Simple scene drawing

Easily Drawing Iridescent Scenes: Rainbows, Halos, and Sundogs

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Easily Drawing Iridescent Scenes: Rainbows, Halos, and Sundogs

This time, the theme is weather phenomena featuring "rainbow colors."

In this article, I've selected three types of weather phenomena that display rainbow-like colors—rainbows, halos, and sundogs—and will demonstrate how to draw them. These elements are perfect for dreamy and romantic illustrations, so feel free to check them out!

[Rainbow Scene]

Let's start!

Since the focus of this article's demonstration is on the sky and weather, I've prepared a grassy background in advance.

Drawing grass is very simple. If you're interested in how to draw it, please refer to the appendix at the end of the article.

Next, first imagine the general composition.

In the draft below, I've drawn the positions of the "primary rainbow," "secondary rainbow," and "clouds":

Primary Rainbow: The main subject of the illustration. Depending on the composition, you can set it as a complete semicircle or just a partial arc.
Secondary Rainbow: Located outside the primary rainbow, it is a dimmer rainbow. Although often overlooked in reality, adding it to an illustration can enrich the scene!
Clouds: Since rainbows are usually observed after rain, I've designed heavier clouds here. However, you can actually design more varied clouds for your illustration, such as thinner clouds in the distance and thicker clouds closer up.

✧Sky

First, as always, let's start with a simple color block as the base color! Then, just add two gradients, one for the top and one for the bottom, and you're done!

🔧Method

1. Fill with blue using the Fill tool.

2. Use the Gradient tool → Add colors separately for the upper sky and lower sky.

💡TIPS—Color Selection

The secret to making the sky look more interesting lies in the hue variation of the colors!

Upper Sky: A deeper, more purple hue than the base color.
Lower Sky: A lighter, more greenish hue than the base color.

✧Rainbow

When drawing a rainbow, please use the "Concentric Circle Ruler" from the "Special Ruler" tool!

🔧Using the Special Ruler—Method

1. Select the "Special Ruler" tool.

2. In the Tool Property palette, select "Concentric Circle".

3. Draw a circle on the canvas according to your draft.

💡TIPS

Shrink the canvas beforehand to make it easier to draw the desired shape.
After creating the ruler, you can also use the "Object" tool (arrow icon) to select the ruler and adjust its shape.

4. Add a new layer and set its blending mode to "Screen". If you wish to use a layer folder, set the folder to "Through".

5. Use the Airbrush (Soft) tool. In the Tool Property palette, set it to "Snap to Ruler".

6. Use vibrant colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, purple) to draw the rainbow. Red should be on the outermost side; purple should be on the innermost side.

💡TIPS

When coloring, you can follow your personal preference, for example, having more red to yellow, or less blue to purple. It's not necessary to distribute every color perfectly evenly.

While the rainbow drawn so far is acceptable, to reduce a stiff appearance, we can use the transform function to introduce some variation. Below, I will introduce the "Free Transform" and "Mesh Transform" functions separately:

🔧Using the Transform Function—Method

1. Please remove the ruler. Since the composition requires drawing a secondary rainbow, I decided to add another layer and move the ruler directly there for later use. Simply drag and drop the ruler icon to the new layer.

2. Select 【Edit → Transform → Mesh Transform】; or 【Edit → Transform → Free Transform】.

3. Adjust the rainbow's shape.

The upper part of the rainbow closer to the sky should be wider, and the lower part of the rainbow closer to the ground should be narrower.

The image below explains more clearly with solid lines:

Method ①: Using "Mesh Transform", demonstrated as follows.

Method ②: Using "Free Transform" (when freely moving the corners of the transform box, you need to hold down the 【Ctrl】 key + left mouse button)

💡TIPS

Regarding mesh transform: Please align the mesh closely to both sides of the rainbow. You can adjust the number of mesh lines in the Tool Property palette.

If needed, you can also use both methods simultaneously:

Both transformation methods have their advantages; please choose according to your needs!

Mesh Transform: Can create more subtle variations. However, it can be difficult for beginners to master, especially when the mesh count is high, as it can easily lead to transformations that violate perspective.
Free Transform: Can very easily create a sense of depth. However, visually, "perspective depth" and "changes in the object's inherent shape" appear different. If you're aiming for detail, further fine-tuning may be required.

In addition to shape variations, let's also add lighting variations!

🔧Using Layer Mask—Method

1. Create a layer mask for the layer.

2. Select "Transparent" as the color and use the Airbrush tool.

3. After clicking the layer mask icon, gently paint over the head and tail ends of the rainbow.

This will make the rainbow even more varied!

