I would call these "guides" except my stance is that many people do not wish to proceed with digital art the way I do. Many people ought not do these things at all! But... I think these walk-throughs have educational value! Some of the tools/settings I use are ones you might not know of; the reasoning behind my processes might inspire you to consider your own time-saving tricks and shortcuts.
Plus the insatiably curious might find them mildly interesting all on their own.
So here's a bunch of things I do when working on digital 2D art.
Preface: technical specs, info about art programs, etc
The 2D art program I use is Clip Studio Paint EX, version 1.13+.
- As of writing Clip Studio Paint comes in PRO and EX versions. The key difference between the two is PRO is significantly cheaper while EX has no limits on its comic files & animation tools. For most users PRO is the way to go; you really don't need EX unless it does a specific thing you need. (It was animation for me, sigh.)
- Version number: Clip Studio Paint after about 2022 or so has progressively larger interface/UI divergences based on version main number. Or in plain English, Clip Studio 1.whatever and Clip Studio 2.whatever are somewhat different, and Clip Studio 3.whatever is VERY different.
In general, all 2D drawing programs are EXTREMELY similar in features! Shortcuts/hotkeys, menu layouts, and what things are named can vary a lot. What the program can do on the other hand? There's always some niche stuff skewed toward the specific subset of artists the program is meant for: for example SAI is meant for painters and has brushes they tend to prefer, while Clip Studio is designed for manga artists and has more features for black-and-white pen drawings. But most stuff is extremely universal to all digital art programs and what you learn in one program will almost always be useful in another. The digital art "fundamentals" like layers and color manipulation will always be around.
- Uhh, except for MS Paint. That's the odd one out which has almost no features and won't teach you transferrable skills.
I do my best to mark whether something discussed is Clip Studio exclusive OR broadly available in most/all programs. Note that even if I label something "broadly available" I can't make promises! Individual programs are BROADLY the same but for all I know yours labeled the feature something completely different, or it truly doesn't work because the program is a buggy mess (what do you mean SAI can't save downscaled copies because it will crash??) These are my off-the-cuff guess whether you should try looking for XYZ feature/tool, not a legally-binding promise.
"Which art program should I get?" Short answer: not MS Paint*, not Photoshop. Long answer:
Flow chart time! Do you need to use a specific program for work purposes?
- "Yes, my industry/employer explicitly or functionally requires that I use [Program]" → Get [Program].
- "No, my job doesn't specify/I'm not trying to break into an industry that specifies/I'm a hobbyist who doesn't need to worry about this" → Ok, what's your budget & device specs?
- "It needs to be free" → Photopea, Firealpaca and GIMP are your best options.
- "Linux rig with enough RAM to kill god" → Krita is super solid from what I've heard. Leaving aside the RAM-devouring.
- "Well I have this Apple device–" → Procreate is famous for a reason.
- "I can pay money and I haven't escaped Windows" → Paint Tool SAI & CSP are the final big names but honorable mention to Corel Painter (is that still alive?).
As of writing in late 2024 those are the big names in 2D raster art programs. There's a few more out there but if you asked 40 digital artists what they used, that would be almost all of them!
"Why not Photoshop?" Leaving aside the Adobe evil walled garden problem, which is not a small issue, Photoshop is not built for 2D drawing. Photoshop was and is built from the ground up for photo manipulation and its tools reflect this! Yes, it has things like a Pencil and an Eraser and you can pick colors and it has Multiply layers, but, friendpals, that is the bare minimum for a DRAWING program. All of Photoshop's real power lives in post-processing and hi-rez editing tools! Which are really good for photos. Depending on your drawing ambitions these powerful tools vary between "a strange niche workflow you could possibly do better in another program" and "actively hindering you because the UI is stuffed to bursting with this stuff instead of things you actually want." Until/unless you have a highly specific and highly compelling reason to use Photoshop (see "my job makes me") for the love of toast use ANYTHING ELSE INSTEAD.
* MS Paint is, as mentioned above, so utterly lacking in features that it really shouldn't be compared to these other 2D digital art program. HOWEVER, if you are in a position where you can't use any of the better free options (for example: school computer) and it's a Windows computer with MS Paint already there, it's a perfectly good way to practice art in general! Like, you will have a digital image when you're done, and you have plenty of tools to practice composition and color theory and using your mouse/trackpad/stylus/steering wheel to put the pixels where you want them. I am not an MS Paint hater, I've seen people do some amazing stuff with it. But for purposes of this page I'm mostly discussing programs which can at minimum do a Multiply layer, and in that context it's a different beast entirely.