Video Tutorial

Preperation:

This is PART 2 of my previous tutorial. Please click on the below link to learn how we designed the BG. Including: drawing hills vs flat ground, foreground details vs background minimalism, and CSP workspace tools like the Sub View and Navigator tools.

We will layer the colours over the sketch/ lineart that we drew in PART 1.

Reference photo that I took when I was in Spain.

Base Colour Layer

Using the reference photo in the Sub View box, I coloured over the sketch on a NEW LAYER. I only wanted the local colour of the general image, meaning NO shadows or light. It is rough and choppy, but we will render it later. (Used the default Felt Pen tool).

 

I toggled the sketch layer on and off in the beginning to avoid being lost in the detail.

 

 

Designing the Shadows and Light

The reference picture was taken on an overcast day, so there aren’t any obvious shadow shapes. I want to make the picture look more dramatic. So we can add our own shadows instead.

(Perspective knowledge needed. Soz, but you gonna need to use Maths)

 

Decided where you want the Sunlight to come from. I decided it will come from the left hand side on an obtuse angle. (Indicated by yellow arrow).

 

We will use Paralel Light so the light beams will all come from the same direction. (I like to use the yellow arrow as a measurement guide so the angle makes sense every time,)

 

Because of the narrow street, the sunlight is skimming over the roofs of the left hand buildings, and then hitting the wall on the other side (dotted line.) Everthing under the dotted line will be in shadow.

The same angle of sun light will hit other obsticles, like the balcony. The sun skims across the edge of the balcony and hits the wall below it. That triangular prism shape will be in shadow.

To make it easier for you to understand, I coloured the shadow shapes in blue.

 

We want the shadow shape to be 50% darker than the local colour.

 

I duplicated the rough colour area, and made it darker using correction levels. You only want the blue shape to be darker though.

Rendering

I like using the airbrush tool with the soft edge to render on CSP, as it doesn’t change the colours I selected. (Use a different brush if you prefer, though.)

 

On the right side, you can see that I’m blending in those rough edges and adding details to the stones in the foreground. This takes time and patience as this is how we will render the entire scene.

When refering to the reference, I can see that some areas of the street will appear bright and shiny because the pooled water is reflecting the colour of the sky.

 

(The red arrows show the water flowing downhill and coating some of the cobblestones in the foreground.)

 

 

Some areas look darker, because the water has absorbed into the ground making the pagement and gaps between the stones look darker.

When drawing the shadows and the light might seem too extreme. But that’s ok.

 

Areas cast in shadow (the street and left buildings) are very dark. But the building at the top of the hill and all the rooftops are very bright in contrast because they are hit with direct sunlight.

Once we finish rendering the entire scene, we can add more details like pipes, electricity wires, pipes and people.

If you were using different layers, merge them together.

 

(Ignore the note’s folder, that’s how I’m making the tutorial).

Colour Temperature

The image is technically finished, but we can make it better.

 

The light areas are illuminated by sunlight (yellow selected area). So we will make the colours ‘warmer’

You can do this in different ways. By duplicating the ‘light area’ and using the hue/ saturation sub-layer (as a clipping mask) to make the colours more yellow/ orange.

 

OR

 

make a new layer above and lightly colour it with yellow/ orange to tint the area.

We will do the same on the shadow side (blue shape) and make the shadow colours ‘cooler’ (the coolness is because the sky is blue).

 

You can duplicate the layers to make your edits OR use a clipping mask. The mask allows you to reverse edits incase you make mistakes.

Final Artwork

This drawing took 3 1/2 hours for me to render.

 

It’s a bit hard to explain the maths for measuring light in such a short tutorial, so please watch the explainer video for more detail.