FRENDEN

Clip Studio Paint, the iPad Pro, Art Studio House Arrest, and You

Sat, 11 Nov 2017 06:54:03 -0600

Celsys recently released a feature complete, no concessions made, portable version of its desktop illustration software, Clip Studio Paint, for iOS and the iPad Pro.

I’ve used some form of Celsys’ art software since about 2004 back when it was called Comic Studio in Japan. It’s successor, Clip Studio, has been my go-to application for illustration since I beta tested the English localization for Smith Micro.

Suffice to say, the release of my preferred art tool on the iPad Pro intrigued me. An hour after hearing the news I rushed out and purchased a new 12.9” iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. My hype was high. My expectations, however, were low.

When last I’d checked in with the iPad Pro, it was a nascent device with little apps more than Procreate to justify its expense. I was in a long term relationship with my Cintiq Companion, the precursor to the MobileStudio Pro, and a Surface Pro, and the slate of apps available on the iPad Pro seemed more suitable for sketching and ideation than finished works.

Some folks swore by Procreate, but the floaty, distant feel of making marks and the shallow, odd brush engine left me wanting. Was the Pencil’s feel a result of the hardware’s low fidelity or was it representative of the early, rough handful of art apps? I couldn’t tell you. I returned the Pro. Clip Studio on the Cintiq Companion offered me desktop-grade art software with no compromises. Sort of.

The compromises asked by the Companion were those of true portability. Much like it’s current kin, the MobileStudio Pro, it felt like a device that wanted to be plugged in to a power source, set on a desk, and worked at in a tethered, stationary way.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my Companion. Well, loved my Companion. I used it for three or four years — daily — from launch until now. But, as dependable and capable as it was, it was never as portable as I’d hoped.

The other devices I live with are even more studio and desk bound. My main workstation boasts a Cintiq 27QHD. The 27QHD is roughly the size of a late eighties Buick with the price tag to match. No normal monitor arm dare try to hoist its heft, so it sits on an imposing metal limb that looks like an assembly line robot in an automotive plant.

The reason I bring this up, and there’s a reason I promise, is that digital artists haven’t had many tools where portability and capability overlap near-perfectly in a Venn diagram.

Is the iPad Pro, when paired with desktop grade art software, that unicorn? How much overlap exists in its Venn diagram? Will I ever be able to leave this damn studio?

Okay, okay. How well does it work?

I was down on the iPad Pro when I tested it years ago, but Clip on the Pro has changed my outlook on the Pencil’s competence and the iPad Pro’s viability single-handedly.

Imagine that Photoshop, Painter, and Sai were chopped apart and sewn into a Frankenstein-ian monster. That’s Clip.

Would that monster prove too beastly for the iPad’s hardware? I inked and painted at 11” x 17” and 600 dpi with brush sizes in the three and four hundred pixel range while the iPad Pro served up a video stream at the same time. For hours and hours. On a single battery charge.

The Pro had no fucks to give. Less than no fucks. Negative fucks. The monster could not be stopped. It’s choking a villager right now.

But every Rose has its thorn, right? Poison wouldn’t lie to me. Here are the thorns. Put on your gardening gloves.

First, the easy one. Dropbox and Google Drive integration and a less tedious way to import tools, materials, and templates, are the biggest items on my Clip Studio wishlist. Opening files and moving tools via the Share Sheet menu in Drive or Dropbox is slow and requires more steps than I’d like.

Now, the toughie. Clip requires a $8.99 per month subscription fee. At the time of writing, they’re offering a six month trial.

I want to pretend the iOS version of Clip hasn’t fast become essential to my workflow in less than two days. But it has. Being untethered from my studio adds more than nine dollars of value to my life. I don’t want to give that freedom of movement up.

I’m not a fan of subscription based software, but I spend more combined on a Twitch sub and Discord Nitro per month. I’ll cope even if I’m not crazy about it.

