Astropad Studio and Clip Studio Paint

Clip Studio Paint is a great drawing program to use with Astropad Studio on both Windows and Mac. 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.

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.

Free-floating Clip Studio Paint panels, and Astropad Studio Shortcuts sidebar

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.

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.

Materials Panel (Manga material) expanded

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. Want to customize the keys you see here? Check out our guide on customizable quick keys!

Astropad’s on screen Quick Keys

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.

Astropad Studio’s on screen keyboard

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.

Astropad’s Touch Zooming

Working with Astropad Studio, two-fingers canvas rotation is an additional touch gesture to utilize.

Astropad Studio’s Touch Canvas Rotation

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