7
Refining
I make the rough layers blue and lower their opacity.
Next I tighten and refine, thinking about line weights and
shading: heavier lines bring objects forward, lighter lines send
them back. I put a lot of work in here – I want the drawings to
hold up on their own as the colouring will be quite simple.
9
Finished pencils
Just more refinement
here until I’m happy that the
line work looks finished. I
always set my line art layers
to greyscale and just tick
the black box. I’ve set up a
shortcut that enables me
to use one key (4) to switch
between the main drawing
colour and transparent. Having
the layer set up like this means
that whatever colour you have,
it will always come out as
black. Having just the lines on
the layer is good for later on as
it means clicking the “Preserve
transparency” box and then
converting the layer to Colour
mode enables you to change
the colour of your line art.
6
Perspective ruler
This is one of my favourite features in CSP. I open
up a three-point-perspective ruler layer and move all the
points to match, as closely as possible, the rough pencils
in panel one. Take note of all the little handles on the ruler
lines: the little dots will just move the perspective rulers,
the crosses on the lines will move the vanishing point
along the horizon line (the main line with the green square
on it). There are also little diamond shapes near each line,
and clicking these will stop your tools snapping to that
particular line. Holding Shift when moving vanishing
points can set them to Infinity, too.5
Start drawing
Finally on to some drawing! I start to refine each of
the panels, keeping everything freehand at this stage. I’m
undecided about the last two panels, so I’ll come back to
them later. I start off very loose and gestural, just rough
shapes to indicate buildings, objects, people etc. I work
gradually into these, refining and adding details as I go.
This is definitely the most time-consuming part of the job!8
Last two panels
Time to sort out the last two panels! Instead of going for two medium
shots I decide on a close-up and a medium; this also ties this last image in better
with the next page. I then add a two-point-perspective ruler to work out the
staircase. The next page has the two characters sitting on top of a roof chatting,
so putting the staircase in means this should now link up better.WORKSHOP
BRUSHES
CLIP STUDIO
CUSTOM BRUSHES:MARKER
I’ve tried to replicate
a Copic marker with
this brush.SOFT AIRBRUSH
I added my own
textured tip to the
CSP soft airbrush.Workshops