"Why are anime backgrounds prettier than real life?"

 

It's an age old question we've all asked ourselves. Just how do those mysterious anime background artists do it? What secrets are they keeping from us? We. Want. ANSWERS!

 

Well, in this tutorial I'll be teaching you some techniques to simplify and speed up your art process when it comes to drawing stunning, anime backgrounds in any weather.

 

Whether it be a rainy afternoon, a snowy blizzard, or a bright sunny day, you'll learn it all!

 

Wanna learn how to make custom weather brushes?

Perhaps you are interested in how to use 3D Primitives to create Backgrounds?

How about changing your drawing's temperature?

Or or! May I interest you in how to create 3D Weather effects?

 

Feeling inspired? Ready to learn how to make the aesthetic anime backgrounds of your dreams?

Creating Custom Weather Brushes

【 What are Decoration Brushes? 】

 

As the name suggests, these are brushes that aren't used for painting or inking, but they are instead used for speeding up the creative process.

These brushes can be pretty much anything.

 

"Frills on clothes are pretty hard to draw-" there's a brush for that!

"I don't wanna painstakingly paint every single strand of grass-" there's a brush for that!

"Jewelry is so hard to draw over and over again-" there's SO many brushes for that!

 

You get the gist.

 

To create custom decoration brushes, you have to create your very own brush tip, which determines the shape of your brush.

 

There's one thing almost all the brushes I'll be making have in common, and it is that that they all use a an image material as their brush tip.

 

There's two kind of image materials that can be used as brush tips. They are both useful in their own way, but create very different results.

 

• Image Materials in Color - the color of the brush cannot be changed (useful for decoration brushes such as jewelry, flowers, etc.)

• Transparent Image Materials in Grey - the color of the brush can be changed (useful if you just want to change the shape of the brush) ❗❗ Note: I won't be teaching you how to make this type.

 

As we create each brush, you'll learn more about the custom brush creation process!

 

【 Rain Brush 】

Let's start with creating a rain brush.

Before we learn any basics, we have to draw the image we'll be using for our brush tip.

 

• Creating the Image Material

After creating a symmetry ruler, use a lasso selection tool to make a raindrop shape. Proceed define the edges/add depth to the raindrop using an air brush. And you're done!

 

Next thing we need to do is turn this drawing into an image material.

(Make sure your layer is clean aside from the drawing itself)

 

• Saving the Image Material

To register an image material go to:

Edit -> Register Material -> Image

 

Afterwards, you'll get this popup window.

All you need to do is make sure you have "Use for brush tip shape" checked off and choose a save location. Make sure you name it, so it's easier to find later.

And that's it! You have your material saved.

 

Next up, we need to assign this material to a brush!

 

• Creating a Custom Sub Tool

To create a new custom sub tool (brush), go to the little icon located at the top left corner of your Sub Tool catalogue, and proceed to click on "Create custom sub tool(N)...".

Afterwards, you need to find your Tool property window and click on the small screwdriver icon in the bottom right corner. After that, the Sub Tool Detail window will appear for your tool.

 

Now all we have to do is turn our raindrop material into a brush tip.

 

• Assigning a new Material as a Brush Tip

 

In the Sub Tool Detail window, find a section titled Brush Tip.

 

In the Brush tip section, to add an image material, go to:

Tip shape -> Material -> click the tiny icon in the bottom right corner, and find your material in the Select brush tip shape catalogue. And yes you can add more then one material for the brush tip.

 

Now you might notice, our brush doesn't look quite right yet.

Before we play around with the other features of the Material section, we need to step back and think a little.

 

In truth, even creating something that seems simple like like custom brushes, requires a little bit of thought.

 

Since we're creating a rain brush, and when you really think about it, those sorts of brushes act more like spray brushes, since it's a bunch of tiny particles sprayed across the canvas.

 

So logically, we need to go to the Spraying affect section.

 

❗❗ NOTE: I won't be explaining what every setting or property inside the Sub Tool Detail window does, because you can easily check yourself by hovering over any property and get an official About section by Clip Studio themselves.

• Perfecting our brush

 

In the spraying effect section, enable Spraying effect and play around with the Particle size, density and deviation settings, so your brush particles are distributed in a way that replicates real raindrops.

