3D Models in Clip Studio Paint: Master Guide

3D models are a great way to ease your workflow as a comic artist or illustrator. Clip Studio Paint makes this even easier by having its own 3D model integration, which allows you to use a huge library of pre-installed 3D models or to add your own. 

Pre-Installed Models

To access the pre-installed 3D objects, go to your Materials palette and open the 3D folder. There are subfolders for all the different types of models, from characters to small objects to scenes. Small Objects is the folder containing all of the objects you can drag and drop onto your canvas.

When you drag and drop an item to your canvas, you're given a toolbar with several tools to manipulate the model on top, and a toolbar for model settings on the bottom.

Here, you can rotate the camera to position your object, adjust the scale and appearance of the object, and more. If you go to the Tool Property palette, you can make further adjustments to your model, like changing the light source, outlines, and shadows. 

More settings are available by clicking the wrench in the bottom corner - this will take you to the Sub Tool Detail palette.

One really helpful feature CSP offers is the inclusion of perspective rulers fixed on your model. When you rotate the camera around your model, the perspective rulers will also rotate, ensuring that any drawing you do around that 3D model will be in the same perspective. This is a great way to plan perspective for a drawing if you have trouble visualizing perspective or if you want to make sure your object fits perfectly in your already-drawn scene, instead of just looking like you plopped it in with no changes.

To enable these, just click on the ruler that appears on your 3D model layer to turn it on. I recommend dragging the ruler to a different raster layer when you're finished with your 3D model so you can use it to draw.

Character models function mostly the same, with one notable difference: they have bones, which allows you to manipulate their limbs and pose them.

Clip Studio Paint has set of default 3D models that are perfect for drawing reference. You can even manipulate their proportions to have different body types.

I have a whole thread of tips on how to use Clip Studio Paint Character Models here. 

Background models are entire 3D scenes that you can drop onto your canvas. Like objects and characters, they also have their own perspective rulers and lighting.

Asset Models

If you're looking for something specific, you may have luck if you search the Clip Studio Assets store. This can be accessed either through the Clip Studio, or by visiting the website.

Clicking "Detail" next to the search bar will let you narrow down your search to just 3D models. 

If you're having trouble finding something you're looking for, you may have better luck if you put your search term into Google Translate and translate it to Japanese. (A large portion of the CSP userbase is Japanese! These creators makes a lot of assets and not all of them are tagged with English tags).

Once you download your model, it'll show up in the Download folder of your Materials palette. From there you can move it to your 3D folder or add it to your favorites so you don't lose it.

Custom Models

If you want to go a step beyond and add your own model to CSP, you can do that really easily. I'm not a 3D artist and I don't have any skills with making my own models, but thankfully there are plenty of resources online where you can buy or download models to use. 

One place I like to find models is Sketchfab. They have a marketplace of both free and paid models that you can use (just make sure you check the licensing before downloading!).

Here I'm using a medieval cage asset from Sketchfab. After checking the license, click Download 3D Model to see the file formats you can download. For Clip Studio Paint, we want to use object files (.obj). 

If your model doesn't come in .obj format, there are mesh converters online you can upload other formats to to convert it to .obj.

When your file is downloaded, extract the .obj file somewhere you won't lose it (I recommend making a folder for all your models somewhere on your computer). 

Now, you can drag the .obj file right onto your canvas! The model will be totally stripped of any color and texture it had before since CSP is just reading the mesh, but because CSP applies a light source to the model you should still have an easy time seeing it.

Since this file wasn't directly uploaded, it won't be saved in your CSP library and will need to be dragged back in whenever you want to use it. 

If you want to register your model as a material in your library, you'll have to use Clip Studio Modeler.

Clip Studio Modeler

If you want to add a model with bones or more complicated features, or just want to register your objects as materials, Clip Studio Paint has its own program for preparing models called Clip Studio Modeler. This is where creators who make their models into assets for the Asset Store have to prep their models. It can be downloaded on the CSP site or through the Clip Studio. 

There are two startup options, one for objects and one for models with bones. To add our cage, use the 3D objects option.

Under the Object Configuration palette, you can add in your .obj file by clicking the Root Node button (the pine tree) and clicking Add From File at the bottom of the palette. Your object should be loaded in after that.

You can edit the material thumbnail and any settings in the Object information palette.

Finally, to register it as a material, just go to File and select "register as new material."

You can pick where the material is saved, and next time you open CSP it'll be available in your library! From there you can drag and drop it onto your canvas whenever you like.

Explaining how to set up character models would be an entire guide in itself, since the process of adding bones is a little complicated, but thankfully CSP has a page with links to various resources on setting this up. If you're serious about adding lots of custom models or just want to know how to use the program, I definitely recommend giving this a read, as Modeler can be a bit difficult to jump into with no prior knowledge.

Ways to Use 3D Models for Drawing

Now that you have your models loaded into CSP and functioning, you may be unsure of how to effectively use them.

The simplest way would be to load them in, position them how you want, and then just use them as a reference for drawing. To flatten a 3D layer, just right click the layer and click Rasterize - this will turn it into an image instead of an editable object, so you can lower the opacity and treat it like any other reference image.

If you have Clip Studio Paint EX, there is a really convenient feature available called Extract Outline which will create lineart and tones based on a 3D model or image.

If you're using Clip Studio Paint PRO, you can do something similar by taking advantage of the Artistic Filters feature. I have a guide about turning photos into comic backgrounds that uses the same feature. For 3D models, all you would need to do is rasterize them and treat them like a photo to get the same results.

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I hope this was helpful! I encourage all artists to take advantage of these time-saving features to make their art the best it can be.

A full masterlist of my guides can be found here.