Setting up Your Workspace for Clip Studio on iOS
As a digital artist, having an optimized workspace is crucial for maximizing productivity and efficiency. Clip Studio on iOS offers a range of features that allow you to customize your workspace to fit your needs. In this article, we'll explore the best practices for setting up your workspace, customizing your palette placement, and utilizing shortcuts and settings to streamline your digital painting and sketching experience.
Maximizing Space and Accessibility
The goal is to maximize space and make tools accessible without a keyboard, making it applicable to both right-handed and left-handed artists. To achieve this, Clip Studio provides palette minimization modes that allow you to manage your workspace effectively.
Palette Minimization Modes
Clip Studio offers two icons in the corner of each toolbar/palette that enable you to minimize or expand your palettes. The single arrow minimizes the palette to a single icon, which can be clicked to float the palette over the canvas, and clicked again to dock it back into an icon mode. The double arrows open the palette completely, moving the canvas to accommodate the new palette size, and resizing the palette to a desired size. Clicking out of it doesn't hide it anymore.
Customizing Your Workspace
To maximize your workspace, it's essential to display only the most used palettes and decide which ones to have easy access to. Arrange palettes to fit your personal workflow and current project needs. Create a dock for frequently used tools, color wheel, and color slider. Use the quick access toolbar and brush size palette for easy access to essential tools. Consider hiding less frequently used palettes to maximize space.
Recommended Palette Placement
For optimal accessibility, place the color wheel in the middle zone, making it easy to access. The quick access toolbar should be placed above the color wheel, with the brush size palette between them. The color slider can be placed at the bottom zone for easy access.
Additional Resources
If you're new to Clip Studio, be sure to check out the free Clip Studio basics tutorial on YouTube for more information on how Clip Studio works and equivalent Photoshop workflows.
Customizing the Workspace for Painting
When painting, the author prefers to use the HSV color sliders and resizes the canvas to focus on the color slider. They hide the toolbar palette, other palettes, and the main menu to create more space for the canvas. The layers palette can be hidden and shown using the double arrows, especially when working on a single layer. The main menu can be hidden using the icon with four boxes, which still provides access to the full menu.
Quick Access Toolbar
The quick access toolbar is an essential feature in Clip Studio, allowing you to maximize thumb functionality on a small tablet. The buttons on the quick access toolbar are large and easy to see with the thumb, providing quick access to commonly used tools. The author creates a custom quick access set with tools often used for oil type style painting, including the oil paint flat brush, smooth watercolor blender brush, soft airbrush for global color grading, lasso tool, lasso fill tool, switch paint color from paint mode to transparency mode, and reset canvas.
Customizing the Quick Access Toolbar
To customize the quick access toolbar, add frequently used tools to the custom quick access set. The author adds the following tools:
- Oil paint flat brush
- Smooth watercolor blender brush
- Soft airbrush for global color grading
- Lasso tool
- Lasso fill tool
- Switch paint color from paint mode to transparency mode
- Reset canvas
Clip Studio Settings and Shortcuts for Digital Painting
Clip Studio offers a range of settings and shortcuts that can enhance your digital painting experience. Some of the key features include:
- Customizing the Main Menu and Tools: Set up a custom menu with frequently used tools for quick access. Reduce the brush size to around 40-200 for most painting tasks. Create a new layer and quickly switch between tools, such as the paint flat brush and oil paint flat brush.
- Painting with Transparency: Switch between drawing color and transparent color by clicking on the highlighted area. Paint with full transparency while maintaining the attributes of the oil paint flat brush.
- Eraser Functionality: Turn any tool into an eraser by switching drawing color and transparent color.
- Navigating Tools with the Thumb: Quickly switch between tools, such as the paint flat brush, oil paint flat brush, and watercolor brush. Change brush size, switch to transparency, and move up a hue with ease.
- Customizing Pencil and Finger Functions: Change the default function of a single finger tap from hand mode to the eyedropper tool or color picker tool. Use the eyedropper tool to pick up colors from the display or a specific layer.
- Eyedropper Tool Settings: Choose between obtaining display color and picking up color from a specific layer. Obtain display color picks up the aggregate pixel value of all displayed layers, including adjustment layers. Pick up color from layer only picks up color from the local layer and ignores adjustments or other layers.
- Finger and Pen Settings: Choose to use different tools with fingers and pen. Set the tool to use with the finger, such as the eyedropper tool or color picker tool. Customize the common settings or settings for each process of the tool. Change the tool temporarily to a hand or other tool with a single swipe or gesture.
Customizing Clip Studio Paint for Efficient Painting and Sketching
To further optimize your workflow, Clip Studio offers additional features that allow you to customize your painting and sketching experience.
- Color Picking with the Eyedropper Tool: Use the Eyedropper tool to select a color from the display. When using the Oil Paint Flat Brush, swipe to activate the color picker. The color picker is located above the finger, allowing for more accurate color selection. Set the color picker to appear per tool, as desired.
- Customizing Tool Behavior with Finger and Stylus: Go to Set Tool to Use with Finger to customize tool behavior. Set the Oil Paint Flat Brush to use the color picker with the finger. Set the Pencil Tool to use the Eraser Tool with the finger. Customize each brush to behave as desired with the stylus or finger.
- Using the Selection Launcher with the Lasso Tool: The Selection Launcher appears when using the Lasso Tool. Familiarize yourself with the functions of the Selection Launcher, including Deselect.
By following these tips and customizing your workspace, Clip Studio on iOS can become a powerful tool for digital painting and sketching. With practice and experimentation, you'll be able to optimize your workflow and unlock your full creative potential.