Introduction

Hello and welcome to the first Art tutorial by me! The Art Frog.

 

Today we'll be looking at a really good way to study when it comes to expanding your visual library.

 

Now, what does expanding your visual library mean? Well, a visual library is basically how well you "know" or remember properly the essence of the things you are interested in drawing or making art of.

 

Essentially, people tend to think they know how some things look but when you try to draw them from memory often the result is not quite right. By studying and expanding your visual library you will help to build a foundation of understanding of the subjects you wish to make art of.

 

By doing this regularly not only will you get better at drawing realistically, but the knowledge gained of structure and texture will help all kinds of art. If you want to be better at drawing cartoons or anime or anything really, this will help you.

 

Also, it is pretty fun and a great way to warm up before working on other art.

 

So to start things off, here is a picture of one of my parents dogs, Odelia.

Choosing the right photo

Some things to keep in mind when selecting photos to practice from are:

 

Preferably you want the picture to not have too many light sources. The more lights

generally the trickier it is to nail down the form in a logical and convincing manner.

 

The photo should be at a decent size/resolution (unless you are trying to study blurriness or some sort of effect) so you have enough of the detail you are trying to learn.

 

When studying from a photo of something (an animal, a person, an eye, etc) try to get a picture with not too much detail in the background, or even blur the background out a bit so it does not distract you from what you are trying to learn. Sometimes if the background is primarily darker or lighter than your subject it separates nicely so you can really see the form.

 

Now that we have our photo it is time to prepare our work space in Clip Studio Paint.

Preparing the workspace

Our little frog friend is going to help us out here. First (after opening your image in CSP), click on Edit (circled in green at the top) and find "Change Canvas Size..." and click on it.

This should open up a new box with some options in it.

Now as our poorly drawn frog friend is pointing to, you will want to double the number in the "Width" box (use a calculator if it is an odd number) and click the circled reference point, then click "OK".

Alright! now we have an area to work in that is exactly the same size as our picture! A few more steps and we'll be ready to start drawing!

Converting photo reference to Greyscale

First make a new layer. (As the frog is pointing out. Click there.) It is generally a good idea to do most things on a new layer in case you make a mistake, or you just want to see what is different between your most recent changes and where you started.

On the new layer, Either click the paint bucket icon or press "G" on your keyboard to use the Fill tool. Make sure you have Black selected and click on your work area.

Uh oh everything is black! Not to worry though that is what we wanted!

Click the "Blending Mode" drop down menu in the layer panel, then click "Colour".

There, now we can see again and our image is now black and white or Grey scale.

 

You can of course do studies in colour by skipping those steps but I find it is best to study in black and white first to get a good sense of the form and texture of your subject.

 

Next we want some values to work with for our study.

Selecting our value palette

These shades of grey I have picked are close to what I see at the pointed out locations, try to use your eyes and compare before checking with the Eyedropper tool. (Hold alt on PC or press "I" on your keyboard for the Eyedropper tool.) Squinting when you look or sort of unfocus your eyes so you can see the Darkest Darks and the Lightest Lights helps a lot to give you the range of values you'll need to make a good study.

Circled here you can see a percentage. This is called the Value slider. (Part of the colour slider tool). By adjusting here you can find the value close to what you'd like to use on your study. The percentage number can be handy when you are comparing to see how close you are. (Pick with your eyes, then use the Eyedropper tool to compare.) if you are withing 5% of where you are trying to match, you are probably fine.

Ok now set up your small value pallet (3-5 values is plenty) in a spot that is not too distracting or in the way and we are ready to go!

 

Now as this is an exercise a good idea will be to give yourself a time limit. This will do two very important things. First, you will give yourself a bit of pressure to focus on what is important. In the long run this will train you to quickly establish important areas and shapes in a confident way.

 

Second, you will be able to manage your practice time well and keep it a reasonable chunk of time. Sometimes I get distracted or think to myself "I don't have time to start on this because it will take X time uninterrupted". If you limit the time for these studies you can instead think, "It will only take 20 minutes" or whatever time limit you give yourself.

