CLIP STUDIO PAINT WEBINAR / Digital Inking Techniques with Brian Haberlin

This afternoon I had the distinct pleasure of attending another Webinar by comic artist Brian Haberlin. The time, he provided a free one-hour session discussing digital inking with Clip Studio Paint (the program I use under its previous name (but same features) as Manga Studio 5 EX).

This was an amazing demonstration. It moved very fast, but covered some fantastic tools and techniques that are already working their way into my practices (they are that simple and that good).

The presenters (the software company that makes Clip Studio Paint) did a fantastic job of putting the recording up on YouTube about 12 hours after the Webinar ended. Amazing turnaround. You can view it here:

On my second viewing, I made some time code notations so I (and you as well, dear readers) can quickly find what you're looking for:

• Color Flatting
• 6 min - Make transparency based on brightness
• 8 min - Make Reference layer
• 8:30 - Close and Fill (Bucket Tool / Close and fill
• 11:30 - More pen properties (do not exceed line in reference layer)
• 13:20 - More about gaps
• 14:05 - Lasso Fill tool
• 15:00 - Finding the Lasso fill (it's under Direct Draw)

• Inking Example
• 15:20 - Inking example (he said its Conan, but it's Tarzan)
• 15:45 - Importance of resolution (400 - 800 dpi)
• 19:55 - Importance of not doing too much detail
• 20:45 - Use Lasso fill tool to fill in lots of blacks

• Use ANY tool as an eraser
• 23:20 - Use your pen as an eraser
• 23:45 - Paint with "transparent" pixels (erase)
• 24:20 - Use x key to swap between black and white colors
• 24:45 - Inking Style: Puller vs Thrower

• Adding Tones
• 28:15 - Adding tones intro
• 28:28 - Create new layer, select areas with lasso tool
• 28:55 - Drag over the halftone
• 29:10 - Change resolution (density) of a halftone
• 31:00 - Ink with a halftone pattern

• Creating a custom brush Part 1 (cloud effect)
• 32:15 - Create a custom brush
• 32:27 - You can make brushes you cannot make in Photoshop
• 33:00 - Select region with marquee (rectangle)
• 33:15 - Register Material (settings: Use Brush as tip shape)
• 33:40 - Adding keywords for search
• 34:10 - Pattern Brush example (note the curves)
• 34:38 - Copy an existing brush and apply your new tip (art)
• 35:30 - Cloud brush in action
• 
  
• Creating a custom brush Part 2 (other shapes)
• 37:56 - Intro to other shapes
• 38:30 - Tricks to making new brushes
• 38:48 - Use "Convert Layer" (right-click clayer panel) to gray
• 38:58 - IMPORTANT tip about color vs gray layers
• 39:28 - Walk through the brush creation phase again
• 40:30 - Using the brush examples

• File Objects (aka Instancing)
• 41:05 - File Objects intro
• 41:38 - Create shape on its own layer
• 41:47 - Make selection, and convert to file object
• 42:12 - Duplicate layer, move and scale, etc.
• 42:55 - Refine and "propogate" (e.g. copy/replace)
• 43:20 - Change shape into a tree
• 44:12 - Back to original image, see all the trees

• Q&A Session
• 44:47 - Start the Q&A session
• 45:19 - Canvas Sizes
• 46:23 - My Question! Where to find Lasso Fill tool 
• 46:58 - Show again how to switch from white paper to transparency
  (Edit > Brightness to transparency)
• 47:44 - Advice on switching form traditional to digital inking
• 48:20 - Show some distortion/transforming tools
• 48:35 - Advice: Don't ink too much detail!
• 49:55 - Recommends the G-Pen or Cel pen
• 50:28 - Do you think of digital inks differently than traditional inks?
• 51:22 - School vs practice vs Social Media? 
• 52:55 - More difficult? Drawing or idea?
• 54:05 - Equipment you use?
• 54:57 - Wrap up
• 55:28 - Links to resources

BTW: I also provided these in the comments of the video, and they actually converted to links. So if you go to the video you can click on the time code and it will jump you to the appropriate topic.