 

Make sure you use the official guide About section to learn what each property does.

Here's how I set up my settings for comparason!

 

Once you've finished playing around in the Spraying effect section, I suggest going back to the Brush tip section and doing the same thing.

 

Again, here are my settings for comparison!

 

And that's pretty much it! Creating a rain brush is very easy, as it requires understanding only two sections of the Sub Tool Detail window (Brush Tip and Spraying effect).

 

【 Lightning Brush 】

 

Creating a lightning brush might seem complicated, but in truth it's one of the easiest brushes to make.

 

• Creating the Image Material

 

Create a straight line, and then proceed to use the liquify tool set on the push mode and go zig zag until you get the desired results.

 

As I already went over it in the previous section, I won't be going over how to save our brush material or how to import it as a brush tip shape.

 

Make a few Image Materials like this, and then use them as your brush tip (you can use several images as a brush tip).

 

• Perfecting our brush

In the Stroke section of the Sub Tool detail window, make sure you have the Ribbon Option turned on.

 

And that's it, you've created a fabulous lightning brush!

 

【 Snow Brush 】

 

As you can see from the image above, the only real difference between my rain brush and my snow brush is the fact that my snow brush particles differ in both direction and thickness.

To create this effect, you need to open the Thickness Dynamics window.

Go to the Brush tip section -> then find the Thickness property, and right beside it on the right- is a little icon -> click on the icon and you'll get the Thickness Dynamics window -> Proceed to enable the Random setting.

 

And you're done!

 

And that's it, you've created a fabulous lightning brush!

 

【 Snow Brush 】

The rainbow brush is the easiest one to make. There's no need to adjust any settings in the Sub Tool Detail window, just make sure your brush tip has a fuzzy edge, and all the colors of the rainbow.

 

And you're done!

 

【 Light Rays Brush 】

 

Now here's a brush that's a bit more difficult to make.

You can use the rainbow brush tip as a base for this one. Cut out a triangular shape with the Polyline Selection tool and you're done!

Once you're in Sub Tool detail, make sure you change your Thickness settings, Angle settings and Angle Dynamics. Adjusting brush density by gap is also useful. All of this will give your brush a sharp yet blurry look that we're aiming for,

 

Now we'll be going into a new section we haven't been in before! The stroke section.

 

• Stroke section

In the stroke section, we'll only be playing with the Gap settings, which as the name suggests- adds a space gap between the brush tips. As you can see, adjusting them can completely change how your brush looks.

 

• Creating a Dual Brush

 

Now here's where things get interesting. We will be creating a dual brush. These kinds of brushes are useful when you wanna have two contrasting shapes inside your brush, a duality if you will- hence the name. As you've seen earlier, our current brush is very soft, but we want some sharp edges. So let's create them with a Dual brush.

Go to the second Brush shape section, and enable dual brush. Make sure you're mode is set to Normal, and apply RGB value. Also it's useful to link your dual brush to your main brush size, so their size is synced.

 

The rest of the dual brush settings, function virtually the same as regular brush settings. So there's really no need to go over them again, I'm just gonna show you how my 2-Brush tip section looks.

And you're done!

 

【 Mist Brush 】

The final brush we'll be going over is the myst brush. Now this brush is rather unique, as for it we won't be using a custom brush tip. Yep we'll be using the regular old default circle brush tip.

To do this, make sure you've set your brush hardness to the softest option, and set your brush density to be slightly transparent (the value should be under 100). Also enable adjust brush density by gap as well as enable pen pressure in the Brush Dynamic window (by clicking the little icon I've circled).

Finally you have to enable the Spraying effect in the Spraying effect section. These are my settings.

 

And you're done!

 

【 Final 】

 

You've learned how to make six different kinds of Weather brushes, and you've learned a bit about how to make custom brushes in general.

 

I have also uploaded all the brushes I made today onto the Clip Studio Asset Store for free, so you can download them and play around with them to learn even more!

 

Using 3D Primitives for Backgrounds (BEGINNER FRIENDLY)

If you're like me, you might have a difficult time coming up with ideas for backgrounds or simply visualizing environments.

This is why using 3D models can be really useful. But sometimes, we might not find the exact model we are looking for. What then? Well, 3D primitives make for a perfect base to setup your scene. Think of them as a sketch!

