Introduction

Hey guys, welcome back to another tutorial! I'm Kat, your everpresent (and occasionally transparent) ghostly host, and I'm here to talk about the ins and outs of landscapes and concept art!

 

Concept art is one of the most needed skills in the entire art world; it’s what truly gets an idea from someone’s head out on paper in a real, tangible way. Sure, maybe one day we'll be able to beam our thoughts onto a screen or something, but until then, art is our superpower :)

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to make FAST concept art. I pride myself on taking less than an hour (though I shoot for a half hour) for each of my pieces, no matter how complex they are, and I can help y’all do it too by maximizing our use of Clip Studio.

 

So, without further ado...Let's get into the meat of this tutorial!

Tip #1 for Concept Art Layouts: No Straight Dividers

The number one thing that helps with concept art is to not divide the landscape into equal boxes. When in the real world have you ever seen a tree that was perfectly straight? Or a bush that was perfectly trimmed?

I'll tell ya when - never :)

 

Try to avoid perfect, even shapes. This applies to positioning too.

 

So...

 

Concept Art Rule 1: No horizontal or vertical dividers!

Tip #2 for Concept Art Layouts: Focal Points

It’s also really important to stay out of corners when you’re drawing concept art – that’s not to say completely avoid them…but keep important details out of the corners! The focal point of the image should be in the middle or close to it. Important details in corners will be ignored or seem too detailed/complex. A good tip is to use corners and edges as a viewpoint, frame, or ledge within the image.

 

So, good ol' Concept Art Rule 2: Stay out of Corners & Keep Centralized Focal Points!

Tip #3 for Concept Art Layouts: Dimensioning

Alright, say I'm drawing a forest..

 

It looks great, doesn't it? Best forest ever. Just needs a sun with sunglasses, and we can remember grade school, right?

What this lacks is dimension - while this example is painfully obvious, a lot of concept art landscapes are guilty of drawing singular trees side by side forever. And it takes dimension and life from the image.

But we can easily fix it. All we have to do is change the size and perspective of the trees so that they appear to be in more physical space.

Keeping distance between objects makes them stand out, especially when one is closer/larger than the others. This foreground vs. background concept makes it easy to highlight the parts of the image you want to stand out.

 

Playing with sizes and distance (instead of perspective rulers) is also way FASTER when doing concept art. In the world of backgrounds, it is so much faster to avoid rulers whenever possible.

 

Which leads us to tip number 3: Use Sizes and Distances to Dimension your Backgrounds!

Tip #4 for Concept Art Layouts: Too Complex?? Not Enough? What???

In the world of backgrounds, it is so easy to fall into the trap of continuing to add details forever. Like, ten more trees over here, six seagulls climbing on the roof, eighty-one mushrooms on the right side, etc etc...

 

It gets to be too much.

But if you don't add enough details, then it's empty and bland.

It's easiest to start from bland (like the image above), and then get more and more complex.

 

You'll know it's time to stop adding details when the focal point of the image (in this case the road) starts to be harder to see at first glance. You should always see the focus first.

A good rule of thumb is to fill up both sides of the image evenly. Fill them with as many details as you want as long as the details lean into the real image. For example, the trees in the above image all lean slightly towards the main road. This draws the eye to the road and whatever lies beyond it.

So Tip #4: Always fill up both sides of the image evenly until the focal point gets to be hard to see or the image is hard to understand.

Tip #5 for Concept Art Layouts: Foreground vs. Background

Foregrounds, midgrounds, backgrounds... They all add shape to the piece. I'll first distinguish between each one.

 

The foreground is the very front part of the image - it is closest to the viewer's eyes, and it has the most details. It's also larger since it's what they perceive as closest.

 

Use this to your advantage. If you're trying to create a masterpiece, but you absolutely can NOT draw trees, don't put them at the foreground! Blend them into the back of the piece and blur them a bit - the viewer doesn't need to see the details of every branch and leaf that way.

I usually draw more passive things in the foreground, such as rocks, trees, and other frames that fill the corner edges of the illustration.

