing will fundamentally come down to some weakness in your fundamentals.
So what are the fundamentals? The best explanation I've come across is this youtube video, which also helpfully breaks down the relative importance of the fundamentals per specialty (you won't need to know as much anatomy as a landscape painter, for instance). If you want more explanation, here are two articles.
I'm going to assume you did watch that video or read one of those articles, and give you my suggestion for improving each of those fundamentals.
PROPORTION AND PLACEMENT: Honestly, Drawing on the Right Side is pretty comprehensive about the techniques you can use here. I like this Proko video, which talks about common mistakes. If you didn't click with Drawing on the Right Side, try Keys to Drawing, Drawing for the Absolute Beginner, or Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner (yes they're different books). Notice that they all say 'Drawing' on the title- proportion and placement is fundamentally a 'drawing'/'observation' skill. Then, well, a ton of practice.
FORM AND CONSTRUCTION: Drawabox is the best resource on this, but for more: How to Draw What You See, and the infamous Loomis books (out of print, most easily found online).
PERSPECTIVE: For perspective 101: Perspective Made Easy. For the advanced stuff: How to Draw. If it's still not clicking: the relevant weeks on this site. Good perspective is something even very very experienced artists struggle with, so don't feel discouraged if it doesn't click at first.
ANATOMY: Proko's channel is good, as is Sycra's. Figure Drawing for All It's Worth is Loomis' most famous book as far as I can tell. Figure Drawing: Design and Invention emphasizes gesture, which is a crucial element to good figure drawing along with anatomy.
COMPOSITION/VALUES/COLOR THEORY: Haven't reached this point yet. Ask me in a month or two. I plan on starting with Framed Ink for composition, and James Gurney's books for value and light- they are very, very commonly recommended.
A lot of the above books come from Concept Art Empire's recommendation lists, but these I can vouch for personally, as I've read them.
===BUYING ALL THOSE BOOKS WOULD COST ME THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS===
♪ Having fun, isn't hard, when you've got a library card. ♪
A lot of these books can also be found through... uh... clandestine methods.
Or just stick to Drawabox and Sycra and Proko's youtube channels, or any one of the 298209834 art youtube channels there are. Now that you know what you're looking for, it's going to be far easier to find useful videos- you get a lot more out of "eye anatomy drawing" then just "how to draw" in my experience.
===UHHH THANKS FOR ALL THAT I GUESS, BUT I HONESTLY JUST WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT HOW TO WORK DIGITALLY===
Welp, sorry for doing the female equivalent of mansplaining. Hopefully the above will be useful to others?
Ctrl+Paint is the most commonly suggested free resource in my experience.
Go on Tumblr and find digital artists with styles you admire. They are often very forthcoming about the tools and process they use; often they'll have a #process or #faq tag.
I keep linking Concept Art Empire, but honestly they have such a great wealth of beginner-friendly material. You have to dig through the fluffy blog posts ("List of Art Quizzes You Can Take Online") to get to the good stuff, but what's good is really, really good.
===...AND CARTOONING?===
Sorry, I can't help you there. I will say though that if you understand the fundamentals, cartooning should come naturally- ultimately it's just drawing + composition. Maybe read Scott McCloud's Making Comics? Also, Framed Ink.
posted by perplexion at 1:32 PM on September 12, 2018 [11 favorites]
flagged as fantastic, perplexion! Drawabox is great.
I also have a wee Wacom tablet, and I like working in Krita. Its layout is very customisable, there are lots and lots of brushes, and it's free and open-source! This side-by-side comparison outlines its strengths and weaknesses vs ClipStudio Paint Pro and gets really in-depth about the features of each.
posted by halation at 2:26 PM on September 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
I also have a wee Wacom tablet, and I like working in Krita. Its layout is very customisable, there are lots and lots of brushes, and it's free and open-source! This side-by-side comparison outlines its strengths and weaknesses vs ClipStudio Paint Pro and gets really in-depth about the features of each.
posted by halation at 2:26 PM on September 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
I, too, have a license of Clip Studio Paint and an Intuos tablet. Here's my advice:
- Keep in mind that learning to draw and learning to use software are two different things. If you really want to learn to draw well, it's best NOT to do it on your computer (at least, not exclusively on your computer.) Get out into the world and look at stuff and try to draw it. Working from photos is okay; working from life is better.