Everything’s a service now. You may not realize it, but you’ve been paying me $24.99 a month for my opinions for five years. Check your credit card statements.

Soon art apps will have loot boxes containing random filters and brush tools that can only be purchased with in-app currency.

I’m straying. You can take the gloves off now. The only negatives left to explain are things I got wrong when I tested an iPad Pro at its launch.

I’d maligned the Pencil in the past, but it wasn’t its fault it felt floaty and odd. What I thought were hardware limitations were apparently just the narrow ambitions of the art apps at the time. Those apps simply weren’t as good at complimenting the Pro as Clip is.

Clip has best in class stroke and pressure interpretation. If something feels off to you, adjust the global pressure curve in Clip Studio to get the most out of your Pencil. Doing so will help you experience the fullness of the Pencil’s pressure range and give the Pencil its proper due.

The Pen Pressure Setting is tucked under Clip’s logo menu (to the left of the File menu). Select it. Make a few strokes. The app will tailor its input curve to your hand’s heaviness and way of mark making.

Me? I set the curve to a straight, flat line. This allows the Pencil a full range of pressure un-massaged by the application. I adjust my brushes on an individual basis instead (with each having their own pressure curve tailored for a specific feel).

After telling the app to set a pressure curve that’s suited to you, you’re in the best position to feel the Pencil for what it is — a stylus with linear, predictable, and reliable output.

Where my Pencil touched the tablet my mark was made. There was no cursor offset to speak of. There was no stylus tip parallax that plagues Wacom’s Cintiq line. There was no laggy, laboring cursor trudging along behind my stylus to remind me those marks weren’t really coming from the end of the Pencil.

I hadn’t had this much fun drawing digitally — hell, in any capacity — in ages. I started to forget that I was using a digital device. I found myself treating the iPad Pro the way I do paper. I instinctively reached down to wipe away eraser leavings that weren’t there. I got lost in making art. I’m sorry I ever doubted you, Pencil.

So it works really well. What about that Venn diagram?

The iPad Pro paired with Clip Studio is a joy. I’ve written art hardware reviews for loads of digital tools. I have two Surfaces, a Companion, a heap of off-brand tablets and tablet monitors, and a few Intuos Pros and Cintiqs. If you forced me to keep only one, I might choose the iPad Pro and Pencil. It feels that good.

In the digital artist’s art-hardware-holy-grail-Venn-diagram of portability and capability mentioned earlier, the iPad Pro represents a near-perfect overlap.

My studio is empty as I write this. For over fifteen years, constrained in place by the tools required to do my work, I’ve occupied its spaces and brought the world to me through illustration. Now I’m bringing my illustration into the world instead.

In this article:
12.9‑inch iPad Pro (Latest Model)
Apple Pencil
Clip Studio Paint (iOS)
Clip Studio Paint (Desktop)

You can support my reviews by using my Amazon affiliate link or buying my digital art brushes for Clip Studio Paint.

Clip Studio 450+ Brush Super Set Update Over 100 new brushes!...

Thu, 24 Aug 2017 15:27:56 -0500

Clip Studio 450+ Brush Super Set Update

Over 100 new brushes! Over 450 brushes total! This update is over a 50% increase in set size. Reblog for a chance at a free set.

Many new inking, penciling, painting, and wash brushes added. Existing tools were renamed and sorted into brush families for ease of identifying your favorites and remembering them later.

Updates are free for existing users. Just re-use your existing purchase links. I’ll pick folks to receive a free set randomly throughout the next week.

GET THEM HERE.

Some orcish character art and process. Highlighted areas being...

Tue, 02 May 2017 12:13:27 -0500

Some orcish character art and process. Highlighted areas being more saturated is not only the generally correct way to render form, it conserves your value scale. You get a lot of mileage out of relatively similarly valued colors and it’s like free depth to describe the form with.