The middle ground is extremely important too. It is the connecting piece between the foreground and the background, and it makes the image seem fully cohesive. A good thing to put in the middle ground is any parts that connect the front and the back, such as roads, paths, etc.

The background is arguably the most important and difficult part of the image. Everything can be a bit blurred or out of focus, but the very back of the image is what defines the entire environment. While the viewer doesn't need to see every detail, they do see the feeling, lighting, colors, and so much more. Those details shape the entire illustration.

 

So Tip #5, make use of each "layer" to highlight your artistic strengths and push your weaknesses.

Tip #6 for Concept Art Layouts: Shape Consistency

Sometimes these beautiful fantasy backgrounds can be pretty overwhelming and hard to look at. This is often because of shape inconsistencies. For example, take a look at the two sad looking ten-second tree sketches shown below.

Both give off completely different vibes. One is sad and low-looking, while the other is bright and energetic. The two different feelings contrast a lot, and it makes it hard to imagine them both together.

 

Keeping a consistent shape pattern within your piece is essential. If there are a hundred trees with upwards pointing branches, the 101st tree should also point to the sky. This consistency allow the background to remain a background, not take over the entire image.

 

So, Tip #6: Use Consistent Shape Patterns. Keep Rhythm in your Art.

Tip #7 for Concept Art Layouts: Colors

Colors completely change the mood of a piece. For example, take a look at the sketch shown earlier without any colors - just gray scale lighting.

What feeling does it give you? A more eerie, empty one, right?

What about now? This one screams fantasy - the bright colors, purple and blue tones, and sky give off a unique, mysterious feeling.

Whereas this one, the one shown in the section above, just feels like an autumn day.

Compare the saturated colors above with the ones below. Use saturated colors for bright points of your fantasy pieces, and desaturated colors for parts that aren't the focal point.

- - - 

Make use of digital art! You have access to any color you can dream of!

Tip #8 for Concept Art Layouts: From Shape to Object

Every single object comes from a basic shape. That could be rocks that are a bit triangular, trees that are just cubes and rectangles, people that are circles with rectangles... They all come down to basic shapes.

 

Before drawing any large landscapes, make sure you can draw a couple 3D shapes like the ones above. I'm gonna show you how to take any of these shapes and make it into a real object.

Above is a box with a box on top of it - believe it or not, that's all that a tree is. Trees are just boxes with boxes on top. Can you see it?

 

Practice breaking up big objects into small shapes before going further. Look around you - how can you break up everything you see into 3D shapes?

Shown is a short sped-up video of creating a simple tree from a basic shape. This trick helps so much with lighting, shading, and colors. It also helps create easy shapes for complex objects, such as buildings.

Draw With Me: Layout Sketch

Before every piece, I make many layout sketches (usually on paper in between classes). The one thing I get asked a lot is..

 

"Why are they so messy?"

 

"What is even going on?"

 

I actually encourage myself to leave them messy when I sketch. I spend less than a minute on every single sketch, trying to quickly get the concept in my head on paper. If I can't sketch it in a minute, it's too complex and needs to be simplified.

 

After a bit of sketching, I came to like this super basic sketch.

I like my illustrations to tell a story, especially ones with detailed backgrounds. This one really stuck out to me. I just came out of a long distance relationship, and it was one of the most painful moments of my life - but there was a certain magic to coming home after a long journey to my family. I wanted to capture that feeling in this piece, to lock it up and store it forever in the fantasy magic I could create with my brush and thoughts :)

 

This one felt like a soldier that's been journeying for a long time...just now coming home to his family.

 

Because of that, I wanted the focus to be on the castle, the village, and the outer sky in the background.

 

So.. everything behind those shadowing frames. :)

I went into Clip Studio with that basic sketch and cleaned it up a bit. I added more detailed lines and cleared up the blurry parts/the parts I didn't like. I also expanded a couple parts so that the sketch was clear.

I then jumped into shading and thumbnailing. This shows a basic color sketch where the "dark" parts of the image are vs. the "light" ones. This is super general, but it shows how much focus there is on that castle and back sky.