✧Secondary Rainbow

Basically, drawing the secondary rainbow is the same as the primary rainbow. Please repeat the steps above to draw it!

📝Notes

The position of the concentric circle ruler should be the same as for the primary rainbow.
The color order of the secondary rainbow is opposite to that of the primary rainbow, meaning red is on the inside, and purple is on the outside.
The secondary rainbow will be fainter than the primary rainbow, so the layer's opacity needs to be lowered. In the demonstration image, it's 20%, but you can change the value as needed.

✧Adjusting Brightness and Darkness

Have you noticed that the light inside a rainbow is usually stronger? Therefore, I will use layer blending modes for further adjustments below.

🔧Method

a. Add a new layer with "Multiply" blending mode, and use an airbrush to paint a light purple on the outer side of the primary rainbow.
b. Add a new layer with "Screen" blending mode, and use an airbrush to paint a deep blue on the inner side of the primary rainbow.

✧Clouds

Although the Clip Studio Paint asset library contains many brushes specifically for drawing clouds, here I will use default brushes to demonstrate the basic techniques for drawing clouds.

In the demonstration image below, the "Thin Ink Blur" brush was used.

"Thin Ink Blur" is one of the default initial brushes in CSP. If you cannot find it on your device, you can re-download it here from [G-pen・Brush_Ver.1.10.9] (it is the sixth brush in the Ink category in the official screenshot).

For instructions on how to install brushes, please refer to this official help page.

✍️How to Draw

1. First, draw the base color in an upper crescent shape; brush size: maximum.

2. Draw shadows in an upper crescent shape; brush size: large.

3. Draw highlights in a flat oval shape; brush size: medium.

4. Finally, draw the brightest areas in a flat oval shape; brush size: small.

🎨Color Selection

For the base color, you can use either dark or light shades, depending on your desired cloud edge thickness and light source position.
Choose more purplish or bluish hues for shadow colors; and more yellowish for highlight colors.

💡TIPS

If you want to draw clouds with more depth, you can repeat the steps—shadow → highlight → shadow → highlight, and so on—and add subtle reflected light in the shadow areas.
Since the sun is usually behind the observer when a rainbow is seen, when drawing clouds (and other scenery), avoid strong side lighting. Using front lighting will be more convincing. If you want more interesting lighting, consider designing the light source to be higher or lower.

✧Color Brightness and Darkness Adjustment

Since we added a Multiply blending mode layer to the outer side of the rainbow above, the clouds on the left became darker. At this point, you can create a layer mask on that Multiply layer to reduce the color in the highlight areas of the clouds. Additionally, I also used tone correction functions (e.g., Ctrl+U) for final adjustments.

Rainbow scene complete!

[Halo and Sundog Scene]

Although halos, like rainbows, are optical phenomena that display rainbow colors, their underlying principles are actually different.

Unlike observing a rainbow with your back to the sun, halos are observed with the sun at their center. In very rare cases, a second, fainter halo may appear slightly further out.

Sundogs, on the other hand, are two very bright spots of light that appear on either side of the sun, usually accompanying a halo. The two sundogs form a horizontal line with the sun, but in drawing, they can be designed as slightly curved due to lens distortion.

Sundogs typically appear during sunrise or sunset, while halos can appear at any time. Halos can even be observed at noon.

In reality, halos more often appear without sundogs. However, in this demonstration, to showcase more drawing techniques, I've decided to draw both phenomena simultaneously.

First step, decide the position of each object on the draft:

✧Sky

Since the time is set for sunset, with the sun closer to the horizon, this time the sky uses a combination of blue, purple, and orange.

Other elements have also been adjusted to more orange and dimmer colors.

If you want to be more precise, you would also need to adjust object shadows to the shapes formed by backlighting, and create rim lighting for objects. However, since the focus of this article is on drawing skies and weather, these details will be briefly omitted, with only brightness reduction applied.

✧Sun

🔧Steps

1&2. Add a new layer folder and set its blending mode to "Through".

3&4. Create a "Symmetry Ruler" within the folder, with the number of lines set to 8 or more. The center of the ruler will be the sun's position.

5&6. Add a new layer within the folder and set its blending mode to "Add (Glow)".

7. Use an airbrush and bright orange to draw a circle at the center of the ruler.

💡TIPS—Color Selection

Since the demonstration image depicts a sunset in the evening, orange was used. If you are drawing intense sunlight, such as at noon, you can use lighter and bluer colors. If you can't decide, it's perfectly fine to make a single hue adjustment at the very end.