I pick highlight colors closer to the hue of the light source and my shadows closer to that of the ambient atmosphere (and usually a compliment to the hue of the light source). Here, yellow to blue/purple.

I’ve always liked less recognizably humanoid orcs. The best film orcs were probably the Fifth Element aliens if we’re real talkin’ here. Dad hat, cut and sew print tank, pin rolled jeans and CP3xs. He tries very hard.

I decided to add some hand lettering to that last doodle. Kawhi...

Sun, 23 Apr 2017 19:31:21 -0500

I decided to add some hand lettering to that last doodle.

Kawhi was amazing last night in the extremely tight loss to Memphis. He’s definitely part machine.

Warmup drawing. Kawhi Leonard as a cyborg. Because, let’s...

Fri, 21 Apr 2017 22:49:54 -0500

Warmup drawing. Kawhi Leonard as a cyborg. Because, let’s be real – he is one.

Some quick Twitch emotes for a client. It’s challenging to...

Sat, 08 Apr 2017 13:32:14 -0500

Some quick Twitch emotes for a client. It’s challenging to make things read well at the smallest size there.

Destiny metal-band thought experiment tee design. I...

Fri, 24 Mar 2017 19:10:31 -0500

Destiny metal-band thought experiment tee design.

I couldn’t sleep last night, hadn’t done any personal work in ages, and was making brushes for Krita, so I whipped this up.

After a day spent drawing character art for clients, I decided...

Sun, 10 Jan 2016 22:49:48 -0600

After a day spent drawing character art for clients, I decided to unwind by… drawing some character art.

Over 90 new Manga Studio brushes! Reblog for a chance at a free...

Thu, 07 Jan 2016 17:00:50 -0600

Over 90 new Manga Studio brushes! Reblog for a chance at a free set! Download them here.

This latest update contains new paints, pencils, and inkers with a focus on adding textured, gritty painters and expanding the core set of tools.

For the core tools, inking brushes, nibs, brush pens, pencils, pastels, charcoals, oils, and acrylics have been added.

For the advanced tools, painterly brushes with impasto canvas, wash, sponge, leather, and other textures were mashed together to create the most realistic tools for concept art and coloring I’ve offered yet.

The Grimy Gus brush family offers realistic textures and mixing with an emphasis on creating paintings that feel like chunky, old acrylic paintings the likes of which adorned ‘80s action figure box art.

Bristle Bob takes that formula and emulates wispy bristles for an even more varied and textured surface.

Sloppy Sam, Sponge Bub, and Filthy Frank push the impasto textures even further and provide extreme texture variance for some of the most analog looking strokes I’ve ever been able to create digitally.

A partial list of the updates can be found below:

Paints & Wet Media

Grimy Gus
Grimy Gus (Outliner)
Grimy Gus Bristle (Chunky)
Grimy Gus (Dry)
Grimy Gus (Chunky & Dry)
Bristle Bob
Bristle Bob (Outliner)
Bristle Bob (Sparse)
Bristle Bob (Dry)
Bristle Bob (Sparse & Dry)
Bristle Bob (Wet)
Sloppy Sam
Sloppy Sam (Impasto)
Sloppy Sam (Sparse & Dry)
Sloppy Sam (Dry)
Filthy Frank
Filthy Frank (Wet Impasto)
Filthy Frank (Impasto)
Filthy Frank (Dry)
Filthy Frank (Wet)
Sponge Bub
Sponge Bub (Dry)
Sponge Bub (Extra Dry)
Wash (Simple)
Watercolor
Watercolor (Simple)
Watercolor (More Opaque)
Watercolor (Gouache-like)
Watercolor (Random)
Watercolor (Wet Wash)
Oil
Oil Round
Oil Flat
Oil Filbert
Oil (Dry)
Oil (Wet)
Oil (Blender)
Acrylic
Acrylic (Dry)
Acrylic (Wet)
Acrylic (Blender)