Draw With Me: Rocks & Left Frame

So next step, now that the sketch is done...Let's detail that left side of the frame. I like to start by sketching in the rocks as I want them to appear in the final image.

I then add in some cursory colors. These don't need to be final or too specific, but they help to add shadowing to the piece. And they make it feel more real.

There's a lot of black lines in this image, and none of them are super hard or clear. While they're clean, they don't look like rocks to me. So I break out another of Clip Studio's tools, the Sharpen tool.

 

This can be found under the menu Filter -> Sharpen -> Sharpen More. I am going to run it on that line art sketch to clear up the lines and make them sharp and easy to see.

These sharp lines are so much easier to work with. Next, I add the colors back and start to shade below the rocks.

I then start adding in details over the lines so that they're less clear and more rock-like. My go to brushes are the Chalk brush, as well as the Gouache brushes in CSP, so I use a pink and red version of both to blur those lines together. This allows me to highlight the parts of the rocks I want to show.

I'm beginning to add colors to this picture. I'm adding tones of blue, but with some flecks of red and gold for lighting. To do this, I use Clip Studio's default Air Brush tools, the Droplet and the Running Color Spray. The rocks are beginning to take shape!

I continue adding colors, and I shift the entire image color with the Hue/Saturation/Lumosity tool mentioned before to have a bit more pink and red under it. I also use two Add Glow and Overlay layers to add more pink and gold to the image. This is also done using a standard pen, gouache, and the running color spray brush.

And with that, the rocks are looking pretty good for now! Let's move on!

Draw With Me: Trees & Right Frame

For the trees, I follow the exact same process as the rocks to make a brown branch. This branch is first sketched, then sharpened, and then colored.

I added some more creative branches to the side, and then added more detail the branch and mushrooms. With that, I declared the right frame complete.

With that, the background frame is looking complete. We'll add more lighting at the end to touch it up.

Draw With Me: Night Sky

Now it's on to that classic fantasy sky. I wanted several moons in my sky, so I created a super simple starry sky as the backdrop. I used some purple and pink gouache highlights on a dark background, and then added stars using two splatter brushes that came as CSP defaults.

Definitely incorporate stars that aren't just yellow! The real sky has blue and purple, so make sure you include those bright stars in your art too!

I used this brush from Clip Studio Assets to draw the line art of the moons. I then colored them by hand, and used an Overlay and Add Glow layer to give them life.

I then drew some stars over the moons and blurred them a bit with Filter -> Gaussian Blur. The night sky is one of my favorite things, and I wanted this one to truly ~shine~ (pun intended).

Our piece is really starting to take shape. This timestamp so far is about forty minutes. Using CSP brushes and lighting really speeds up the process of the piece. Next up is that castle.

Draw With Me: Castle & Forest

I used this image material to create the castle, and I once again colored it by hand. I wanted it to be pink and show the bright lighting that I imagined this "home" to be. I wanted it to truly look like a sanctuary hidden in the piece.

I colored and added lighting using Add Glow and Overlay as shown. After I added the castle, the right side of the image looked a little empty. I decided to add a mist-shrouded forest in the background to make it easy to look at.

I used one of Clip Studio's default tree brushes to quickly sketch in the trees, and then I added fog with the airbrush and gouache brushes.

We're almost done! The last step was filling in all the holes I left with color and lighting.

Draw With Me: Adjustments

Here's where we are now.

The last step is adding adjustments, such as additional lighting, more effects, colors, etc. This will make each piece blend together better to make one cohesive piece.

Here's the final piece! I added watercolor clouds over the messy parts and darkened the trees to fit the scene better. This piece totaled to be 57 minutes and 43 seconds. :)

 

Using the tips and tricks of Clip Studio Paint, you can speed up your drawing workflow and create beautiful fantasy art in no time at all!

Summary & Conclusion

I hope this tutorial provided you with some insight into creating beautiful fantasy art from scratch, and maximizing the use of Clip Studio Paint as a digital art platform!

 

Hopefully you are now able to make some killer landscapes that destroy the art world 🤗

 

Alright, this ghost is gonna vanish now~

 

Good luck with your art adventures, and seee you in future months! :)