 

【 What are 3D Primitives? 】

 

3D Primitives, as the name suggests, are primitive 3D models. In CSP though, they are a lot more customizable than more complex 3D assets.

 

When it comes to moving the model itself or its camera, primitives function virtually the same as any other model inside the program. If you understand how to use a regular 3D model, primitives won't be too difficult to grasp.

 

For those of you who are new to using 3D models in Clip Studio, I will walk you through some basics.

 

【 The Basics 】

 

These are the icons that appear above every 3D model.

They are separated into 3 categories as described in the image above.

 

• Camera Movement (selected in red), moves the camera but keeps the object in place.

1 - rotates the camera

2 - moves the camera in any direction

3 - zooms in or out

 

• Model Movement (selected in blue), moves the model itself as the camera stays in place.

 

4 - moves the model in any direction, disregarding the 3D surface

5 - rotates the model around one of its edges

6 - rotates the model around one of its faces

7 - Rotates the model around it's axis

8 - moves the model in any direction across the 3d surface

 

• Snap to Model (selected in green)

9 - is used to snap your model to a specific size, position or rotation of another model, or relative to another model.

 

There's also these buttons! What do they do?

 

1 - Moves between the models on the canvas

2 - Opens up Sub Tool Detail window

3 - Opens up a window with premade camera angles

4 - Centers object

5 - Snaps object to the 3D surface

6 - Resets model scale

7 - Resets model rotation

8 - Saves the model as an asset

 

And finally, there are tools unique to primitives.

 

The first I should mention is the ability to stretch and squash primitives.

They are useful to build unique shapes.

 

Now that we properly understand all the functions needed to build interesting environments, let's make us some backgrounds!

 

By playing around with the proportions of the Square and Sphere primitives, squishing and stretching's them to my heart's content, I got a pretty dope bird's eyed view of a city.

 

Now I could paint over this and make a stunning background by hand... But why do that when we can take advantage of the previously mentioned (UV) Map?

 

【 Creating Textures for Primitives】

 

A Map is the flat representation of the surface of a 3D model, used as a guide when making textures. It's best to think of Maps as digital paperfolding.

 

 

Much like how you would fold a peace of paper into a cube, the same logic applies to Maps.

 

To create a Map, you have to go to the Sub Tool Detail window mentioned in the previous section, by clicking on the screwdriver icon bellow the model.

 

• Exporting the Map

Once the Sub Tool Detail window appears, after finding the Export button you have the option to export the default Map.

 

Now here's some things to keep in mind before exporting.

 

• Changing the Wireframe?

You can change the wireframe of the Map (by messing with the Sub-Division settings) that will change how your Map looks when exported.

 

• Changing the Shape?

 

But can't change the default shape of the Map. No matter how much you squash or stretch it, the Map will export in the same way.

 

In any case, after adjusting the wireframe or living it to the default amount of sub-divisions, export your map.

 

• Painting Over the Map

 

Once you have your MAP exported just paint over it! DUH.

Ok, ok- it's a little more complicated than that.

To properly paint over the Map, you have to understand what part of the Map applies to what surface of the model.

That's why I'll use my ✨ Handy Rubix Cube ✨ for help!

 

Let's go back to the papercraft analogy.

 

❗❗ Note: When I'm describing the "Bottom" side of the cube, I am referring to the side marked as "Down" on the image above.

 

Just like when doing papercrafts, we have a piece of paper with text on each side.

 

When folding the paper to turn it into a cube, the some sides (the Back and Bottom) will be folded in a backward direction.

 

Which means, that if the text for the Back and Bottom sides was written to be readable from upright, when we fold the paper into a cube- it will be upside down.

 

This is exactly how Maps work as well.

 

To prevent this, when drawing, make sure the Back and Bottom are flipped upside down on your Map. So when you import the Map as a texture, they will be on the right side.

• Adding the texture

 

In any case, to apply the texture we created, we need to save the Map we drew, and then once again go into the Sub Tool Detail window, and find the Open Map option in the Primitive section.

From there, select the Map we just edited, and look at that!

Our little 3D Primitive town is now textured!

 

And just like that, in about 30 minutes I was able to create a pretty finished-looking background... for a 3D game from the 90s. We want this bad boy to look like a 2022 anime masterpiece. So we're nowhere near done!

