I've recently created a new way of making my anthropomorphic characters actually look furry. It's based on creating a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer in Clip Studio Paint and "erasing" the strands of fur so they return to their usual colour and brightness, but leaving the impression of deeper shadows in the fell of the fur. It tends to make the character rather dark, so I have to brush a lot of the effect back, which means kind of destroying or at least changing the strokes I'd laid down. I started wondering if I could create a second layer to apply that softening effect, and it turns out I can. Then I wondered if I could drop the layers into a folder to just drag and drop into new drawings, with the idea being just clipping the folder to the paint layer. Well, it turns out that no, you can't. For some reason, if you clip a folder to a layer, any adjustment layers inside it are instantly rendered ineffectual.

So I've found a sort of workaround. The idea here is to nest everything into a single folder with a mask. The mask is created using the opacity of the layer you want everything to apply to. In other word, you take the layer or layers that define your character, CTRL/CMD-click them to make them a selection, and create the mask on the topmost folder using that selection. Then the effects won't be applied to anything below that layer.

Anyway, this image show show I'm currently setting these folders up, what they're for, and what their settings are. This is just what I'm doing with the idea. What can you innovate from this to improve your workflow? :)