Clip Studio Paint EX
Version 5.0.4 · Celsys Inc. · Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit) · ranked #119 in the library
A drawing and illustration application built around a brush engine that behaves like real media, with panel, page and story management for comics that no general purpose painting program bothers to provide.
Read the installation section below before you start. The order of the steps matters on this release.
About this release
Overview
The brush engine is the reason artists move here and stay. Pressure, tilt and velocity all feed into brush behaviour, the stabilisation smooths a stroke without it feeling delayed, and the inking brushes produce tapers and pressure variation that hold up at print resolution. Vector layers let a drawn line be edited after the fact, moving control points, changing width, and erasing to the intersection so an overshoot cleans up in one stroke.
The EX edition adds the production side. Multiple pages in a single project, page management with spreads, panel dividing tools that cut a page into gutters in one gesture, speech balloons and text with proper vertical writing support, and export of the whole book at once to the specifications a publisher asks for. Story management keeps the running order, page numbering and export settings consistent across a volume rather than across a folder of separate files.
Around all that sits an unusually deep support library. Three dimensional posable figures and drawing dolls that can be set into a pose and traced over for difficult foreshortening, perspective rulers including multi point and curved, screentones with real halftone output for print, pattern and texture materials, and a large set of brushes and decorations. Animation is included too, with a timeline for frame by frame work, onion skinning and light table references.
What it does
Feature breakdown
Natural media brush engine
Pressure, tilt and velocity driven brushes with stabilisation, producing inking and painting strokes that hold up at print resolution.
Vector layers
Draw a line and edit it afterwards, adjusting control points and width, with erase to intersection cleaning an overshoot in a single stroke.
Multi-page and story management
Whole books in one project with page order, spreads, numbering and a single export pass to the specification a publisher supplies.
Panel, balloon and text tools
Divide a page into panels with gutters in one gesture, add balloons with tails, and set text with vertical writing where the language needs it.
Three dimensional references and perspective rulers
Posable figures and objects to trace difficult angles over, plus one, two, three point and curved perspective rulers that snap the brush.
Frame by frame animation
A timeline with onion skinning, light table references and export to video or image sequence, included rather than sold separately.
Changed in this build
Version 5.0.4
- Brush engine rewritten for lower latency on high resolution canvases.
- New three dimensional posable models added to the bundled material library.
- Page management panel reorganised for large volumes with several hundred pages.
- Improved export presets covering current print and digital publishing specifications.
- Faster file open and save on large multi-page projects.
Installation
Follow these in order
- Install your tablet or pen display driver first, before this application.
- Go offline.
- Extract the archive to a local drive.
- Disable real time protection.
- Run setup as administrator and apply the included activation step before first launch.
- Open the application, confirm the EX edition in the about panel, then restore protection.
Release notes
From whoever packed it
- Install the tablet driver before the application or pressure sensitivity will not be detected on first run.
- The material library is bundled offline. Cloud material downloads are removed in this build.
- Block the update check. An update replaces the activated components.
System requirements
Minimum and recommended
| Operating system | Windows 10 version 22H2 or Windows 11, 64-bit |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel or AMD multicore, 2 GHz or faster |
| Memory | 8 GB minimum, 16 GB recommended for large print resolution canvases |
| Graphics | GPU with 2 GB VRAM, and a pressure sensitive tablet or display strongly recommended |
| Storage | 5 GB for the application and the bundled material library |
Questions about this release
Answered before you ask
- What does the EX edition add over the standard one?
- Multi-page project management, story handling and batch export of a whole book, plus the longer animation frame limit.
- Does animation come with it?
- Yes, frame by frame animation with onion skinning and export is included.
- Will it open files from other painting applications?
- It imports layered documents from the common formats, keeping layers and groups intact.
Download
Pick a mirror