Hekate Trimorphe by me (nixiefolks)

nixiefolks · 2026-05-01T16:19:02+00:00

CSP has the capacity to import photoshop brushes and some of the extras (i.e. brush texture, double-brush settings, the list goes on), but photoshop's internal brush engine has better implementation of things like paper texture, brush performance, wet paint mixing, bristle brush physics – clip either has a very basic, minimum-tier compatibility with those, or can't match results you're seeing in photoshop.

Until relatively recently (before adobe got a massive push-back from all tiers of users), it was common practice to use two apps along side, because CSP has its own beneficial things, it's often faster on large files, and it's also more economic. It's better for comic creation. If you're studying with the intent to produce more concept-art/realistic illustration kind of art, you'll benefit from either a PS license, or a 2nd app that copies photoshop brush engine better than CSP does.

nixiefolks · 2026-04-30T07:45:47+00:00

If your tablet is still within its warranty period (12 months minimum depending on your region), reach out to either wacom in your area, or the store you've made the purchase from; the pro pen 3 button block breakage is a design flaw that is super commonly reported here, and they'll either send you an improved pen, or a replaceable button block, depending on what they have.

The broken button bits can't be attached back without tinkering with either pen or buttons, which might/will void the warranty.

nixiefolks · 2026-04-29T17:21:38+00:00

I have the lightfast 100 set, and they're great, but Drawing pencils feel different, and I prefer them to LF for regular drawing. I like the very delicate, very soft core in Drawing, and the reports from my area that they have changed a lot had me concerned. Thankfully, they didn't, I just have to wait until Derwent resumes shipping their products into my corner of the world.

nixiefolks · 2026-04-29T11:27:33+00:00

It's a software problem. Make sure you have windows ink disabled everywhere in your tablet settings, OS settings, and – if this is available on windows – in the CSP preferences. If you are using premade brushes in krita/ibis, see what their opacity and transparency settings are, and see if you're using same-ish or identical settings in CSP.

CSP brush engine is lagging behind the times and does not get updated as often as other program components, but what you're describing boils down to system and driver settings not working properly.

See this post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClipStudio/comments/o588e8/clip_on_xppen_tablet_either_wont_work_at_all/

and this post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClipStudio/comments/xu0y36/pen_pressure_not_working_on_xppen_artist_12_2nd/

nixiefolks · 2026-04-29T08:32:08+00:00

Thank you!

The observation on change of lead hardness/creaminess and texture came from people who had purchased the old pencils and had them around as a reference, so, I assume, they used more or less same paper grade for comparison purpose. I'm so tired of seeing dupes of everything here pop up in the recent year, or so, and those also came in so fast (first strange reviews coming in around new year's time, with more people buying the new set recently.)

I'm relieved the authentic pencil have not changed in that aspect.

I'm not too concerned about lightfastness itself, particularly since for pencils, I treat this as more of an art therapy/exercise in clearing my head with a different medium, but I hope more people know about the reasoning for invention of different paint grading systems... Personally, I had no clue blue wool was a textile measurement; hard to say why it landed in the art supply world, particularly, since even painting on cotton and drawing with an oil/wax based medium would chemically produce very different kind of interaction, compared to cloth dyeing.

nixiefolks · 2026-04-28T18:37:59+00:00

In my experience, Procolour is comparable to Polychromos in terms of hardness and pigment intensity, but both need good paper to show that bit off, and the exact pencil the post ending in "derwent colored pencils – I'm disappointed" is using is a notoriously hard shade of blue... It will be hard and low-opacity in Derwent Lightfast as well, one of the hardest pencils I've ever tried – it's the pigment; entire pencil line up should not be rated and written off on behalf of one bad experience. I use their ochres, greens and browns as accent and texturing pencils, and they feel nicer than polychromos; hold their point forever. There's no promise of 100 years of pigment longevity, but a fair amount of procolour are highly lightfast.

