ReStory airbrush not working: no paint, wrong palette or stuck progress?

Choose the symptom before trying a fix

“The airbrush does not work” can mean three different things. Watch whether paint appears on the shell, whether the requested palette is selectable, and whether the order records progress. Each observation points to a different next step.

Paint appears but does not count

A named set such as Kawaii Overload or Ramen Shop is not a request to guess a matching color. Select the set by name and use its colors. In the Kawaii discussion, a player described using one color from that set with a larger brush, rotating the device to reach the other side.

That advice addresses palette choice and coverage. It cannot explain a brush that produces no visible paint at all. Follow the actual order wording: a Freestyle request is different from one that names a palette. Our palette finder lists the names without inventing RGB values or an exact coverage percentage.

The selector will not scroll on controller

Steam Deck players have reported using STEAM plus the trackpad for mouse input, or mapping buttons to mouse-wheel scrolling, to reach palette options. These are community input workarounds, not changes to the painting objective.

Try the current native layout first. If it fails, preserve that layout before changing bindings and test one action at a time. See the controller guide for the reported rotation, slow-cursor and scrolling cases.

No paint appears, even with Freestyle

The Reddit report about Yui’s order includes players who could not paint, including a Freestyle case. Another player said a Discord response had linked painting trouble to older GPUs. That is a second-hand report; the thread does not establish a tested hardware list or a universal driver fix.

Update the game, then record whether the symptom affects only that device or other available paint jobs too. If you can test another input method without changing the order, note the result. These comparisons help describe the fault; they are not guaranteed repairs.

1. Keep the affected save in its own slot.
2. Record the game version, operating system, GPU and mouse/controller setup.
3. Capture the order wording, selected palette and a short clip showing the missing paint.
4. Report the issue with those details and keep your earlier save intact.

What the patch and mod reports do not prove

Patch 1.0.011r fixed the painting-palettes interface. Its wording does not establish that every later no-spray report is resolved.

The Yui thread also contains a mod author’s suggestion that marks a painting objective complete without visually painting the device. One player reported success. That bypass is not an official painting fix, and we have not tested its save or achievement effects; this guide does not require it.