Pencils & Dry Media

Pencil (6H)
Pencil (4H)
Pencil (2H)
Pencil (HB)
Pencil (2B)
Pencil (4B)
Pencil (6B)
Pencil (Flat)
Pencil (Digital)
Layout Pencil (Blue)
Layout Pencil (Red)

Pastels & Charcoal

Oil Pastel (Hard)
Oil Pastel (Med)
Oil Pastel (Soft)
Charcoal Square (Hard)
Charcoal Square (Med)
Charcoal Square (Soft)
Charcoal (Hard)
Charcoal (Med)
Charcoal (Soft)

Inkers

Nib
Nib (Soft)
Nib (Stiff)
Nib (Very Soft)
Nib (Sketch)
Brush
Brush (Soft)
Brush (Stiff)
Brush Pen
Brush Pen (Opaque)
Brush Pen (Dry)
Brush Pen (Extra Dry)
Lando Calbrusshian (w/Speed)
Lando Calbrusshian (Nib)

Download them here.

Updates are free for existing users. Redownload using your existing purchase links.

Some of my MST3K concept art has hit the wild over on the...

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 10:18:20 -0600

Some of my MST3K concept art has hit the wild over on the Kickstarter page. Here’s my first stab at Bobo as a puppet.

Plans called for an Aliens-style loader to hide an actor when Bobo needs to move around the set. That was my task. Bobo as a puppet, a loader to cart him around in.

The Kickstarter is perilously close to it’s 12 episode goal. Please support us if you like MST3K and have the means!

No app inks like Manga Studio 4 or 5. Not even close.

Sun, 06 Dec 2015 13:28:28 -0600

No app inks like Manga Studio 4 or 5. Not even close.

Here’s a free wash brush for Manga Studio. It’s not...

Thu, 03 Dec 2015 20:12:19 -0600

Here’s a free wash brush for Manga Studio.

It’s not available anywhere else. I have about fifty brushes ready to add to my big brush set as a free update for existing users soon. This will be one of them.

Make something!

My figures begin as a center line and three triangles. If they...

Wed, 02 Dec 2015 21:19:59 -0600

My figures begin as a center line and three triangles. If they work, so will the rest. I don’t see others use triangles.

Boxes and cylinders never worked for me, sketch mannequin wise. The triangles are less obtrusive and more open. Or something.

I think I’d like Superman a lot more if he, like, actually...

Wed, 02 Dec 2015 02:49:59 -0600

I think I’d like Superman a lot more if he, like, actually looked like an alien.

30% off all my Manga Studio and Photoshop brushes this weekend...

Fri, 27 Nov 2015 16:20:11 -0600

30% off all my Manga Studio and Photoshop brushes this weekend only!

Use the code BOKFRIDAY at checkout or reblog for a chance at a free set.

Joel Hodgson reached out to me a couple of years ago. The gist?...

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 12:56:38 -0600

Joel Hodgson reached out to me a couple of years ago. The gist? He was getting ready to relaunch MST3K and needed someone to work on the visual development of the series. Specifically, he needed someone to art direct, creating character concepts to define the look and feel of the new cast.

He said I was that guy. Hearing Joel, MST3K’s Joel, say you’re the guy–that was a special moment for me. I grew up, like many of you I’m sure, with a bit of a subversive streak and an outre sense of humor thanks in no small part to MST3K.

Every conversation I had with Joel retained that same specialness. The work was as close to a perfect pairing of my sensibilities and a client’s needs as I’ve ever experienced. Off and on for the last couple of years, I’ve churned out concepts for costumes, characters, vehicles, and more. All of it was fun. All of it matched my Barbarella meets Conan pulp-aesthetic leanings. All of it was secret.

The work remains spoiler-laden, but the Kickstarter is live. I can’t share it yet. But you can share your support.

I’ve been humbled to witness, and partake in, this passion project of Joel’s. He’s one of the kindest, most unassuming people I’ve ever worked with. There is nothing I’d like to see more than his Kickstarter succeed.