 

Why you NEED Selection Tools to draw Weather

If you don't already use selection tools when drawing backgrounds... what are you doing?!

Selection tools are one of the easiest ways to both shade and create shapes that would take you much longer to do by hand.

 

They are especially useful when drawing weather, such as snow, fog, lightning etc!

For this example I will be drawing snow.

 

Now first of, in case your selection tools are missing, or if you accidentally deleted them- worry not! You just need to add new ones from the defaults.

To do this, go to the top left corner of your Sub Tool Window. The three parallel lines, yeah- that's where all the additional features are located! To add a default tool, well click on "Add from Default".

 

The selection tools we'll be focusing on are the Polyline and Lasso selection tool. The virtually do the same thing. Only difference is their shape.

 

Polyline selection is excellent for selecting flat geometrical shapes (such as surfaces of buildings, objects etc.), while the lasso selection tool is great for selecting more rounded shapes (for example, it can be used for creating messy shapes like snow and fog).

While not technically considered a selection tool, it's vaguely similar.

Lasso fill, it's one of the most useful tools if you need to create shapes quickly.

If it's missing for you, you should be able to find it in the Add from default -> Figure -> Direct draw section.

Here's an example of me coloring the surface of buildings with the help of the polyline tool.

 

In freezing weather, concrete surfaces such as those of buildings can catch frosting on them, so if you're creating a colder environment, make sure you include some ice frost on the surfaces akin to concrete, glass, etc.!

And here's an example of me drawing snow with the lasso selection and fill tools.

 

So basically, yeah! Selection tools are a huge blessing and they basically speed up the entire process!

Change your drawing's Temperature??? (With Tonal Correction)

Our background is almost done! But something is missing, isn't it?

It's that extra atmospheric flair this background need more of! After all, it's a very cold environment, but the colors don't really communicate this as much as they would if they were more bluish or green.

 

"... This doesn't mean I will have to redraw everything again... Right?"

 

Thankfully no! That's where Tonal Correction tools and settings come in handy!

To access them go to Edit and then select Tonal Correction and you'll open a section with lots of... things.

• 1 - Brightness/Contrast

 

This one is pretty self explanatory. It lets you adjust and change the brightness and contrast of your drawing. It's pretty useful it you want to change how bright your drawing is.

 

• 2 - Hue/Saturation/Luminosity

 

Hue changes the hue, aka, the color of your drawing.

Saturation changes how saturated your drawing is. The less saturated, the more grey it will be.

Luminosity is very similar to brightness, it changes how pale your drawing is.

 

• 3 - Level Correction

Now this is a little more complicated.

Basically, by adjusting the levels, you adjust the percentage of how much presence a specific RGB value (color) has in your drawing, and this can completely alter how you drawing looks.

First you can switch between RBG, Red, Green and Blue color values.

Then you move the sliders to get desired results.

 

If you drag the tiny arrows (I circled the middle one), your drawing will either gain more of a specific color (if you drag it to the left) or lessens the prevalence of a specific color in a drawing.

 

• 4 - Tone Curve

 

The tone curve functions virtually the same, but instead of a slider, it's a curve you can adjust to your liking.

 

• 5 - Color Balance

Much like the previous two examples, this feature does a very similar thing.

You use the sliders to shift specific hues.

 

But, with Color Balance, you can also pick which tone this applies to. (Shadow, Half-tone and Highlight). It's useful if you want to change the color of a specific tone.

 

• 6 - Gradient Map

Finally Gradient Maps take the values of your tones (how dark or light a specific part of your painting is, and they assign a color to them).

You can create your own gradient maps to achieve specific moods.

 

1 - The gradient you will be modifying.

 

2 - Make sure Preview is turned on so you can see how you're gradient map is effecting your drawing.

 

3 - Drag these arrows to change the positioning of a specific color on the gradient. My clicking on the on the line bellow the gradient, you can create more arrows and assign them different colors. But before you do that, you need to create a new gradient.

 

4 - Click on this screwdriver icon to create a custom gradient. Once you click on it, a pop-up window will appear. There select the option "Add Gradient"

 

5 - When you select the arrow, you can also assign it a whole new color. I recommend just manually choosing the color you want with "Specified color".

