Introduction to Conceptual Design

Every character has a unique design. What race do they come from? What is their personality like? What abilities do they possess? These are some of the details that will guide the design of both their appearance and clothing. As with any design, we'll start with rough sketches until we arrive at something that satisfies or fits your character.

For example, for this tutorial, I will present how I design one of my original characters, Lorelei, step-by-step. She is a young priestess who uses white magic.

 

I will be using CLIP STUDIO PAINT PRO, and the brushes used will be detailed later.

 

Concept Art - First Sketches

First of all, it's good to try several designs until you find the "right" one, so my first step is the rough sketch

Whenever I draw roughly, I use the design pencil, one of CLIP STUDIO PAINT PRO's default brushes, as it has one of my favorite textures; but it's fine to use any other.

In this example, I will continue with model 3 as it's my favorite. I think it has quite an angelic pose, and the dress fits well with the personality I imagined for Lorelei.

Now that we have the concept we'll work on in detail, we'll proceed to give it shape.

Personally, I usually change the color of the rough sketch so as not to confuse the strokes of the first sketch with the new one.

In [Layer Property -> Effect -> Layer color], you can change to your preferred color.

Like this:

After detailing the outfit, it looks something like this:

Fantasy characters usually have several details in their clothing, so I've circled the areas where accessories will need to be detailed later with the Linework!

(*) Optional: I usually try out colors before the Linework until I find a combination I like. Using the ink and oil paint brushes (Ink+Clear and Tempera respectively)

Speeding up Linework with Detail Brushes and Shortcuts

As I mentioned before, most of the time fantasy character outfits are very detailed. If we followed a traditional process, it would take us quite a while! Luckily, we have CSP's detail brushes, and that will save us a lot of time.

One way to speed up the Linework of objects with straight shapes is by making a point/click where you want to start, then pressing the Shift key and guiding the line to where you need it. This way, I used this shortcut for the Linework of the book and the staff:

Now, for the remaining costume details, we will use the following brushes:

Like any other brush, you simply draw in the desired direction; the more force/pressure you apply, the larger the brush drawing will be. I will use these brushes for the details of the collar, sleeves, skirt, dress, and stockings.

You can also transform the figure with Ctrl+T, and likewise, erase any excess.

After applying, the design turned out like this:

 

Now that the Linework is almost ready, in [Edit -> Convert brightness to opacity] we can replace the white background with a transparent one.

Color

The fill tool is one of the ones I use most when applying the base color, because if I select [Fill -> Refer to other layers], the paint bucket will only apply to closed areas regardless of the layer they are on.

For example, now that I have the Linework (with a transparent background), on a separate layer (and selecting the paint bucket), I apply it to each area.

And so on until the entire figure is filled.

For coloring/shading, I use ink brushes, [Rough] for flat shadows and [Ink+Clear] for blending and/or mixing. Of course, this step can vary depending on each person's coloring style.

Also, another method to erase a stroke is by clicking on the transparent square in the color swatch, this way it will erase with the same texture and shape of the brush.

Just as we sped up the Linework of straight shapes with a click + Shift earlier, it's also possible to use it with any other brush. In this example, I will use the airbrush to color the staff.

Color II - Detail Brushes II and Materials

Another use for detail brushes is to give a slight "ornamental relief," something similar to lace.

For this, there are two methods:

1) Select the colors the ornament will have (I'm choosing a brown color for the edges and a yellow/gold tone for the rest)

Then, on a clipping layer, change the layer type to "Overlay" to give it an old gold effect.

The second method is to only use the edge of the detail brush:

2) For this, the background color must be white so that in [Edit -> Convert brightness to opacity] it becomes transparent.

 

Now that the background is transparent, you can edit the color of the embroidery as you like; in my case, I will choose orange.

Then, we will change the layer type to [Add glow] so that the embroidery stands out (the layer type depends on the color you choose).

It will look like this:

We're almost done! Finally, let's apply a material to finish our design.

First, we select the area where we will apply the material:

 

Go to [Materials], choose and drag the material to the area we previously selected

You can scale the material's texture using any of the corner points.

To change the material's color, we can go to [Layer Property -> Effect -> Layer color]. I will use pink since that is the color of the skirt.

Now, I will edit the layer type to "Soft light" so that it can "blend" with the original coloring.

And that's it!

I hope this tutorial has helped you generate your detailed costume designs faster; after all, the amount of detail in a drawing is one of the things that takes us so long!

Thank you very much for reading!

 

I'll attach some of my social media links if you're interested in seeing more of my drawings!