Clip Studio Paint is a great drawing program to use with Astropad. It’s versatile for both illustration and creating publisher-ready comics, with features that accommodate every step of the comic-making process: layouts, perspective rulers, sketching, inking, coloring, and captions.
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In this quick, step-by-step guide, we’ll help you organize an efficient workspace for using Clip Studio Paint together with Astropad. For the best experience, we recommend the latest Clip Studio Paint version.
Arranging panels
It’s easy to arrange and resize Clip Studio Paint’s tool panels. Just click the top of a panel, and drag it anywhere on screen. They can be resized at the sides and corners, or completely hidden to the side of the screen.
Astropad Knowledge Base. Most Popular Articles. Pen Pressure for Adobe Illustrator in Catalina; Setting Up Studio. Astropad has released a pro version called Astropad Studio that turns your iPad into a drawing tablet for your Mac. What’s new, how does it rank against what.
Any type of panel arrangement works with Astropad Studio, since the sidebar can be placed to the left or right side of the iPad screen, or hidden by tapping the Astro-red ring button. All you need is your finger to drag the sidebar and ring button to either side of your iPad.
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We recommend having at least the following panels arranged on your screen:
- Subtool [brush]
- Tool property (for easy stroke adjustments)
- Color wheel
- Layers
Materials Panel: If you plan to use features such as 3D posing, screen tones, and textures, you will want to keep the Materials Panel close by. We suggest that you leave the collapsable Materials toolbar on your screen near the color palette or main toolbar so that you can easily access features without taking up a lot of screen space.
Setting menu shortcuts
Astropad Studio’s shortcuts are preset to default, but these can be changed to better accommodate how you use Clip Studio Paint. In Astropad Studio’s Workspace sidebar, towards the bottom, tap Edit Shortcuts. You can fully edit and rename shortcuts for the sidebar. When you’re done, tap Workspace to see all your newly added shortcut commands.
We recommend placing your most used shortcuts in the sidebar. It’s completely customizable, so add whatever works best with your workflow!
Recommended shortcuts for Astropad’s sidebar:
- P : pencil/ pen
- M : marquee
- G : gradients
- J : blending tool
Suggested Magic Gestures:
- Hover
- Eraser
- Option
- Shift
- Undo
- Redo
Quick Keys
Want command keys, but more space? For easy access to main command keys: Command, Option, Control, and Shift; use Astropad’s on screen Quick Keys. Enable and disable this feature by going near the very bottom of the Shortcuts Sidebar.
On Screen keyboard
Here to help with your speech bubble needs, Astropad Studio has a full on-screen keyboard. In the Shortcuts sidebar, tap Keyboard to reveal it; or tap the button from Quick Keys.
Touch gesture Zoom and Panning
Astropad’s touch gestures, panning and zoom are supported in Clip Studio Paint. Just like using a Mac trackpad — with two fingers, pinch to zoom, and place together to pan on your iPad. This way, you won’t need to keep the scrollbars in view when you set up your ideal workspace.
Working with Astropad Studio, two-fingers canvas rotation is an additional touch gesture to utilize.
If you would like to learn more about setting up your brushes and pen pressure in Clip Studio Paint, take a look at our post here: How to use brushes in Clip Studio Paint with Astropad.
And check out our step-by-step video tutorials for making a comic book page in Clip Studio Paint: clipstudiotutorials.com
mirror your windows desktop
Works with any Windows program software — Photoshop, Illustrator, Blender, ZBrush, and more!
apple pencil & touch support
Optimized for drawing with the Apple Pencil. Use touch gestures to quickly access your favorite tools and shortcuts.
connect over wifi or usb
Untether your workspace! Connect wirelessly via any private WiFi network, or use USB when WiFi isn’t available.
a workspace designed for creative pros
Project Blue goes beyond a basic drawing tablet. Featuring a robust sidebar and on-screen UI, you can quickly access your favorite shortcuts and customize your drawing preferences.
— Because when it comes to your creative workflow, we know that no two artists work alike.
system requirements
- PC laptop or desktop: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit, Build 1809 or later
- iPad (and Apple Pencil): iOS 9.1 or later
current features
Drawing tablet functionality
- Mirroring
- Apple Pencil support
- Touch support (pan and zoom)
Limited Astropad Studio shortcuts and customization
- Basic sidebar shortcuts
- ‘Magic Gestures’
- Hard & soft pressure curves
- On-screen modifier keys
- On-screen keyboard
- External keyboard support
- ‘Move and Zoom’
Robust connectivity and performance
- Connect over WiFi or USB
- Low latency at 60fps
- GPU support
coming soon
Our beta is still a work in progress. Here’s what we’ll be adding to Project Blue over the coming months:
Expanded shortcuts
- Unlimited, customizable shortcuts
- Per-app shortcuts
Complete customization
- Custom pressure curves
- Custom pressure smoothing
Further performance enhancements
- Luna Display integration
- Further latency reductions
a special message from astropad’s ceo
Astropad Studio is our award-wining drawing software that turns your iPad into a fully customizable drawing tablet. We first launched Astropad for Mac in 2015; now, we’re bringing Astropad to the Windows creative community. Our beta is still a work in progress, but we’re excited to hear what you think of it!
*Note: After the Project Blue beta, Windows support will be rolled into the existing Astropad Standard and Studio apps as a free feature.
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Follow @mronge and @astropad on Twitter for the latest news on Project Blue.