Introduction

Hello, I’m zuzuame, an amateur artist with a passion for illustration

In this article, I’ll share the process of creating a star-filled night background, as well as a few tips to make nighttime environmental lighting more interesting

Let’s get started!

Nighttime Colors and Lighting

First, we need to determine the colors and lighting of the scene at night

When sunlight has completely faded, the remaining light sources come only from building lights, stars, or the moon. Because of that, the ambient light covering the entire illustration will be heavily tinted by moonlight or starlight

In my artwork, I’ll use blue as the dominant hue to cast a strong tint over all objects

Sketching the Background

I’ll sketch a simple background with a top-down view of tall buildings

I’m using a built-in brush by nyorock to draw: https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1991461

However, you can use any asset you like, as long as it helps you conveniently create a simple background

After that, I use the Gradient tool to lay down the background colors from behind, choosing blue tones as the main theme. For this part, pay attention to the value balance of the background. The higher you go, the darker the background should become, and it can shift slightly toward purple

Color Adjustments for the Character

Once the artwork’s main color tone is set, I’ll use the background color to adjust the character’s colors. Create two layers Multiply and Overlay, then fill the character with color so their tones match the background. I set the opacity of these two layers to around 20–30%, depending on each area

Next, we need to adjust the character’s lighting. I want to emphasize the rim light from behind, so I boost the brightness of the rim using a Color Dodge layer. At the same time, you can deepen the shadows slightly using Color Burn and Multiply layers

After that, using the same method above, adjust the colors of the objects surrounding the character. With that, the lighting and colors of the illustration are basically established

Refining the Background

Next, to make the artwork more visually interesting, I’ll adjust the background into a star-filled night sky. I use the Starry brush by 朝野れい (https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1444488) to paint the stars on a Color Dodge layer, and stack additional Color Dodge layers on top to make the sky even more vibrant

At this stage, I want to add shooting stars, so I use the hard Mapping Pen with a small size to draw the streaks of shooting stars flying across the sky. I also draw one main falling star as a focal point, which acts as an additional light source

Finishing the Illustration

At this stage, the artwork is almost complete.

Finally, I tweak the overall colors of the character just a bit more.

I also use the Dust brush by seiku88 to add dust effects

https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1931942

After that, I fine-tune the overall lighting and values of the entire illustration, and the piece is basically complete

Add final effects and finish the piece

Outro

And those are some of my tips for painting nighttime colors and lighting. I hope this article gives you useful insights that you can apply to your own artwork. Thank you so much for staying with me until the end. Wishing you lots of fun in your drawing journey~