As an MST3K fan first and person who’s seen the inside machinery second, I’m excited. I want to watch new MST3K as much as I want to work on new MST3K. I hope you all get to see my work soon–but on screen, not on my blog.

You can support MST3K’s Kickstarter here.

Cyberpuuuuuuunk.

Sat, 07 Nov 2015 13:00:17 -0600

Cyberpuuuuuuunk.

Self portrait-y thing I sketched while testing an art app. I...

Sat, 07 Nov 2015 00:35:20 -0600

Self portrait-y thing I sketched while testing an art app. I seldom draw myself un-monster-ified. Feels weird.

I was tempted to use it for my avatar, but even I can’t stand to look at me that long.

Some Voorhees for Inktober. - I met my wife on the 9th of...

Sun, 04 Oct 2015 00:48:09 -0500

Some Voorhees for Inktober.

- I met my wife on the 9th of October sixteen years ago.
- My birthday is the 11th of October.
- I was married on the 31st of October.

October is a pretty good month.

Bosto 22U Mini Review Not Small Where it Counts Bosto...

Fri, 25 Sep 2015 13:16:42 -0500

The 22U Mini in its native habitat. A desk.

Note the slightly off center nib.

Bosto 22U Mini Review

Not Small Where it Counts

Bosto describes the 22U Mini as a budget conscious Cintiq alternative, but the price and feature set place it closer to the growing mid-tier of Wacom alternatives.

Hardware

The 22U has a 5080 lpi, 2048 pressure-level digitizer and a wireless, rechargeable stylus. The screen is 1920x1080, IPS, and LED backlit with a 72% Adobe RGB color gamut. These features used to be rare in Wacom alternatives, but over the last few years have become more common. I consider these specifications the minimum for Cintiq alternatives and am glad to see the Bosto meeting them.

The 22U’s housing is clean, functional, and surprisingly light. There are no built-in hotkeys. The requisite video and USB connections are present and should accommodate most people’s PCs. The provided stand allows for the unit to sit nearly flat or perfectly vertical and is akin to those found in Yiynova, Huion, and Monoprice’s tablet monitors. A VESA compatible mounting pattern allows for use with third party monitor arms.

The stylus feels good in hand. Some hardware with replaceable batteries feels heavy with long use. Bosto eschewed AAA batteries for an internal, rechargeable solution. The lack of a swappable battery gives the stylus a lighter weight on par with Wacom’s battery free styli.

The replaceable nib sat a bit off center in the stylus. The part of me that wants all things to sit dead center and at ninety degree angles was perturbed, but this was more a problem with aesthetics than functionality.

As a self proclaimed budget product, I was impressed with the build quality of the 22U. It’s not uncommon to run across problems with any digital art hardware—Wacom or otherwise. Dead pixels, light leakage, styli which won’t hold a charge, and dust trapped under the glass are all common issues. The Bosto was solid. I experienced no hardware failures during my testing and the unit was problem free if short on bells and whistles.

Software and Drivers

There’s not much to say about the 22U’s software and drivers. The tablet driver is Windows compatible, not Mac, and offers a very spare feature set. I’ve heard tell of community made drivers for Mac and Windows both, but was not able to test them yet.

The tablet installed easily in Windows 7 and Windows 8 and was compatible with Photoshop and Manga Studio in my testing. Most of my drawing time is spent on Macs and in Linux. The 22U being ostensibly Windows only limited my use a bit, but I can’t hold that against it. It is advertised as such and should only be considered for purchase by Windows users.

I have a mixed studio with near equal numbers of Mac, Windows, and Linux machines and hope the community driven effort to expand compatibility bears fruit. However, don’t count on fan made hacks if you’re not on Windows. It’s always best to assume that support for such third party workarounds is apt to be spotty.

