Introduction

Ever had trouble with selecting colors for the skies in your piece? Or just having trouble getting the piece to fit together?

 

I hope I can help with this tutorial wherein where I'm going to show you how I paint skies for backgrounds using Clip Studio Paint and some assets in the Clip Studio Assets. As well as how to light different scenes with natural lighting outdoors. I'll be sharing some general principles regarding light, color, and how I generally use Clip Studio to paint the illustrations you see here.

 

All the assets used to create the skies you see here are listed down in the description.

 

Generally, you want two key assets, a gradient set called Skies 2. and cloud brushes.

Painting the Overcast Sky

Let's start with my favorite kind of weather. The overcast sky.

The overcast sky happens when there is a thin layer of clouds covering the sky and the sun's light is diffused and indirect. The sky appears light grey or white. And there's no sharp demarcation between light and shadow, and there aren't any definite cast shadows

 

We'll be using a gray sky for the background, first and foremost. Actually, I start with grayscale in order to make use of the gradient maps.

First you'll want to layer things up like how the sky would be like. So, in an overcast type of weather, the sky is mainly this light gray color. I then start to create layers upon layers of clouds. This sets up the ability for us to do neat things like projecting light through the clouds, over the clouds, and we can easily create the illusion of distance, and height as well.

 

I wouldn't worry about the colors of the clouds just yet, as long as they're close to the values that I have in my mind. The gradient map and other correction layers will help us adjust the values later on.

Once we're happy with the initial layers, we can apply a gradient map correction layer. I've already got the skies gradient map set already loaded up. Select the gradient map named 'overcast', and everything underneath this correction layer will be affected by the gradient map.

 

 

What the gradient map actually does is take the grayscale values and assigns them the color that is used in the gradient map. And like any layer, we can adjust the opacity of the correction layer to adjust how much of an effect it has. Right now, this overcast gradient map is too blue for my taste, so I am taking its opacity down a notch.

 

As I've said earlier, we can make adjustments to each individual cloud layers, and even paint on them.

Locking the transparency of individual layers allows us to paint on just the clouds. so, using the clouds brush, we can paint some highlights on our clouds, as well as some shadows. and even some light that's peering through.

Let's say you already have a character or a landscape that already has the local base colors already loaded in like what I have here. I'm going not going to go in depth with how I would go about painting the character, but I'll share some general guidelines to painting them under certain weather conditions. It'll be easier for us in the long run to keep these elements of the scene in separate layers like what I have here, it makes it a whole lot easier to create adjustments per element later on.

Painting Objects Under The Overcast Sky

Generally, for an overcast sky, the lighting is very diffuse. Meaning, the light source is the entire sky. The sun isn't visible, and it's light is being diffused by a thin layer of clouds in the atmosphere. , and thus, almost everything on the ground is lit equally and light is bouncing off almost everything, producing shadow only in the deepest crevices or in areas that are close to each other.

 

The neutrally colored diffuse lighting from the sky will illuminate everything and most of the base colors of the objects will be very clear, because the light color is a very neutral gray. Some cameras can adjust the temperature and make things slightly warmer or cooler.

 

Under overcast lighting shadows are often soft and appear sparingly, only in the nook and crannies where the least light touches. It's usually when two surfaces are very close to one another. Remember that light bounces multiple times. So even surfaces facing the ground are going to be lit.

 

I do think painting some skies and weather setting is actually tricky to pull off effectively. Mainly because our eyes, as we all as cameras with dynamic exposure, automatically adjust the size of their aperture to control the amount of light coming in.

 

If you try looking up to the overcast sky, then look at the objects on the ground you'll notice that the objects are actually significantly darker than the sky. And if you have a recorder, same is true when you point up to the sky and point down towards the horizon, the footage becomes over and under exposed while the camera is adjusting.

 

This is why I advise to constantly look at the entire scene after you're done zooming in and painting. Usually, you'll need to adjust the values of the elements in the scene.

Painting the Clear Day Sky

When there are is little to no clouds in the sky you get an entirely vibrant and blue sky, and its looks varies from photo to photo, your vantage point, from the time of day, and the amount of clouds in the sky.

 

For the clear sky I usually start with creating 3 value points. As a rule of thumb, the sky will gradually lose its bluish color the closer it is towards the horizon. You can look at some photos to verify. And depending on the density of the clouds, it also loses a bit of blueness around the sun.

 

Once I'm clear on the separation, I do a blend (blur) between the values and apply the 'Cloudless' gradient map to it.

