Guidelines for any winter illustration

Today, I will be showing you how to plan any winter illustration, and how to draw this rainy Cityscape step by step.

So before we get to how to draw this winter illustration, we need some guidelines to know exactly how to plan and draw any winter cityscape or landscape.

In order to do that, we need to answer some questions while drawing some sketches (just small thumbnails) that will guide us through a better process and thus, better results.

I will be explaining my thought process to making this illustration and what questions you should answer to plan yours.

First Question :

 

 

What is the idea of the illustration ?

This question could have so many answers, but for the theme of this tutorial, the answer is “a winter illustration”.

Think of things relating to winter.

For me, what comes to mind is : short days, early sunset, dark muted colors and cozy scenes with some vibrant light to contrast the dark atmosphere.

Where is the scene taking place ?

Is the scene taking place in some rural land ? in the countryside ? up in the mountains ? in the forest ?

If so :

Are there a lot of trees ? Are there any buildings ? …. and so on (think of things that make a landscape).

Wait, you’re not a fan of drawing nature ?

Then : Is it taking place in a city ? a busy town ? Indoors ?

If so :

Are there any artificial light sources ? Are there any visible vehicles ? …. and so on (think of things that make a cityscape).

For this tutorial illustration, the answer is :

The scene is taking place in a city with many buildings of different heights.

I want to see the city from a high perspective , so maybe a room in 14th floor (facing forward).

I don’t want any visible furniture. In fact I just the city view. So maybe from a balcony ?

But it’s winter and it’s cold.

So may be a window….

What is the weather like ?

So we know that winter comes with several changing weathers going from rain to snow, blizzards or even storms. So you have to know what you want in your scene before you start drawing, because it will help you decide where to draw details and where to keep it simple.

For this tutorial illustration, it will be raining heavily, and I had previously decided that the scene is seen through a window so now I know that I will not be placing too much details in the background because the rain and fog on the window will obscure a lot of it.

Final Thumbnail

There might be other things to consider before this point but that depends on what your previous answers lead you to.

For this tutorial illustration, these questions were enough to lead me to vision my illustration.

So at this point, gather all the information from previous answers, make some adjustments here and there and make a little sketch of your illustration as reference, and choose your color palette according to your previous answers.

Rainy CityScape

Open Csp

First things first :

Open Clip studio paint ➪ select “file” ➪ click “New” ➪ a tab will show ➪ choose “illustration” ➪ then adjust the canvas name, the width, length and resolution…

Once you’re done click “ok”.

So now with the “planning” part out of the way, let me show you how to draw this “Rainy Cityscape” :

Sky Background

I drew the sky (Background) by using the Gradient tool :

This tool allows you to select a number of variant colors and place them on the canvas in a harmonious transition, essentially creating a gradient of colors.

You can find the Gradient tool on the tools bar, along with the color wheel (from which you will choose your colors).

How does it work :

Go over to the Tools bar → select the Gradient Tool → Mode “foreground to transparent” → Choose your Primary color from the color wheel (It will automatically be selected as the color of the foreground).

And then select the secondary color and manually place it in the Gradient bar.

You can add as many secondary colors as you want, creating a gradient.

then you go over to the canvas and drag the gradient line vertically across the canvas.

and this is my Sky background

For this next step :

You can go ahead with the Csp default gouache brush (or use any other brush with similar texture) :

Go over to the tools bar Tool → look for thick paint brush selection → select the gouache brush.

You can adjust the size, opacity and density of paint in the tool property bar, but I would advise to leave it in default.

Simultaneously, I also used the eyedropper tool to pick the colors that are already on my canvas.

Go over to the tools bar Tool → look for eyedropper tool → select “pick displayed color”.

or in most cases you can right-click on the mouse to eye-drop a color.

With the eyedropper I selected the colors that are on the canvas and lightly made some brush strokes (on the same layer as the gradient).

The sky will be dark so I didn’t draw “clear” clouds but I still wanted the illustration to give an impression that the sky is filled with clouds so that’s why I’m using brush strokes instead of leaving the smooth gradient.

Then I used the blending tool (preferably a texture one) to blend my brush strokes, creating a bit of texture for the sky (clouds).

On Csp : Go over to the tools bar Tool → look for the blending tool → select “textured blender” → Increase the size to be large → go back to the canvas and blend.

and with that, I finished my sky/Background

Buildings

First create a new layer :

go to layers tab → press the little icon that shows a “plus” sign → and there you have a new layer.

I already knew from the sketch where I wanted to place my buildings, so I devised this step into 8 separate lines of buildings going from the foreground to the background (The foreground being the darkest color and then gradually it gets lighter towards the background).

 

 

For this step, I used the “selection tool” to create my buildings, because it is fast and has clean edges.

Go over to the tools bar Tool → look for “selection area” tool → select “rectangle” (because i’m drawing building, but there are other forms according to your preferences) → make sure the section mode is a “plus sign” so you can add several selections like I did.

Then I filled in the shapes with the bucket (Fill) tool.

Just click the bucket on top and will automatically fill your selected shapes with the chosen color.

Then I made a new layer and dragged it beneath this first line of buildings layer.

(Ps : to drag a layer, click on it and keep pressing while you move it beneath or above another layer, then drop).

keep in my mind, I started from the foreground so the next line of buildings is supped to be behind this first line of buildings and thus, the new layer need to go below.

Ps : you can see that my layers are titled.

In order to name your layers like you want, double tap on the layer title and you will be able to change it.

And then I made my second line again with the selection tool and filled the color with the bucket.