Performance and Place in the Pantheon of Art Hardware

The Bosto 22U Mini’s performance is best summed up as adequate. That’s not a knock against the hardware. Most faux-Wacom tech is terrible.

As all the non-Wacom manufacturers have risen in popularity, the quality of the underlying technology has bettered and, in some ways, converged. Little differentiates Huion from UC-Logic from UGEE from Bosto.

Two areas of continued variance between manufacturers have been the pressure curve and jitter during slow strokes. Some hardware requires strokes that are too hard to achieve full pressure. Some require strokes that are too light. None are just right. Goldilocks wouldn’t find a comfortable bed among the lot of them. Slow strokes task the report rate of the hardware and the interpolation of the driver—its ability to convert slow, jaggy input into smooth, even lines.

Most Wacom styli have terrible beginnings to their pressure curves. When new out of the box they perform better, but, shortly after breaking a stylus in, the first twenty five percent or so of the pressure curve blows by far too quickly. You can mitigate this by using custom pressure input settings and making the first fifty percent of your pressure curve firmer. That’s a bummer. Having spent tens of thousands of dollars on pricey Wacom tech over the last fifteen years, I expect more. Wacom’s app compatibility is top notch and they have the best slow-stroke jitter interpolation. They’re still the best option, but innovation has remained largely stagnant since their Graphire days.

Huion’s latest stylus tech tends to be too soft and quick to achieve full pressure. A light press maxes out their output robbing you of some middle-to-hard end of the pressure curve expression. They suffer from middling jitter problems with slow strokes. Their industrial design is top notch and their drivers have matured greatly over the last two years.

UC-Logic, the digitizer supplier for Yiynova and UGEE, has a stiffer pressure curve that requires more force to achieve full output. It’s stiff, but the UC-Logic tech has maybe the highest fidelity pressure curve in all digital art hardware I’ve tested. Wacom and Huion blow out their pressure curves too quickly and the UC-Logic tech tends to allow for a fuller range of expression. Jitter mitigation is slightly better here than in Huion tech, but is still worse than Wacom’s. Their industrial design tends to leave one wanting. They look and feel slapped together. The exception to this aesthetic black hole is UGEE who seems to be pushing the UC-Logic tech further than Yiynova. They’re relatively unknown and it’s a shame. They’ve made some of my favorite tech to date.

The Bosto 22U Mini uses a different digitizer than their other units according to discussions with their reps. Pressure input was a bit jagged with many tiny peaks and valleys during a single stroke, but that can be solved for in most software that offers a modicum of line correction. Here’s the interesting thing about Bosto’s new 22U. Overall stroke pressure sat somewhere between Wacom and UC-Logic. It was near the middle ground of pressure curves. That’s notable. That’s borderline exciting. Jitter was no worse than on UC-Logic tech but still lagged behind Wacom a bit. But Bosto has my interest. The 22U held its own.

Value

The 22U costs $50 to $100 cheaper than its mid-tier counterparts. If you’re running Windows, don’t mind a spartan set of driver features, and budget is your foremost concern, you could do worse.

I had issues with the digitizer technology in Bosto products prior and was not shy in heaping criticism their way. To their credit, they saw fit to send me this new monitor with a new, different digitizer inside knowing I wouldn’t pull punches. Performance and price are a decent value. I like where their product line is headed and hope they keep building on this momentum.

As is the case with nearly all my Cintiq alternative reviews, the addendum of “not bad for the money” applies in hefty amounts. If you’re simply unable to purchase Wacom hardware, this Bosto, Yiynova’s MVP22U (v3), and Huion’s GT-220 offer compelling options that each have benefits and drawbacks.

The Bosto 22U Mini left me pleasantly surprised. For many, I suspect their purchasing decision will depend on price and compatibility.

Details

Manufacturer

Bosto http://www.bosto.co/

Price at Time of Review

$649

You can help my reviewing efforts by using my Amazon affiliate link.