ABOUT
In this guide, I will show you how to make a digital illustration that feels like it was drawn traditionally on paper using graphite and colored pencils. Throughout the process, I will try to give different options on how to do each of the steps, so feel free to follow along which approach suits you.
SET UP AND TOOLS
File set up
Let’s start by creating a canvas. We’ll use a lot of textured brushes in this illustration so it’s best to choose the right canvas size. If it’s too small, there might be obvious pixelation. If it’s too large, you might experience some lag.
Tools
These are the available default tools in CSP:
Pencil - good for details and fine lines
Chalk - for blocking out large shapes or areas
Blend - to blur and mix colors
Brush - you can also create transitions between colors using brush tools by making your strokes lighter or heavier
Rough eraser - the smooth edge may ruin the flow of the texture, but it still depends on how it is used on the drawing
Kneaded eraser - has a nice texture and size control
Transparent color - instead of an eraser tool, I usually just use my brush with transparent color. I set the “transparent color” hotkey to [C] so I can easily switch between coloring and erasing
MAKING YOUR OWN BRUSH
Although the default tools are already good to use, we can customize it more to our liking and stylistic choices. Tweaking on the brush settings helps us understand how to utilize the brush efficiently.
BRUSH SETTINGS
Here are my brush settings for this pencil:
1 — Duplicate a brush that is most similar to the brush you want to make
2 — This pop up will appear. Give your brush a name and click [ok]
3 — Click this wrench button to access the brush settings
Adjust the size and opacity settings to imitate how real pencils and brushes work.
The pressure you put on the pencil determines how light or dark and thin or thick the strokes you will make.
Adjust the value of the color jitter so the colors will have a subtle variation.
Check the pen pressure for density.
Depending on your image texture, you may have to adjust the texture density, scale ratio, rotation angle, brightness, and contrast.
Note: Open a canvas to try your brushes as you tweak the settings
CUSTOM BRUSH TIP AND TEXTURE
This is just an optional step if you want to try to experiment with brush tips and textures. There are a lot of available assets in clip studio paint that you can use.
BRUSH TIP
1 — create a square canvas (500 x 500 pixels is enough) and draw a shape
2 — select your layer and on layer property, set the color expression to “gray”
3 — go to edit tab > register material > image
4 — give it a name, check the “use for brush tip shape”, you can put it on a folder and give it a tag to find it easily, then click [ok]
TEXTURE
1 — draw with a pencil on paper and take a photo or scan it, then import the image to clip studio paint
2 — go to the layer tab and add correction layers
3 — adjust it to make the contrast between black and white of the texture pop out more
4 — merge it into one layer and go to edit tab > convert brightness to opacity
5 — the white of the texture should become transparent
6 — select your layer
7 — go to edit tab > register material > image
8 — give it a name, check the “use for paper texture”, check the “tiling”, you can put it on a folder and give it a tag to find it easily, then click [ok]
To add your brush tip, click this [1]
To add your texture, click this [2]
DRAWING PROCESS
Main steps of my drawing process:
1 — Concept
2 — Sketch
3 — Coloring
4 — Shadow and Light
5 — Refine
1a — make thumbnail sketches to explore different ideas
1b — choose an idea you want to expand and make a more detailed sketch of it
1c — I decided to draw a scene with octopi in a bathtub and made a simple 3d model in blender to use as a reference and also to experiment with different angles and lighting
2a — make an initial sketch
2b — I feel like my sketch was kind of wonky, so I used grid method to draw it again and look more like my 3d reference
(I’m bad at drawing objects in perspective, so this is what I usually do)
2c — draw each part of the scene in a flat version
2d — use transform tool (free transform mode) to place each object on the scene (I just followed my reference)
3 — I colored each object on a separate layer so I can easily adjust it. These are the flat local colors only
4a — I merged the colors into one layer
4b — add a multiply layer and map the shadows
these following layers are clipped on to the multiply layer (4b)
4c — added an orange tint in a normal layer
4d — added more yellows and blues to show the bouncing lights on the objects using a soft light layer
4e - added a light blue layer to give it a subtle tint
5a — merge everything in one layer (note: keep a duplicate of your separate layers for back up)
5b — Refine the details by adding lines and smoothing out some edges
5c — add a paper texture, you can experiment with the blending modes and opacity (I used an overlay layer with 15% opacity)
TIMELAPSE
SIMPLE DRAWING EXERCISE
Here are some simple step by step exercises you can practice
FREE ASSETS
note: this is not a really good sample to use as a brush texture because the texture is uneven, which makes the seam obvious in some cases.
I hope you learn something from my process. Have fun drawing <333
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