Using Clip Studio Paint for a few months has more deeply confirmed that it is a leading art production software for the iPad Pro. After deciphering icons and logos and figuring out file management, it's
CLIP STUDIO PAINT MVF (Most Valuable Features)
1. Brush Stabilizer
If you stop reading this blog after this paragraph, the most valuable feature will be known to you. I've written at length about the friction problem with the iPad Pro - it's a miraculous device but drawing with it can feel like painting with water on glass.
The Brush Stabilizer on CSP is everything I'd been dreaming of for two years while using art apps on the iPad Pro. I'd spent hours creating custom brushes with wacky parabolas, testing out each one like a mad scientist (the real reason artists are crazy).
So, I was in love at first site when I saw that Clip Studio Paint has a simple feature around this where you can pump up the stability of the brush, slowing it down, or you can relax the stability for a looser drawing feeling.
Here is where to find the stabilizer:
1. Click the pen tool
2. Click the pen tool with the gear next to it
3. Increase or decrease the stabilization bar for slower or faster painting/drawin
Okay, when I first used the brush stabilizer, I felt like I was about to cry. It makes me that happy.
Me after using the Clip Studio Paint brush stabilizer
2. File Management
The first time I wrote about Clip Studio Paint, I was baffled at how to get files out of the software and exported into a backup safehaven like Dropbox. The problem was, I was expecting the export functionality to be in the 'FIle' menu, when it actually located in the Logo menu:
The File Management section of Clip Studio Paint is like a file management system or a finder on your computer, it's just for Clip Studio Paint files or files that have passed through Clip Studio paint in some way. You can store Jpegs, PSDs, and just about anything that the iPad can handle.
Maybe someday this will be passe but for now, a 71 MB file on an iPad is pretty bangin
3. Fill
Fill is really the dopest thing I've seen on the iPad. For adding colors to black and white line paintings, gone are crazy layering workarounds or hand painting. You just tap and the color is there.
At first I wasn't sure what Clip Studio Paint meant when it had this 'Close Gap' feature that you get when clicking the paint bucket with the gear on it. Then I realized that the Gap was a problem I'd been working around my entire life: if you've ever clicked to get a fill to make a 5 pixel bowtie in microsoft paint and the fill make the entire canvas red, well, 'Close Gap' keeps that nonsense from happening. Its so great.
All in all Clip Studio Paint solves problems that digital artists have had for years, on a mobile device. All of the digital art Ive made in the past two months could not have been produced without It's saved time and has allowed me to produce better art faster.
