Hey quick update for those curious to how my "save time through actions and scripts" is going. Just figured out something that saves a hellllll ton of time (and works for Clip as well--I use photoshop, but you can absolutely do actions in clip), so if you are like me and you enjoy using lots of clipping layers with gradients and solid colors to get a style kinda like this:
which unfortunately has this number of layers for even this small figure (fml the layer hell--I used to just never label these, ps, and so trying to manage them between dozens of panels per update was such a headache that wastes sooo much time when you do color comics. But here I've labelled them and I'll get to why these layers are even labelled in a bit.)
I desperately wanted a nice, quicker way to do them so it's less about labeling layers, making layers, and laying gradients, and more about actual painting and drawing.
I figured out from when I did this short story before that had a hell ton of clipping layers that I was constantly checking back to a concept art that I had drawn to make sure all the clipping layers were at the right opacity percentage and yada yada-- and every single panel had basically the same layers--the same set-up--and the same names. And doing that over 150 times was just...so much of doing the same thing over and over again. So this time, with my next project, I'm never doing that again.
Behold: the Meredith's Face Action (My main character's name is Meredith. This action just covers her face and neck)
I click on it once, and it sets up all these layers that you saw before in the folder "Meredith's Neck and Face". All of em.
How it works is that all of the fill and gradient layers I've done through swatches are set to clipping layers that are empty when I first hit the action. Those same fill and gradient layers--all those highlight layers you see there, are set to a mask that is inverted, so when I place a base color in the layer they are clipped to, you initially see no change. But, if I take a brush of any type and draw in the mask layer, it will draw in the highlights in the exact colors and the percentages I need.
And what used to take a while (sometimes if there's a lot of layers, with a lot of characters and elements, it would take nearly an hour or more) now takes...less than 3 seconds. I can add more of these for other characters, for particular outfits, or for BG's if I so desire. But the idea is--I set this up once (and the set up took a little bit because I had to figure out how to make actions correctly. occasionally it'd clip to the wrong layer? It's a little finicky) but then I never have to do it again.
So here's how I did most of the set up: by using something called "Fill layers" and "Gradient layers." I used to think these were an absolutely useless part of photoshop--but what's nifty is that if you use them in an action, they will automatically have a mask attached so all you have to do is invert the mask as you record your actions.
and what's neat is that you can set things like the layer styles, clipping, opacity--and even labelling them so everything is neat and tidy.
and then just use colors from a preset
Anyway, I just thought this was neat. I'll see how it goes, and get back to y'all if I find another action or script that just saves a hell ton of time or if this idea is actually a bust. But so far it works!