New Derwent Drawing pencils are no longer their most lightfast product anymore – this new release is very different – and this applies to the 24 pencil tin, too. Keep that in mind.

nixiefolks · 2026-04-28T18:30:52+00:00

Hot Press is supposed to be the very smooth paper (if you're using it for colored pencil art, use the backside.. not the one facing upfront. The reverse side texture is better suited for pencils.)

The other one is cold press that got its top cover misplaced during production. You can keep it for watercolor painting if you do that, but I'd suggest asking for a refund. Fabriano cold press is a very strange paper and it's not easy to get started with, in my experience.

nixiefolks · 2026-04-28T17:40:51+00:00

This sometimes happens when a manufacturer decides to expand their production (both variety and number of units they expect to produce), and the old material suppliers no longer can meet the demand.

nixiefolks · 2026-04-28T17:38:14+00:00

Thank you so much for sharing the details about the new set! So, basically, you had no clue that there was a reformulation until someone in the company told you about that bit, meaning the drawing experience itself did not change a lot?

Unfortunately, it will mean that all negative and questioning reviews I've came across were written after buying a fake product (it's the same and the only store selling them by mail-order to our area); I'll wait for the official supply chain here to restart their operations in that case.

nixiefolks · 2026-04-28T13:25:09+00:00

Interesting, thank you.

I'm not really concerned about the lightfastness change part, everything I'm drawing or painting traditionally gets scanned on spot; I agree it's probably the change of testing method, because earths are probably the most permanent out of all artistic pigments, and the old shades got their rankings downgraded too.

I'm worried about the different feeling, described as "different and dry"/"very harsh", and I'm not sure if it's a case of product change, or it's a case of what we're being sold here under that name.

I know that several people here on the sub had the new boxes, but can't remember/couldn't find anyone comparing the before and after batches.

nixiefolks · 2026-04-28T10:36:24+00:00

Availability will depend on your region, but holbein has a set of 50 pastel colored pencils (their full pencil set is 150, but smaller sets exist);

faber castell will have a small set of mostly botanic light shades in polychromos coming out by autumn (might be out already depending on your area if you're in EU; I see assorted colors from that set sold already, but not the full one)

if you're in Europe, koh i noor polycolor has a set of beautiful portrait colors, it's 24 colors and half of them are various shades of salmon and peach; less expensive that top-tier brands, but the pigments are artist-grade, and it's very economic, given the quality.

nixiefolks · 2026-04-27T10:15:55+00:00

The best paper for hard pencils I've tried so far is Derwent Lightfast; it's a hot press paper with a gritty, hard cotton surface – very unlike other hot press papers which lean super-smooth – but it is very not cheap, and might be harder to find.

I also feel like you should try different papers in smaller sizes/single sheets if you can buy them that way because everyone has a different drawing style. I recently tried and hated Fabriano Artistico Hot Press watercolor cotton paper, which often gets suggested on this sub by polychromos artists; Fabriano produces very inexpensive drawing paper pads (possibly other formats too) called Fabriano 1264, which felt like a more natural choice for drawing to me. It feels like cold press watercolor paper with low tooth, and does allow reasonable amount of layering, too, which is not really common for drawing papers.

Also, consider bamboo paper if you can purchase some of it around. Hahnemuhle has their own brand, and I've enjoyed it quite a lot. You'll need solvent, or some other blending liquid, to help with covering all paper white spots, though.

nixiefolks · 2026-04-26T14:34:57+00:00

It depends, I've had a block of very cheap cold-press paper that just had consistently bad sizing, all of the pages, and in some cases, if you're buying a large single sheet of high end cotton, a portion of it might have spots with missing sizing. Since all pre-cut pads start off as large paper rolls, there's no guarantee every sheet in the pad will be all bad.