 

It seems like my values don't utilize the gradient map that well at the moment, so I apply a 'TONAL Correction' to darken some of the values in the grayscale and to lighten some values as well. Basically controlling the values of the image based on the existing values we've already painted.

Using the Tonal Curve & Levels Adjustment

Right now the top left is set to RGB, meaning Im controlling all the channels at the same time.

In the x-axis, we have the input and adjusting the curve adjust the output, we're setting the Output based on the input.

 

I love how clip studio paint displays the tonal correction menu. As you can see there are labels and numerical values on the graph. as well asn an overlay of the existing amounts of each value of what we're adjusting.

 

As you can see, the grayscale I made is far too bright and doesn't have enough range to make use of the gradient map effectively. So I set the curve to output a lower Y axis value at the start of the existing values, and a steeper rise as I'm approaching the highest values in my existing graysale layer.

You can also adjust the range of your values using the levels adjustment, by going to edit > tonal correction > levels.

 

The left and right most ticks are the ends of the existing value range. The middle one is the mid range. And you can change the upper and lower range moving the markers. Here I'm pinching them closer together, so that my upper range becomes lighter, and my lower range becomes darker, in turn makes better use of the gradient map.

Adding and Painting Clear Day Clouds

Much like the in the overcast sky painting, we'll be adding layers upon layers of clouds. I tend to vary the flatness and size of my clouds to imply a sense of perspective and depth.

 

Clouds in a clear day can be seen clearly being affected by the sun. In order to do this lock the transparency of the layer and start painting directional light and shadow using the cloud brush.

I feel like gradients and blurs sometimes cheapens the look of the sky, so I go ahead and add texture at the areas where the values shift.

And there we go, it's a clear day in this painting now. We now gloss over how you can paint the other elements of the scene to make things more cohesive.

General guidelines in clear day lighting.

Clear day lighting introduces harsh shadows because of the directional light coming from the sun. It also introduces a bit of bounce light from the ground. The shadows aren't really the absence of light, but rather, areas only lit by the diffuse bluer light coming from the sky in general. Thus you light shadow areas with a darker value version of the sky color your using.

 

Lit areas by direct sunlight tend to be a warmer color in this setting, and this varies from the time of day.

 

Due to the directional nature of this form of lighting, you'll see harsher shadows everywhere there is a plane change facing away from the sun.

Painting & Lighting The Sunset Sky

I think the golden hour when the sun is setting is one of the trickiest skies to paint, because it is so dynamic and looks different minute to minute. The temperature of the light and sky varies a lot from sunset to sunset.

 

I start out the same as always with the grayscale layer where I arrange the values in such a way that I place the sun off camera, and one hemisphere of the sky will still be lit partially by the sun, producing a purple-ish color, while the other hemisphere will be a much much cooler color.

 

If you observe the sunset sky you'll also notice that the horizon is usually much brighter than the rest of the sky as well.

I use the cloud brush with different values to add texture to the sky while placing the values where I think they would fall.

Among the sky gradients in the pack, I think "epilogue" is the closest to where I want the final image to be, and as with the other methods I paint the skies, I use the tonal correction to finetune the values.

Once I'm happy with that, I add a color balance correction layer, because I want to control the warmth of the sunlight and how its warmth is affecting the sky that's turning dark blue for the night.

Finally, just to set the mood, I drop another tonal adjustment correction layer on top before I paint the clouds. Afterwards, I make further adjustments to the general skydome using a soft brush.

Similar to the clear sky, the sunset appears heavily directional, and shadows are very apparent, even on clouds. So, don't hesitate to add dimensions and volume to your clouds by painting light and dark values using the cloud brush while keeping the transparency lock on.

Painting objects in the Sunset Setting

The difference between painting in the clear day and the sunset setting is the direction of the sun's light, it's intensity, the red orange hue it emits as its light passes through larger parts of the atmosphere across the horizon.

 

When you light objects in red orange, the color will shift to a warmer color, depending on the surface. Objects will become orange with varying warmth and coolness. I paint orange and red on top of almost anything that's facing the sunset and paint cool dark purple and blue on the planes that face away.

Summary and Key Points:

• Use gradient maps to make things easier and focus on values first, but don't let it limit you. Apply necessary correction layers, paint overs, if necessary.

• Paint clouds in layers so you can paint lighting, paint light in between clouds, and add volume to them separately, as well imply depth and distance, using transparency lock and clipping masks, and paint overs.

• Observing real-life situations and studying how light behaves can help you create your pieces, as well as set the mood.

Video Version of the Tutorial