The color has to be a bit lighter (or whatever other color you wish) to be distinguished and give off a sense of atmospheric perspective : meaning the further away the building, the lighter the color.

Then I repeated the same process with the rest of the buildings making 8 separate layers :

1-Create a new layer

2-Drag it below all previous layers of buildings

3-Make the selection

4-Fill

Rooms (Lights)

Then I added squares of light, each little square representing a room in the building, so some will be turned on and some off, but since the day in winter is short and most people would still be up around sunset, most rooms would be lit.

 

 

I drew the rooms with the selection tool on a new layer.

I made one line (a floor) of rooms and filled it with the bucket (Fill) tool.

Then I right-clicked my mouse on that layer, selected duplicate layer and moved that new layer down, making a new floor, then I repeated the same process till I filled the entire building.

after that, I created a new layer and clipped it to this “lights/rooms” layer.

Clipping one layer to the layer beneath it means that the drawing on that first layer will be limited to what is drawn on the layer beneath it.

To use the clipping mask, click on the small icon in the layers bar.

 

 

Then I selected the “rooms/lights” layer, I made a selection of some lit rooms with the selection tool and pressed “copy and paste”.

This will create a new layer with that selection in it.

1-On that same (new) layer, I selected the layers mode “add (glow)”

2-I chose the filter : Blur : Gaussian Blur

This way, the lights will pop out more and add more feeling to the scene.

 

 

I repeated the exact same process with all of the other buildings.

City Lights

After that, I proceed to add more lights to make the city more lively.

This time I didn’t make them squares but circles.

I used the default “fill in” or “real G” pen from Csp.

If you press it directly in one point, it will create a circle (big or small depending on the brush size and the applied pressure).

I clicked on “filter” , chose “blur” and selected “Gaussian blur” making these circles blurry to the point of fading away.

then, just like with the rooms lights, I duplicated the layer and selected the layer mode “add (glow)”.

and with that, the background is finished. So I merged all layers into one.

To do that, select all layers, then right-click on one of them and select “merge all layers”.

then I duplicated this same layer because I will need it later.

To do that : select on the layer, right click, select “duplicate layer”.

Then I selected the top layer and chose the filter “Gaussian blur”

The reason I blurred it is because there will be some fog on the window we’re looking from, making the scene a bit blurry.

I also kept the layer beneath it because I will need it later.

Window

Now let’s move to the window.

To draw the glass and the fog on it, I created a new layer, filled it with a grey-blue color and adjusted the opacity to 39.

Then, to create a scene where some of the humidity/fog of the window is cleared out (as if someone passed their hand on the glass to wipe it) to see the scene outside.

I went with the csp default eraser “snap eraser” and deleted some paint in a hand swiping motion.

Now, remember how I told you that we will need that duplicated layer ? This is it.

I went back to the background layer, I selected the one on top (the blurred one), I grabbed the default “soft eraser” and erased some parts of it in the area where the glass is wiped, and thus, the layer beneath it (the clear one) will show in those parts.

Then to add a bit of texture to the window glass, I Downloaded this asset from Cs library :

To download assets and materials from Clip studio library :

Enter the name of the material in the search bar (it can be filtered by popularity order old/new and other types of filters like 3d, gold material and clippy). Click on it and it will lead you to the download page.

Click on the links I provided for this texture material.

Click on download.

Then Clip studio will open and start downloading.

Ps : this CS window can appear differently depending on which version you have, but the keywords are essentially the same).

Once it’s finished downloading, open Clip studio PAINT, and go to materials.

You can find the last thing you downloaded at the very top or you can look it up by typing the name in the search bar.

Then grab it and drop it on the canvas.

 

 

then I made a new layer on top and merged it with the texture layer to make it a normal layer (this will allow me to erase some parts from the texture layer)

Rain

I will show you how draw two kinds of rain :

1-Falling rain :

Because it is raining heavily in this scene, we will not see the rain clearly per say, but rather a sort of lines.

And I am going for a bit of wind, so my rain will be falling in a tilted angle.

In order to draw it :

Make small lines using “figure” tool in csp.

 

 

Then go over to filter, select “blend” : “motion blur” and adjust it according to the angle you’re going for.

and there you have rain :

Or you can use “rain” brushes from Cs library.

To draw the rain in my illustration I made a new layer and placed it beneath the window layer (glass+texture) because the rain is supposed to be outside, so keep that in mind.

And I drew my rain using the rain brush.

I used the soft brush and lightly brushed the rain that is supposed to be obscured by the foggy window glass (I din’t completely erased but rather just made it less clear, so tap gently)

2- water droplets on a surface

It would be best to use a real life reference for this one :

-First draw the silhouette of either the droplet or the falling drop in a light color

-Blend with Csp default soft blender

-Add shadows and blend

-Add highlights and blend

 

 

The easier way to draw drops and droplets is by using a “droplet” brush material from Cs library.

whether you manually draw it or use a brush, It is important to have different shapes a,d sizes to give a more realistic look.

one more thing to keep in mind here is that these droplets are on the outer side of the glass like most of the fog/humidity, so I selected my texture layer+the fog layer and erased the parts where there are droplets (since they erase the fog by sliding).

Finally, I added some fog/humidity to the sides of the window.

Because this is scene is from one side of the window I only added the humidity to one side.

for this step, it would be best to use a soft air brush (like Csp default soft brush) and increase the size to be big enough to cover the side in one stroke, keep the size big and turn the opacity of this layer down to around 20%

And that’s it.

I hope you earned something new.

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