When you are unable to draw a line with Clip Studio Paint

When you are unable to draw a line with Clip Studio Paint, check the items below.

When the cursor becomes the default no icon (circle with backslash symbol).

When the cursor becomes the default no icon on the canvas, a layer that cannot be drawn on is selected such as the Paper or a locked layer.



Select a raster layer in the Layer Palette, and draw.

Note: A raster layer can be created from the New Raster Layer icon.




When the cursor looks normal but nothing is drawn

Check the drawing color

The white or the transparent color is selected.


Check that a color other than white or transparent is selected from the bottom of the tool palette and then try drawing.

Note: If you double click the icon, you can select a drawing color.




Check Selection Area

If a selection area has been created, drawing is not possible outside of it.

Click Deselect from the Selection area Menu and cancel the selection area, and then try drawing.




Scaling bar

If a thin line is drawn when Zoom In/Out is low, the line may not be visible.

Set Zoom In/Out to 100% and check to see if the line has been drawn.




Check the selected tool

When a non-drawing tool such as the eraser is selected, lines cannot be drawn.

Select the pen or pencil from a tool palette.




Check the expression color of the layer

If you cannot draw a line when selecting a light color such as light blue, the layer expression color may be set to Monochrome.


Since you can only draw using black or white on a monochrome layer, a dark color shows as black and a light color shows as white when you draw.

When drawing with a light color, set the layer expression color to color via Layer Property.



If you intend to create a colored work, setting the basic expression color to Color when creating the canvas will ensure that any layers created will also have their color expression set to Color.




Check layer order

If there’s a layer above the selected layer, lines can be hidden by the image in the layer above it.

Move the selected layer to the top of the layer palette and draw.




If you can draw with a mouse

Check to make sure the scaling bar is set as in the “Scaling bar” section under “When the cursor looks normal but nothing is drawn” above.


If this is not applicable, there may be a problem with the pen tablet’s driver or its drawing coordinates.

Check the information on the page below.