Forget making donuts. This helped me way more when learning how to use Blender. And way more fun, as I knew this was directly going to help me with my comic work

My model has more polygons in the face than Crashune's tutorial, as I wanted that to be a bit more exact compared to the rest of the body

How detailed you wanna go depends on you. You can start with Crashune's tutorial to get familiar with Blender, and go for more detailed, complex modeling stuff

In my experience, being too detailed sometimes hurt my drawing, since I'd unknowingly start tracing the model exactly

A less detailed model keeps me drawing more fluidly instead

(note: I didn't want to model the hands, so I imported a free, low poly model from CGTrader)

1. For your texture file, go for 2048px minimum

Lower than that, the texture gets pixelated once you bake it later  (I used 2048px, and you can still see some pixelation in places. So maybe go higher if you can)

2. Change Color Management to View: Standard, to see true colors

3. With Auto Reload on, the texture updates automatically whenever you save the PSD

Edit > Preferences > Add-ons > search "Auto Reload" > hit Install

If installed properly, you should see a refreshing icon next to the file name in the Shader Editor window

(reloads might take a few minutes for it to sync; you can also manually refresh)

4. Export all of your UV layout for easier texture drawing

After the parts have been UV unwrapped somewhat:

In Object mode, select all the model parts > switch to Edit mode > in another window, go to UV Editor > UV tab > Export UV Layout 

This lets you draw your base textures over the approximate locations directly, instead of guessing and doing it one piece at a time

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Step 2: Bake Texture

Once the model is done, we need to tie (bake) the texture to the model itself

I followed A.J.Morgan's Make your own 3D posable CSP characters tutorial from here

Set your Render Engine to Cycles, then hit Bake in the Bake tab

If you get weird black seams in the model after baking or get an error message, it's usually due to how you placed to UV unwrap so might have to fix that

Here's a few troubleshooting notes from the tutorial:

•  "If you have multiple parts but want to bake them all into the one texture, you'll want to turn off the setting "Clear Image". Otherwise each item that gets baked will just wipe out and overwrite EVERYTHING in your image texture. Turning this off means it only adds it's own bit to the image and leaves everything else alone."
• "Depending on how crammed the UV map is, you might also want to turn down the "Margin", it basically renders a bit of extra area around each part of the unwrapped model, but if they're too close together they'll overlap and interfere with each other."

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Step 3: Change Shader to Principled BSDF

If you followed Crashune's tutorial, you've been using the Emission shader (can see in the green box)

For whatever reason, it doesn't save well in FBX, so we need to change every part's shader to Principled BDSF instead

It's easiest done right in the Shader Editor window

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Step 4: Export as FBX

File > Export > FBX

In the export options, set Path Mode to Copy so the baked texture gets embedded in the FBX

Test the export by bringing it into Clip Studio Paint

 It should look ugly but it shouldn't crash

 

Seems easy, right?

This is actually the step that gives me the most trouble, when trouble happens

Sometimes I'll export the exact same model and it just won't export properly, crashing Clip Studio for no reason (and if it crashes Clip Studio, it also means it won't load properly in the next step on Mixamo)

When that happens, I usually go back to the baking or shader-changing step, redo it, and hope whatever was causing the issue resolves itself

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it still doesn't -- in which case I just leave it alone for a few days and come back later

And then it magically exports fine

Blender, why are you like this

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Step 5: Bring to Mixamo

Mixamo auto-rigs the model for you

Use the Upload Character button to load your FBX, and follow its simple on-screen steps to identify the anatomy parts

If everything went well, your character should be moving around

If some parts move janky, I usually fix that after this step as we go back to Blender anyway

Before hitting Download, make sure the pose is set to T-Pose (one of Mixamo's presets)

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Step 6: Bring it back to Blender

Open the newly Mixamo'd FBX to Blender. You should see it has "bones" now (the triangle things)

This is where I fine-tune (well, what counts as fine-tuning to me) which parts move with the bones, and how much

Select a part > go to Weight Paint mode

The color shows how much that part moves with the assigned bone (red = max, blue = barely)

Under the green triangle Data tab, you can see which bones affect that part

I usually check hair and shoulder areas, since those tend to get wonky. And address anything weird I noticed during the Mixamo test here too

You can adjust the size and "opacity" of the weight painting under Tool > Strength

Before you start messing with this: turn on "Auto Normalize" at the bottom of the Tool panel

Blender hides/unchecked a lot of useful settings for some reason, and this is apparently one of them. A troubleshooting tutorial told me to always have this on for weight painting

Once you're satisfied, export it as FBX again 

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Step 7: Bring it to Clip Studio Modeler

Open Clip Studio Modeler, set type of work as 3D Character

To add your FBX, go to Character configuration tab > second icon > the blank file open icon

Your character should open looking great and flat, its Emission shader texture baked in 

 We're almost done

Look below to Character information tab

Turn on Use as complete character, and click the bone icon

Follow the simple rig-identifying steps Clip Studio walks you through

After that's done, go to File > Register as Material

And congrats!

Your character should be in Materials, ready to be posed

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One note:

3D planes have a front side and a back side

You can see the back side (shown in red) under Viewport Options > Face Orientation turned on

That red shows up as black once it's brought into Clip Studio

If it bothers you, you can turn it off in Clip Studio by going to Options > Preferences > turn off Backface Culling

It's not permanent though. Re-opening the model will turn backface culling back on

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Blender Opens New Pathways

If you've been putting off learning Blender, this is one of the most rewarding ways to start

The model doesn't have to be perfect, as you can see from my janky ones! It still does its job, making drawing much faster and more consistent

It's also made storyboarding for editors easier. They can actually see which character is doing what in a panel, instead of squinting at my fast, shitty doodles trying to guess

(for panels when facial expression is important, I just draw over)

 

And the same modeling principles from Crashune's course apply to objects too. I've made a few props this way, like some of the keychains below

Have fun, and may your FBX exports be kind to you