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Clip Studio Paint

By Luke Sakal, 4/15/2022

I draw sometimes. Well, it would be more accurate to say that I draw rarely. Either way, I need some way to doodle things every now and then. If one has taken an art class, it would be known just how expensive art materials can be. Once one finds themself purchasing pencils, inks, paper, canvases, and whatever else, the wallet certainly feels lighter. This is where digital illustration programs come into play. Suddenly, one can stop this money drain in favor of software that can make art. Back when Adobe Photoshop could be purchased without a subscription, it was a great alternative to draw on the (relatively) cheap. With access to Photoshop being behind an expensive subscription service, other applications have become the choice of digital artists on a budget. Clip Studio Paint (CSP) is one of these.

When opening CSP, I’m always reminded of the layout’s similarity to Photoshop, PaintTool SAI, and almost every other software commonly used for digital illustration. This strong adherence to conventions is evident throughout. Many of the keyboard shortcuts are similar to Photoshop and other programs, such as Ctrl+Z being used to undo, while the left and right brackets decrease and increase the brush size, respectively. The icons for different tools also follow conventions and contain many metaphors. For example, the brush tool has a brush icon, and the eraser tool has an eraser icon. These examples are reflected in most illustration programs as they draw parallels to traditional art tools. The color wheel, layer manager, and brush size indicator are also standard in such applications.

These conventions are a great boon to CSP’s learnability, especially for those who have used different illustration programs. It is easy to go from Photoshop and grasp much of CSP’s functions. The metaphors discussed earlier, which relate a tool’s functionality to its traditional counterpart, also make the application more learnable. However, CSP suffers from the same learning curves as many other digital art programs. There are confusing buttons, instances of jargon, and plentiful “mystery meat menus,” which hide an abundance of options from the user.

Confusing button icon... and what the hell is the Reference Layer?

The abundance of options, some of which are not self-explanatory, really hurts the learnability of CSP. To grasp all the functions, one must look them up themselves or thoroughly experiment. This makes learning a much more involved process than most would like. However, to CSP’s credit, it tries to provide brief explanations of many features when you hover the cursor over them. Often, these explanations help clarify what something does, like here:

Overall, CSP has good learnability regarding its most basic functions, but this falls off quickly when using more complex features and techniques.

Earlier in this journal, I made mentioned keyboard shortcuts. These shortcuts are incredibly useful and are crucial to maintaining a good workflow. While these shortcuts tend to follow conventions by default, users are free to customize them as they wish. Having shortcuts that one is comfortable with increases the efficiency of the application and, by extension, the user. While I am nowhere near this level, many experienced digital artists can forgo the navigation of menus almost entirely. They can switch tools, transform objects, undo, redo, and more without wasting time searching through dropdown menus or moving the cursor away from their work. This allows them to draw efficiently and finish pieces while on a tight deadline.

Menu to customize shortcut keys

Of course, not everyone will be familiar with this process. A beginner who is not familiar with keyboard shortcuts will find themselves having to trudge through menu after menu, searching for certain features. This, of course, hurts efficiency. Whatever time it took to find a particular item was time that could have been used to work on the art. Even worse, the user might assume a feature doesn’t exist if they cannot find it soon enough. I’ve had instances where I’ve wondered if CSP lacks a feature that Photoshop has, only to find out that it’s buried in a strange menu after a Google search. Should a user give up the search for an existing feature, it would significantly decrease the effectiveness of CSP.

Despite this shortcoming, the two greatest strengths of CSP are its effectiveness and usefulness. It’s useful as it addresses my need to have a way to do art without buying expensive, traditional materials. But, of course, it doesn’t just fulfill my need. Many artists, both hobbyists and professionals, use CSP to create illustrations and comics. It’s effective as it allows me to create as I please - whether it’s a study of a skull using digital painting techniques or a quick sketch of a character.

Overall, CSP is a pretty good digital art program. It is useful and effective for making art. The experienced digital artist will find CSP learnable and will be pleased with the high levels of user freedom and customization, which will allow them to create an efficient workflow. However, beginners will find that CSP suffers from many of the same learning curves that similar programs do. They will not find the software near as learnable or efficient as more experienced users. In the worst case, a beginner may be so overwhelmed that it hurts the program’s effectiveness.