After completing the base color of the circle, you can choose whether you want to draw:

① shorter radial lines (Steps 8a to 8c),

② longer and narrower radial lines (Steps 8a to 8e),

or ③ longer and wider radial lines (Steps 9a to 9c).

① Drawing Shorter Radial Lines:

8a. Duplicate the sun layer.

8b. Select the Skew tool.

8c. On the newly duplicated layer, draw the shape of the radial lines: draw outwards from between two ruler lines, and inwards above the ruler lines.

You can also add ② narrower radial lines based on your preference:

8d. Use an airbrush (strong) to draw radial lines.

8e. Use an airbrush (soft), turn off "Snap to Ruler," then use transparent color to erase some of the excessively long radial lines, creating a long-short-long-short rhythmic interval. You can also increase the asymmetry of the radial lines as desired.

③ Drawing Longer and Wider Radial Lines:

9a. After adding a new layer, use the Polyline Selection tool and set it to "Snap to Ruler".

9b. Select a quadrilateral between the two ruler lines.

【💡POINT】When selecting, please note: Ⅰ. The distance between the left and right sides and the ruler should be similar; Ⅱ. The bottom needs to extend past the sun's base color.

9c. Use an airbrush to paint the center on the new "Add (Glow)" layer.

9d. Duplicate the radial layer, use the Free Transform function, scale down and rotate to fill in the gaps not illuminated by light.

9e. Merge the two radial line layers, then use 【Filter → Blur → Gaussian Blur】. Adjust the strength until sharp edges are no longer visible.

9f. Use an airbrush to paint a triangle shape near the center on a new "Add (Glow)" layer.

9g. Use an airbrush to paint a circle shape in the center on a new "Add (Glow)" layer.

Then, using the Skew tool with a smaller brush size, gently draw outwards from the radial lines. If needed, drawing inwards is also an option.

9h. Select all layers with radial lines, then use the Mesh Transform function with mesh count "3, 3" to create variations in the length of the radial lines.

【💡POINT】When transforming, keep the central lines vertical and horizontal to ensure a logical transformation result.

9i. After unchecking "Snap to Ruler" for the airbrush, use a transparent color to erase some of the excessively long radial lines, creating a long-short-long-short rhythmic interval. You can also increase the asymmetry of the radial lines as desired.

Next, you can choose either 【Step 8】 or 【Step 9】 to continue with the following steps.

10. Create a new layer. Keep the blending mode as Add (Glow), and use an airbrush to paint the sunlight.

Repeat this step after enlarging the brush, for example, two new layers were added in the image below.

11. Adjust the layer opacity.

If needed, you can also adjust the size (e.g., the first sun layer was scaled down in the image below).

Holding down the 【Shift】 and 【Alt】 keys simultaneously while scaling with Free Transform allows you to maintain aspect ratio and scale from the center.

12. Please place the sun layer group above all other layers so that the light can cover the scenery.

💡TIPS

Stacking multiple layers: The reason is that by controlling the opacity of each layer, you can achieve a slightly uneven glare effect. Additionally, it makes it easier to adjust the overall sun's brightness and size to fit the composition. After completing the sun part, right-click the layer folder and select "Combine selected layers" to merge them all at once.
Sun's radial lines: If all lines are of the same length, it can give a stiff impression. You need to deliberately make them varying in length to achieve a sense of rhythmic beauty.
Layer blending modes: Besides "Add (Glow)," you can also try other modes, such as "Add (Luminosity)," which can also produce good results.

✧Halo

Basically, drawing a halo is the same as drawing a rainbow. Please note the following points first, then repeat the rainbow drawing steps and make adjustments.

📝Notes

The center of the concentric circle ruler is the sun's position.
Hold down the 【Shift key】 while creating a concentric circle ruler to get a perfect circular ruler.
The color order of a halo is red on the innermost side, and purple on the outermost side.
Unlike rainbows, the sunlight is in front of the observer. Due to the intense light, not all seven colors may be fully observed. Red is usually the most prominent; drawing only red-yellow-blue is acceptable, and the outer purple can be omitted or even turn white. Also, the colors will not be very vibrant; they are usually fainter.
For the same reason as above, halos are not very thick.

💡TIPS

For very narrow colored rings, sometimes during drawing, gaps may accidentally be left in the middle, requiring you to redraw.

In such cases, you can first draw the ring with a comfortable brush size, then use the Shrink function within the Skew tool to adjust it. However, be careful not to cause image breaks at the canvas edges.

