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Video tutorial with voice over and speed drawing

Reference

For this tutorial, I will be drawing a background scene based on a photo I took when I walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

 

When using a reference, the first thing to do is actually observe what’s in the image.

 

It’s a narrow street with buildings on either side; the walls are very tall; it’s an overcast day; the buildings are old and crooked; it’s an uphill slope; the path curves right.

 

This information is important because it helps me decide how I want to design my drawing. The buildings are crooked, so a strict perspective will make it too complicated, and because it’s a hill, a typical vanishing point wouldn’t work.

 

TLDR: I won’t be using strict perspective rules

Quick Notes:

Beginner Friendly - Explaining the process before going into too much detail

Based on where you are standing, the horizon line would be where the height of your vision sits. But because the slope is going up, the street ends up being above that horizon line.

Objects closer to us (the viewer) will have more details, such as the stone road, door frames and balconies…

Objects in the distance will have less detail. The car, people and door frames will appear like abstract blobs when zoomed in.

It’s a narrow street, so the buildings on one side will shade the entire street…

BUT - because the sky is overcast, the white clouds basically turn the sky into a giant light box. The light will reflect off the buildings and brighten up the shadows.

 

Less important now, but useful if you want to colour in.

Window —> Sub View

 

You can view your reference image while drawing. It also makes it easy to colour pick if you intend to colour your drawing

Window —> Navigator

 

The Navigator tool lets you zoom in and out and rotate your canvas easily. It’s also useful to see your entire drawing at a thumbnail scale. Very useful to compare your drawing composition with your reference image.

 

(I was experimenting with colour, don’t worry about it)

Actual Drawing

I made the paper a neutral grey. I’m using the default Felt Pen and black to draw on the same layer.

Landscapes are relative. Only when you add familiar objects like: people, cars, door frames, etc… do you realise the scale of your background

adding horizontal lines on the ground where I notice the slope increases. These lines will connect to building edges and door frames. Useful guidelines to not get lost in the detail.

Based on the photo, I can see a general vanishing point. I market it with an X and drew rough lines indicating where I want the balconies and door frames to be

I’m simplifying the detail and relying on my eye to copy from the reference

Because of the narrow angle, a lot of elements appear to merge together. Instead of drawing individual objects (balcony railings, windows, etc..), I’m drawing clusters of shapes

Shadows are indicated by thicker lines (increase brush size) and roughly filling in areas.

In the distance, reducing the brush size isn’t enough. I switch the eraser and roughly go over the lines so the general shape remains, but appears less heavy.

objects and their shadows merge together. If you zoomed in, they would look like messy blobs.

Objects in the far distance appear lighter because of atomsphere. Therefore, erasing becomes more important; (furthest building and trees behind it).

By adding a person (blobby stick figure from a distance), we can see that these are really tall door frames and thus tall buildings.

If we drew the people bigger, (the feet placement on the ground shows where they are within the frame), the town would end up looking like a kid’s playground.

Adding details on the stone pavers and stone walls that are closer to us (the viewer).

Don’t get lost in the details. If the car looks like a blob, then the cobblestones are nothing in comparison. The end of the street has no texture at all, and the middle area only has a few dots.

adding some final details. More contrast and intensity in the foreground, and erasing more towards the distance.

Final Artwork

This can now serve as a black and white background for a comic or manga, or to use as a base for colouring in.

PART 2 - Colouring

Click to learn how to colour in the BG on Part 2