Introduction
Welcome to the enchanting world of isometric illustration! This artistic technique allows us to create captivating three-dimensional spaces on a flat 2D surface, perfect for designing cozy rooms, engaging game assets, and delightful miniature scenes.
Laying the Foundation 🏠
In this tutorial, we'll embark on a creative journey to:
Set Up an Isometric Grid: Establish the foundation for our 3D masterpiece.
Construct a Room: Bring walls, floors, and ceilings to life in isometric perspective.
Design and Build Furniture and Decor: Craft stylish furniture and charming decorations to enhance our space.
The Creative Process ✨
Before diving into technical details, take some time to plan and gather inspiration to ensure your isometric room is cohesive and full of personality.
Gather Inspiration – Browse platforms like Pinterest for isometric room designs, furniture styles, and color palettes. Seeing different interpretations will help spark your creativity.
Warning! Spend no more than 30 minutes on visualizing, otherwise you’ll spend hours scrolling. Pinterest is like a magical forest, the deeper you go the more time you’d want to spend there.
Collect References – Gather visual references for furniture, decor, and animals you want to include. This will add authenticity to your design and help with proportions and details - Create a new board on Pinterest, give it a relevant name and save to it images that spark your creativity and imagination - (I cannot share images i have no copyright to, so, instead, you will find a link to my Pinterest board for this tutorial! )
Define Your Style and Mood – Decide on the overall vibe of your isometric room. Will it be modern, cozy, rustic, futuristic, or dreamy? Choosing a theme will guide your color choices and decorative elements.
In this tutorial, I’ll go with the theme of cozy-dreamy, as for the colors, am going with my favorites: Purple, pink and green, pastels.
Sketch Ideas – Start with quick, rough sketches to explore different room layouts and compositions. This will help you test ideas before committing to a final design. Here you can see my sketch of ideas i saw on my mood board, you can add you own creativity to the sketches, do not limit yourself!
Taking the time to brainstorm and plan will make the illustration process smoother and more enjoyable!
Setting Up the Isometric Grid
A well-structured isometric grid is essential for creating accurate and visually consistent illustrations.
Isometric Grids in Clip Studio Paint
As of the making of this tutorial, there’s no actual built-in Isometric grid in CSP, you can try to create one yourself, but why go through the much unnecessary trouble when there are CSP assets!
Thanks to @Steele2, we have a perfectly working Isometric grid and ruler, and we will be using it throughout the tutorial!
Just follow the steps here:
Open the Clip Studio App and go to Assets.
Search for content ID: 1758445.
Download it and open Clip Studio Paint.
Create a new canvas.
Go to Materials and select the new asset you just downloaded.
Drag it to the canvas and you’re set to go.
Once your grid and ruler are ready, you’re all set to start sketching your isometric world!
Drawing Basic Isometric Shapes
Before constructing a full room, it helps to practice with basic shapes.
Drawing Cubes
To easily create a simple cube using your isometric grid:
Use the Figure tool, select the Rectangle and draw it starting from one edge point of the isometric grid.
Duplicate that rectangle and move it up/down while holding the SHIFT key, so that it stays parallel to the first one.
Draw the connecting lines using the pen tool (In all my Isometric drawings I use the G-pen for linework).
Adjust the proportions to experiment with different dimensions and shapes.
Combining Shapes
Using the cube, try creating a cylinder.
Stack, merge, or cut cubes and other shapes to form more complex objects, such as tables, chairs, and shelves.
Practicing basic shapes will make it much easier to build detailed objects later in your scene.
Tips
Instead of regular layers, try using vector layers, the lines in a vector layer are easily manipulated, e.g. You can erase the lines after an intersection without erasing the entire line or having to keep using the eraser tool, with just one click, its gone!
When using a vector layer, you can choose a line you want to edit and CTRL- click it, in this way you can move the line, edit its length change its direction and much more!
Building an Isometric Room
Now that you've mastered basic shapes, it's time to construct your room! First let’s activate the grid view, you’ll need it for your proportions!
Drawing the Room Structure
Start by sketching the walls and floor using simple isometric rectangles.
Leave one side open (or use transparency) for a cutaway view.
Enhance your sketch if necessary.
Adding Windows and Doors
Use isometric guidelines to maintain correct proportions.
Keep details simple for a clean, stylized look.
Clean up and add 3D effect
Add floor level (depth, height ...)
Add wall depth
Now that we’ve got the basics covered, unleash your creativity, or follow along with my video!
Adding Furniture and Items!
Books
Let’s start with my favorite element to add, Books!
Books are easy to draw and they add value to the space and are useful to fill empty shelves, desks and tables!
To draw a book, simply think of it as a cut out cube, with different height and width! Try drawing some books, have fun stacking them :)
Desk & Chair
Now lets draw a simple desk and chair! Same as before you can start with a cube and shape it as a desk or a chair, then group them together!
Remember, having fun and exploring is key here! I’ll show you how to do the basics and you can add your own glaze to it, make it personal!
Plants
Plants are also easy to draw, start with a rectangle to draw the circle, i find that doing it this way makes it easier to figure out the direction and shape the circle should take, then duplicate the circle move it up. After this, make the lower circle smaller by transforming it and holding the SHIFT key while editing it, once thats done, you deactivate the isometric ruler and draw the lines connecting both circles to form the shape of a plant pot, add some dirt shape and any plant you want and you’re done!
Now you have the basics to get creating! Get yourself some references and start drawing different shapes! Experimenting is key with Art, you may end up with something completely unexpected, and you might love it! Just don’t give up and keep trying.
Follow Along
In the following video, you can try to draw something similar to mine. I’ll finish the linework and then we’ll move on to colors, Stick around!
Coloring and Texturing
Adding color and texture brings depth and personality to your illustration!
Choosing a Color Palette
Use a soft pastel palette for a cute, lighthearted feel.
Or go for a bold, vibrant scheme for a playful look.
Applying Simple Shadows and Highlights
Use slightly darker shades for shadows and lighter tones for highlights.
Keep shading soft and minimal to maintain a clean, stylized appearance.
Follow the light source and shade per objects.
Adding Textures
Use hatching, stippling, or subtle patterns to add depth.
Clip Studio Paint’s texture brushes can create fabric, wood, and other materials with ease.
Thank you for reading my very first tutorial! If you have any questions leave them below.
Follow along with me on my YT video!
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