Next, please use the Free Transform function to add variation to the halo.

【💡POINT】When transforming, pay attention to the central cross position and keep it close to the sun's center.

📝Note

Please be aware that theoretically, halos are perfect circles. The reason for distorting them here is to imply deformation caused by a strong sense of perspective, or an image distorted by camera lens. Therefore, the degree of distortion generally won't be too great.

Following this, if the scenery you are drawing requires a very precise sense of perspective (e.g., buildings), remember to match the perspectives. Otherwise, you can skip the halo transformation step.

Similar to the rainbow section, next please use a layer mask to create variations in lighting. You can also adjust the overall opacity of the layer to achieve the best effect, according to your preference.

Since the demonstration image includes sundogs on both horizontal sides, the light at the top and bottom of the halo will be the weakest.

Additionally, the halo's light should not cover nearby objects (i.e., the grass); distant mountains, however, can be tinged with a little light, which serves to emphasize the distinction between near and distant scenery.

✧Adjusting Brightness and Darkness

There is also a difference in brightness between the inside and outside of a halo. Contrary to rainbows, the outer side of a halo is brighter.

Below, I will similarly use layer blending modes to adjust brightness and darkness.

✧Sundogs

If your composition only includes a halo, you're done after the previous section.

In the following section, I will demonstrate how to draw "sundogs."

🔧Steps

1. Add a new layer folder and set its blending mode to "Through".

2. Create a "Symmetry Ruler" within the folder, with the number of lines set to 2. The center of the ruler will be the sun's position.

3. As demonstrated in the image below, stack multiple layers to build up the shape of the sundog light spots. The principle is the same as for the sun.

📝Notes

Here, the effect of stacking layers with different blending modes is demonstrated. In fact, which blending mode to use is very flexible, so feel free to experiment with different combinations!
Although "sundogs" are described as light spots on either side of the sun, in reality, they are usually not circular. When drawing, please follow the arc of the halo and draw them as light spots extending upwards and downwards.
The demonstration image also includes the "parhelic circle," which is a horizontal light ring connecting the sundogs and the sun. The parhelic circle is not always observed and can be omitted. If drawn, the parhelic circle typically appears brighter closer to the sun and the sundogs.

✧Lens Reflection (Lens Flare)

Since the sun is in front of the lens, try adding lens reflections to further enrich the image!

In the demonstration image below, the "Plenty of Water" brush was used.

"Plenty of Water" is one of the default initial brushes in CSP. If you cannot find it on your device, you can re-download it from the previously mentioned asset location 【G-pen・Brush_Ver.1.10.9】 (it is the eighth brush in the Watercolor category in the official screenshot).

🔧Steps

1. Create a "Linear Ruler". The ruler's position must pass through the center of the sun.

2. Use the "Plenty of Water" brush to draw the lens flare. For the layer, set the blending mode to "Add (Glow)". It's fine even if you use only one layer. However, if you wish to use multiple layers, the created layer folder, like in previous sections, needs to be set to "Through".

📝Notes

The shapes that constitute a lens flare include solid circles, hollow circles, and ellipses. When drawing, the brush strokes should focus on using "dots," not drawing with a continuous line.
Light spots can overlap when drawn; their positions do not necessarily have to be separate.
When drawing, deliberately adjust the brush size and stroke pressure to create the effect of varying light spot sizes.
In this composition, the sun should be the brightest, followed by the sundogs. Therefore, ensure that the lens flare does not overpower the first two.
Although only one color was used in the demonstration image, using multiple colors is also possible. Common colors include green, cyan-blue, and magenta.

Additionally, you can further add a chromatic aberration filter effect according to your personal preference (※A feature added after CLIP STUDIO PAINT Ver. 3.0).

🔧Method

1. In the top menu bar, click 【Filter → Effect → Chromatic Aberration (Color Shift)】.

2. Select "Radial (Use Center Point)".

3. On the canvas, move the red "x" to the sun's position, and set the intensity as desired. Done!

💡TIPS

If your CSP does not yet have this filter function, you can also consider searching in the asset library. Many users there share ready-to-use auto actions that achieve chromatic aberration effects!

And just like that, two illustrations with different backgrounds are complete!

Furthermore, sections like 【Sun】 and 【Lens Flare】 are also perfect for being used individually to draw other clear weather illustrations!

Appendix: Grass

Regarding drawing background elements other than the sky, it has been explained in another "Simple Scene Drawing" tips article. Feel free to refer to the following locations:

The brush used for the grass was from the following asset. Many thanks to the brush's creator!