I've been chugging away at Clip Studio Paint, having moved on from Photoshop, and we're finally getting comfortable enough to start churning out some full illustrations, so here's Liliana, Heretical Healer.
I wanted to test out たなかもげたろう's SAZANAMI watercolor brush set, which I got thanks to the annual Clippy giveaway event. This was pretty pricey, at 200 Clippy, which is a chunk of change, but the event earns you 740 Clippy, so you should be able to swing it if you plot out the brushes you'll be purchasing--plus the expansion "EX Pack" set is free. Most brushes are 10 Clippy, so it's super helpful to know which big buys you're budgeting for, and this was our pick for our major purchase this time around. At left is the final illustration minus any blurring, since I wanted to see what a full, exclusively watercolor illustration might look like, and too much post-production felt like it could interfere with the spirit of doing a watercolor illustration, though perhaps that tension is just invented, and all that matters is making a compelling final illustration, however you paint it. But in any case, most of the colors visible in this version at left is made entirely with the brushes in the set, with just a few gradients and color dodge layers to juice some of the softer effects, but even the fog was made with the set.
Of these eight total brushes, I find the best of bunch are SAZANAMI_Paint(R) [120]
(the [#] is just a note to myself on what the default brush size is, so I can tinker away and still retain a frame of reference for what the "factory" settings are)
for most colors, with SAZANAMI_Blur+ [120] for blending out any stray or
sharp parts and SAZANAMI_Repair [200] for mending any parts that get too smoothed out from the blur brush. I did use some of the other brushes, but by the end, it was mainly these three that could handle everything that came up just fine. You do have to watch out that the Repair brush doesn't color-burn your repaired areas too intensely, but it's generally not a problem if you just take it easy and are mindful as you brush. I also studied along with these Adilson Farias walkthrough videos to study the watercolor-specific process, since I've mainly ever just done the KNKL method of digital painting. This was helpful just to get a feel for how a digital artist approaches watercolor, since I've only had limited experience with actual watercolors myself, and pleasantly it felt like a similar experience, at least. The lines were also quite experimental. I have been slowly working my way through the backlog of brushes I've wanted to test out--I literally have a Quick Access list for all my new acquisitions from the Asset Shop so I can be sure to give each a good try before I categorize them into my main Quick Access lists. I love how CSP enables a comprehensive list system via the Quick Access feature, since we can't organize brushes by folders. So anyway, yes, the quite unusual lines are Rickety Line [15] ガタガタ線 (the first brush) from ×ェ×'s Freehand Style Brush Set (フリーハンド風ブラシセット) brush set. I gather this whole brush set is more for translating preset background lines to feel more human and hand-drawn, but they also are cool to draw with from the get-go. However, they are all quite unwieldy, so I wouldn't recommend using them
willy-nilly or on anything you really want to have a tight grasp on. I find they're best specifically for low-stakes sketching, just pure doodling, where you aren't super concerned with the neatness of your lines, or even the presentability of the finished image. This is actually quite contrary to how I like to draw--I want fine, meticulous lines, which is why drawing takes me forever--to my detriment, even, as I lose steam on an image and the self-doubt overpowers my ambitions to wrap a drawing. So I tried this brush set out specifically to help me get less precious with this drawing. I also wanted to try out this watercolor brush for similar reasons--to help me churn out an illustration faster and less noodley, so that I would be discouraged from just tinkering away for too long and allowing for doubt to accumulate. So this whole illustration was an experiment on top of an experiment--wacky lines and loosey-goosey colors, and I'd say it worked out pretty okay. I really enjoyed this whole experience and felt I learned a good amount, though, after doing some even smaller drawings with all the "Rickety" brushes, I believe the absolute-best of the set is what I call Rough Rickety [15] ざら線, which is the last brush of the set. I love how they all discourage noodling, and just forcefully loosen you up, but that said, I do like tight line control, so I'm not sure I'll be lining up for most of these later on. But if you just want to sit back and scratch out some drawings, these are pretty nice and only ones I wouldn't recommend, and that are just more trouble than they're worth are Zigzag Rickety [15] ざかざか線 (the third brush) and Drained Rickety [15] へろへろ線 (the second brush). But a close runner-up for favorite brush is Trickling Rickety [15] へろ線 (the penultimate of the set, the sixth brush). By the way, my method for naming brushes is "My Nickname (Recommended Brush Size [Default Brush Size]) Default Name," plus I copy this name into the brush's display in my materials tab, as well as tag the artist, so I can always look up the brush page later in case they have a guide specific to those brushes since I also bookmark the brush's page so I can refer to it later and also know at a glance if I've downloaded it already or am planning to, etc., which also helps plan for the annual Clippy event, too .
And indeed, these were the original lines, complete with the minimal tones via the rough Shigepen 2020 (Copic) [44] しげペン改[2020] brush, I believe from rokushigeru's Pen breaks (しげペン改) collection. When I knew I wanted to explore the watercolor set, I looked for old, simple drawings to plop the colors on. So it all felt thankfully lower pressure, just trusting the process to guide us to the final, which is a pleasant relief, that you can take on new stuff using trusty methods that translate well to a new situation. A bit of a morale boost, really. Not normal,
Reuxben