 

6 - The "Mixing rate curve" changes how your colors mix.

 

To save your gradient go to the screwdriver icon once again and click on "Replace Gradient".

 

In any case, when it comes to adding atmosphere and adjusting the "temperature" of your drawings, it's best to use cool colors for cooler weather, and warmer colors for warmer weather. It's pretty self explanatory like that!

 

Here's a before and after. It's amazing how much just shifting the hues, tones and using a few gradient maps can do to a drawing!

 

When it comes to drawing backgrounds in different climates and temperature- even just time of day, it's important that the colors match the environment.

If you're unsure of what colors to use, it's best to look up references to study whose climate/temperature/lightning matches what you're drawing.

3D primitive -> 2D image ??

Now we already went over how to use 3D primitives in their intended 3D Primitive form... but did you know... you can use 3D primitives to create an allusion of 2D drawings?

 

Let me show you how!

 

【 Using 3D Plane Primitives for 2D Images 】

 

So, remember that whole spiel on giving 3D Materials textures? Well, there's a part of that that I internally left out.

Drag a 3D Plane Primitive from the Material catalogue, and proceed to edit it's texture.

As you can see by the example above, Clip Studio can also handle transparent textures.

 

Now here's the fun part when it comes to the Plane 3D Primitive.

You want this goddamn tree to follow you into the depths of hell.

To do this, you need to enable "Rotate and follow camera"- that way, no matter what angle you rotate this object in, the texture of the tree will always be facing the camera.

 

Now, with all that I've taught you about 3D primitives, how to move them, how to squash and stretch them, how to move the camera, etc. you can create an amazing background.

And just like that, in only 30 minutes, I finished a gorgeous background that looks like it came straight out of an anime. Only using 3D models and some premade bush/tree assets. It really shows how time-saving 3D primitives can be!

 

【 3D Primitive Weather ?? 】

 

Yep, you can turn a 3D primitive into Weather particles!

This is where the custom brushes we've made will come in handy.

 

To do this, I recommend using a prism primitive and several plane primitives.

First drag and drop a prism primitive from the Material Catalogue.

Then open up a Sub Tool Detail window and in the Primitive section proceed to add as many X sub-divisions as possible, to make our prism as smooth as possible.

 

 

Next up, go back to the Material Catalogue and drag and drop a plane primitive right above our prism.

 

Open the Sub Tool Detail window, and give the materials textures. For the plane, use a cloud with a transparent background.

 

For the prism, first export its Map, and proceed to edit it to contain raindrops.

You can use the brush we've made a few sections ago for this to speed up this process. Save the new image as a png, and import it as a texture.

 

And there you go, both of our primitives have textures now!

To force the cloud to be consistent in its position, make sure the you enabled the Rotate and follow camera option in the Primitive section of the Sub Tool Detail window.

 

Pro-tip! Add more clouds above the prism, it will make it look more seamless.

And there you go! We've created a little 3D storm using primitives and 2D images.

 

Now, if you wanna save your combined primitive, here's how to do it.

First, make sure you lock all the visible primitives, so you don't accidentally change their position.

First, make sure your canvas is completely empty aside from your 3D primitives.

Then go to:

Edit -> Register Material -> Template

 

Name your template and choose a save location, and you're done!

 

Creating weather from 3D Primitives can be done with pretty much anything.

I've shown you how to create clouds and rain, but you can also create lightning, snow, fire- anything you really want!

 

Play around with the primitives and their textures to get some truly amazing results!

Because besides backgrounds, you can use these for magic effects. Which is especially useful to Webtoon, Comics, Manga creators as well as Animators, since sometimes we need easily reusable assets.

 

Additionally, if you want to get the finished assets, I uploaded them to the Asset Store!

Final Notes

And with that, this tutorial comes to a close.

Hopefully now you know a little more about primitives and how to add textures to them, tonal correction and custom (decoration) brush creation, as well as how to use all these knowledge to create atmospheric backgrounds in any weather.

 

Thank you for reading! Don't forget to like and favorite this tutorial if you want to come back to it later! Let me know if you've learned something new and if you'd like to see more tutorials form me in the future!

 

If you want more from my content in general, I linked my Website down bellow which contains the links to all of my social media!

 

Thank you so much for your time, and with all of that said, have a nice day! Bye!