Clip Studio Paint is Moving to Subscription, so...
I think now is a good as time as ever to tell people about the best art program that you’ve never heard of.
Sketchbook Pro was previously owned by Autodesk, who supported it for years before selling it to another company that only gave out the free crap version of the program. For years, there was no legal way to obtain the Pro versions. But recently, the original developers rebought the program and are once again actively supporting it and giving it updates and frequent blog posts!
Lets start with this image:
Every single component can be moved around. The bar at the top, the layer menu, the toolbar, the color picker, EVERYTHING YOU SEE ON SCREEN CAN BE MOVED. And also closed.
The top bar has most major tools artists need, giant red and green undo buttons so that it’s actually faster to tap those than reach for Ctrl + Z on a keyboard.
Magnifying Glass
The magnifying glass is the BEST MOVEMENT TOOL I’VE RUN INTO WITH ANY ART PROGRAM. With other art programs you get the scroll wheels on the bottom and sides of the screen that you have to individually control and a magnifying glass where you need to specifically switch between zoom in and zoom out mode, and the options to tilt the canvas are either limited or not there. Here it’s just. press. Drag. Press. Drag.
Select Tool
The select tool is basic with most of the options an artist might need or expect, all the different shape tools, a bar for the magic want to increase how intense it is, the option to add more to your selection or remove parts, an invert button, and the deselect buttons.
Cropping
The cropping tool automatically fits around your selection, which can be useful if you’re trying to make things like emojis where you want as little free space as possible. All of the edges and corners can be dragged, there are options to type in your own numbers, and the link bar to make it so your cropping stays the same shape when you move it, and the cancel and accept buttons.
Move Tool
The move tool is very similar to the magnifying glass, with the same method of movement and zooming and tilting. The move tool has extra things though like easy stretching, and if you have something selected it automatically tries to move that.
Transform Tool
The transform tool has a lot of options you can see in the gif. The circle in the middle makes it so you can move stuff in the middle.
Lagoon
Every single one of the options here is drag and drop. There are a total of 50 things you can just drag and drop for, and they are all assignable. You can customize putting any function in those 50 drag and drop slots. I highly recommend putting the flip canvas/flip layer options in there (there are vertical options as well!)
Layer Menu
The layers are as excellently straightforward as everything else in the program. Multiple one or two tap ways to do everything you need.
New layer? tap the + button, or drag up on the layer you want a new one on top of.
Want to delete a layer? drag.
Want to hide a layer? tap or drag.
Want a lower opacity? drag in either two areas.
And the layer menu is large enough you can actually SEE what’s on the layer! It’s not microscopic in some hidden corner!
Toolbar
The tools are highly customizable, have large icons, there are LARGE downloadable libraries of custom ones (that you don’t even need to leave the program to some website to download), and it’s really simple to make anything you want in here.
I’ll make a separate post of the tools I’ve made + a download. Here’s a link to that post
Color/Brush Pucks
There are two pucks, the color and brush puck. They are both drag and drop.
With the brush puck, drag left or right for a smaller or bigger brush, and up or down for a lower or higher opacity.
With the color puck, drag left or right for more saturated or more de saturated colors, or up and down for lighter or darker colors.
You can also tap the color puck for a more limited color menu! The eraser button makes your brush go invisible. Which. Is so helpful. You can erase with any tool.
You can access the same limited color menu from the layer menu’s background button.
Color Editor
Extensive color wheel
optional pallet for you to save colors to
the eraser and eyedropper tool
an option to put in numbers if you like
a randomize option which is VERY VERY CUSTOMIZABLE and I use it for so many drawings (particularly pictures of space)
Paint Bucket
The paint bucket will color what you tap it on, or fill a selection if you have one.
It has a flat fill, two different gradient options.
When you have a gradient, the color puck gets a new menu for saving gradients to
Every single color is editable and movable. You can drag it.
Option to reverse the direction the gradient is going
a strength meter
an option for it to see other layers or just the one it’s on
Text
The text option is admittedly pretty limited, but it does its job. All the fonts are just the ones you have installed in windows
RULER AND CIRCLE TOOLS
many movement options
I have no idea what the use of the french curve is but it’s also there and similar
Perspective Tools
There is a robust perspective system but I don’t know it well enough to explain it. someone who actually uses these tools can lol
Symmetry Tool
Can be moved easily
Has option for cutting the screen horizontally rather than vertically
option for both at the same time
option to be able to go over the lines or not
option to hide it
option to stop yourself from moving it
Struggle with smooth lineart???
Steady Stroke makes it so that you drag your cursor rather than just draw, so you can get smoother lines. Easily increase how large the drag is
Predictive Stroke corrects your line after you make it, and you can change how much it tries to correct it. REALLY USEFUL FOR CIRCLES.
Conclusion
I barely even use buttons with my tablet because of how accessible this art program is. Why press undo with the button on my tablet when I can move my cursor a few inches? Why go through two different submenus to create a new layer when I can just drag upwards? Why create a mirror canvus button when I can just drag???
This art program is really obscure but I struggle to even imagine using something else. PLEASE give it a try if you’re struggling with your program and want to experiment with something else
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