- For learning to draw: Perplexion cites a lot of good resources already. Seconding Proko's channel. James Gurney's blog is fantastic. But honestly, just get out there and draw.
- For learning to use CSP: just sit down and mess around with it a lot. Don't even try to set big huge goals at first. Learn to use the basic tools. Familiarize yourself with the vector vs. raster (pixel) tools. Learning CSP is a little more opaque than some software because it's made primarily for the Japanese market. But do the best you can with the resources they offer.
Amy Stoddard has a few good CSP tutorials on Youtube. Poke around, you can probably find more.
posted by cleverevans at 2:33 PM on September 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
- Keep in mind that learning to draw and learning to use software are two different things. If you really want to learn to draw well, it's best NOT to do it on your computer (at least, not exclusively on your computer.) Get out into the world and look at stuff and try to draw it. Working from photos is okay; working from life is better.
- For learning to draw: Perplexion cites a lot of good resources already. Seconding Proko's channel. James Gurney's blog is fantastic. But honestly, just get out there and draw.
- For learning to use CSP: just sit down and mess around with it a lot. Don't even try to set big huge goals at first. Learn to use the basic tools. Familiarize yourself with the vector vs. raster (pixel) tools. Learning CSP is a little more opaque than some software because it's made primarily for the Japanese market. But do the best you can with the resources they offer.
Amy Stoddard has a few good CSP tutorials on Youtube. Poke around, you can probably find more.
posted by cleverevans at 2:33 PM on September 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oh, one more suggestion. Thomas Romain's Twitter tutorials were super, super helpful for me in learning perspective as it applies to actual drawing. The resources I cite above are good, but theory-dense, and I wasn't quite sure how to take that theory and apply it, to, say, "I want to draw the inside of a schoolhouse in perspective". He also explains how to use digital tools to simplify what can be an incredibly tedious process.
Here's a Kotaku article which posts his (imo) most useful tutorials, and here's a masterpost of all of them (they're all worth checking out).
posted by perplexion at 3:01 PM on September 12, 2018
Here's a Kotaku article which posts his (imo) most useful tutorials, and here's a masterpost of all of them (they're all worth checking out).
posted by perplexion at 3:01 PM on September 12, 2018
I've just recently started working digital, and clip studio is great! I like to browse for pallete inspiration on dribbble because they have a one click download that is super easy (although copy pasting the palette into clipstudio is more complex) plus you get to look at all these beautiful illustrations.
The main thing I have stuggled with is adjusting to the jitter in my usual drawing line- I can draw a fast perfect curve in pen and ink, but the computer turns it into a horrid jagged scrawl. Every Clipstudio brush has a stabilization slider (sometimes you have to go into the subtool detail menu)which you can turn up or down until your lines are smoother. I tend to turn this up or down as I work depending on the type of effect I want.
If you decide to level up your tablet someday, I once used one of the nice big wacoms with the tilt and the eraser on the pen and oh gosh it was glorious.
posted by velebita at 3:12 PM on September 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
The main thing I have stuggled with is adjusting to the jitter in my usual drawing line- I can draw a fast perfect curve in pen and ink, but the computer turns it into a horrid jagged scrawl. Every Clipstudio brush has a stabilization slider (sometimes you have to go into the subtool detail menu)which you can turn up or down until your lines are smoother. I tend to turn this up or down as I work depending on the type of effect I want.
If you decide to level up your tablet someday, I once used one of the nice big wacoms with the tilt and the eraser on the pen and oh gosh it was glorious.
posted by velebita at 3:12 PM on September 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
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