A. Choosing the composition

Since I wanted to draw a lightning bolt, I chose the theme of “storm”.

I use a chalk tool ([Pencil] tool > [Pastel] > [Chalk]) with a narrow 13.0px width.

 

I imagine a dynamic scene of a girl battling a storm. I draw and redraw the lines to create a rough sketch that outlines my composition.

 

The theme “storm” connects to rain, so I gave the girl an umbrella, then, thinking of a typhoon, I added strong winds all around.

My idea now is that the girl in the eye of the storm, the only calm place.

I also added a hot air balloon flying through the storm.

 

B. Main character

Now that I have an overall image of my illustration, I’ll clean up my rough draft and add colors.

First, I go to the [Layer] palette and lower the opacity of the sketch layer to 55%.

Then, I open the [Layer property] palette and change the [Layer color] to light green. This will make it easier to draw the rough line art on top.

 

I create a layer below the sketch layer for a temporary background color.

 

I create a layer folder called “Character” on top of the sketch layer, and add a layer for each body part. I will use these layers for the rough lines and base colors.

For the lines, I will use the same chalk as earlier.

I’ll add rough colors with the default brushes in the [Brush] tool > [India ink] sub tool group.

My favorite brushes are [Smooth] and [Dark bleed].

I constantly change the brush size by pressing “Ctrl + Alt” and dragging the canvas.

In the rough draft stage, I try not to use small brushes so I can get an idea of the look of the overall canvas.

 

I use colors that are close to the final color the lines on the body and hair.

 

I draw each element on a separate layer so that I can move them or change the colors easily.

 

I add patterns to clothes and socks using a layer on top of the flat colors, set to [Clip at Layer Below].

I select the layer to clip and select the [Clip at layer below] icon in the [Layer] palette. This makes a red line appear at the left side of the layer thumbnail. When a layer is clipped, I can only draw within the drawn area of the lower layer.

 

I repeat the same process to prepare the rough drafts of the character.

I came up with a story where a girl is trying to pick up her boyfriend inside a storm, who does not have an umbrella. Therefore, I add one more umbrella.

 

I have a lot of layers now, so I name them and group them in folders for each element.

 

When there are many layers, it can be hard to find each layer on the [Layer] palette.

If you press Ctrl + Shift and click the position you want to work on, you can directly move to the clicked layer. I use this method to move between layers.

 

C. Hot air balloon

In the next step, I will repeat the same process for the hot air balloon.

I usually arrange the elements starting with the main character, then moving onto the secondary and supporting characters, then other elements.

 

I associate rain with sweets (because they have the same spelling in Japanese), so I came up with the idea of lots of balloons shaped like boiled sweets.

The black-and-white pattern on the girl’s clothing inspired me to add a panda as a sub-character. The panda is also searching for its lover inside the storm.

Next, I added some items falling through the air to suggest the main character’s boyfriend.

 

D. Background

I add spiraling rain, lightning, and the silhouette of park motifs around the circular eye of the storm.

I use the [Selection] tool > [Ellipse] to create a perfect circle, then fill the selected area and blur it using the [Filter] menu > [Gaussian blur]. I blurred the circle so that it didn’t look too stark.

 

Now my rough version is finished.