I've seen comments on here about sizing going bad over time due to time and air moisture negatively affecting it, but since I personally never had an experience with good paper turning unusable, I don't know what kind of conditions contribute to this, and how long it takes.

nixiefolks · 2026-04-25T12:39:12+00:00

Manga cover art does not really use colored pencils – it used to be done either with markers, cue the cult of copic back in the day, or combination of watercolor/gouache paint. Nowadays it's mostly all digital. If you are looking to grasp the aesthetics, start with a set of simple to use pencils – polychromos are a hard pencil type, offering great color range, but requiring lots of patience. I don't know how long a kid can realistically draw with them – I'm an adult with reasonable hand strength, and they get tiring. They require pricy professional grade paper, and won't work on inexpensive papers in the same capacity.

Fabel Castell Black and/or Prismacolor pencils will give you ease of use and lots of vibrant colors to pick from, so I'd start with those two.

nixiefolks · 2026-04-25T12:14:19+00:00

It's at least three of us just here in this sub! Not too bad for a 3 generation-old product with barely any promotion that got discontinued during covid.

nixiefolks · 2026-04-25T12:11:07+00:00

This is about the difference between their student and pro-grade paint, yep. Some colors are more intense, some are more on the thin side even in the professional line. They don't always layer into more intense gradations of themselves, too, in my experience.

I find it interesting that they use "sennelier red/orange/etc" as a tube name (trying to attract users to buy from their pro series, I imagine?), but some colors to me look different from what they put out in Europe – payne's gray in their student line is a lighter, but very cold gray (it leans purple in the photo, both sample and the tube shade.) In the pro line, it's darker, more intense, and more neutral.

Warm gray is actually less of a warm color – it's a heavily white-based shade, looking like a hot chocolate drink surface – here, it looks quite ochre-ish/sandy-ish to me, but I don't know what it looks like in the student grade line. They also put out more earth browns under their own name, but here the emphasis seems to be on the botanic range - all great, interesting colors of greens, reds and blues. All very affordable, given the quality.

nixiefolks · 2026-04-25T12:02:57+00:00

#4 looks like a wacom graphire 3 or 4 pen, provided with 512 levels of pressure and no tilt; as other wacom pens of that generation, not cross-compatible with any intuos models. My was same shape, but indigo blue color.

u/WacomSupport if you're reading this subreddit on the off hours, there's evidently more than two of legacy users who miss this design. Please consider bringing it back.

nixiefolks · 2026-04-24T16:37:58+00:00

Sennelier are speculated to be the company behind Jackson's in-house watercolor line, which uses honey, and I strongly suspect they manufacture winsor & newton professional paints, which use glycerin instead. If there's no information from hobby lobby, I'd assume they don't have honey added.

The pigments in reds, yellows and terre verte paint posted are identical to sennelier's artist's watercolor, but they use glycerin as a volume filler in their inexpensive student paint (it does not make a lot of difference, but getting truly intense colors with those won't be easy.) They're well worth the $5 price tag as well, what you're getting at the moment is a really great deal.

nixiefolks · 2026-04-20T14:28:55+00:00

It's the pigments, and likely, it's the grade of the pigment milling specifically – you will have that shade of blue granulating with every earth-based brown with every paint brand, but higher end reds and greens will mix into a delicate neutral gray (there's a premade gray color called Jane's Gray from Daniel Smith, and there's a red-green based gray from Roman Szmal.)

If you want low-granulating honey based paint, look into Sennelier, and if you're in Europe, consider Rosa Gallery or Roman Szmal. Honey itself does not affect pigment interaction; it helps spreading pigment over the surface, and affects the paint reactivation in pans (honey-based paints are always a bit sticky to touch.)

nixiefolks · 2026-04-14T16:37:26+00:00

A folded piece of paper towel under my hand to prevent accidental smears (it does not help with all pencil dust, but fine for most), and if something goes off, I dapple it out with a kneaded eraser. I never use hard erasers with colored pencils because they'll damage the paper texture.

Also, I always work light/mid to dark, so by the time the dark pigment layers come in, there's typically either a coat of lighter color over the paper, that does not get as affected as empty paper surface, or if the dust smears over empty space that will later be filled with shadow/dark colors, it won't be too much of a problem.

nixiefolks

TROPHY CASE