 

20 minutes is a good place to start.

 

 

Choosing a Brush

For this exercise I recommend using any brush your are comfortable with. My personal preference is a brush that I can get both a hard and soft edge. (This translates to a brush with a kind of rough edge but if you go ever the same area a couple strokes or press harder the edge will be harder.)

 

Here is an example of the "Dry Gouache" brush (under "Thick Paint" brushes) showing off a harder and softer edge. The arrows point to a harder edge done by going over the area a few times to fill it in, where circled the softer edge is done with a lighter touch.

You can play with the settings and try different brushes but for my example I'll use the default brush settings in the "Dry Gouache" tool.

 

After you've chosen your brush its time to start the timer and get to painting!

 

Painting process

At this step it's maybe been 2 minutes or so, and I am just roughly blocking in areas with our darkest value and a bit of the 2nd darkest. Make sure to use a large brush for these first steps. (Almost as large as you can without slowing down your computer!) By adjusting the pressure on your pen as you draw you should be able to get some variation even at this early stage. Try to look at your reference a lot and zoom out a fair bit. Don't get bogged down in the details, only 18 minutes left!

Now here is where I lightly put in some darker values. Notice how they are not quite in the right place. This is because I was not comparing enough! there is still time to fix it but don't worry too much about it. Sometimes it is good to focus more on the feeling of what you are drawing than the exact proportions. (Otherwise you might as well be tracing.)

It's about here I decide the Dry Gouache brush is not doing what I'd like and I switch to the Charcoal tool. (It is a sub tool of the Pencils, under Pastel).

Here we have about 10 minutes left and you can see a bit more definition in the dark.

 

Make sure you are comparing to your reference as you work. Notice where it is darker or lighter, harder edge or softer edge, or if a line/shape is thicker or thinner than what you've painted and adjust accordingly.

Now here things are looking a bit closer. A bit more detail into the eye area starts to pull things together. (Maybe 5-3 minute left?)

 

You can zoom in a bit and adjust the brush size as you go (I usually have a hand on the [ and ] keys to adjust the brush size up and down as I work), to paint in the reflection in the eye and other small details. Just make sure to zoom back out and compare.

And here we are out of time! Not perfect by any means but not bad for just 20 minutes.

 

As long as you really focus on important areas and remember to compare you will get even better just 20 minutes at a time!

More Examples.

This one I used the "Flat Marker" tool. (under Markers). I was not super pleased with the edges I could get with it but it was fun to experiment.

 

I decided to rough in the outline quickly to make sure the shapes were a little closer than the 1st study. You can use lines if it is comfortable for you or you want to really focus on getting the shapes right!

Here we've roughed in some of the mid tones. I'll share a technique I use while I am working to get a bit more out of your values.

 

While you are working, keep a thumb or finger on the "alt" key and select on the transparent edges of your strokes to get a lighter or darker in between value and use that new value on the appropriate areas. This gives you a bit of wiggle room to get even closer to the value you need sort of naturally as you paint.

And here I am out of time. Not bad for using a tool I was a bit unfamiliar with. You can even use something with an even harder edge like a pen but by adjusting the opacity you can layer your tones to create a soft edge effect.

So here you can see I am using a very soft edge tool. ("Soft 2" under the Airbrush tools.)

 

We started in a similar way to the others but then I decided to fill in the base layer with a darker tone. This was so I could "Pull" out the lighter areas as I went. This can be an interesting way of working.

I took my sort of medium light value and started to roughly pull out some lighter spots gradually.

 

I didn't break it up into another layer so there is a bit of a jump but I think between these 3 examples you should have an idea of the process.

Here is the finished study after 20 minutes of painting. With a very soft edge tool, you kind of have to make the brush small to get harder edges. Experiment with different kinds of strokes and pen pressure to get all kinds of interesting marks.

 

Because of the way I worked this final study I was able to actually get in some feeling of fur in areas. The more you do these studies the faster you'll go and the more confident your mark making will be!

 

I hope this tutorial has helped you out and I look forward to making more.

 

Thank you very much for viewing!

 

Aaron (Art Frog)