Skies are one of my favourite things to include in my illustrations and comics. I love how clouds and sky gradients can make my illustrations 'pop' and bring so much randomness and colour to my comic layouts. So if you are having trouble with creating effective skies for your illustrations, don't worry! There are so many options available for you and they are all good!

 

NOTE: This tutorial is suitable for beginners and intermediate artists, and may be useful for some professional artists as well.

The Sky is not Blue

When we think of the sky, symbolically it's blue for daytime, or black for night time. Example of a cliche blue sky:

But saying that a daytime sky is always blue or a nightime sky is always black is just not true! The sky comes in all kinds of colours and variations. Some examples of what I mean below:

The sky / atmosphere produces so many beautiful colour combinations. There is boundless reference out there for us to use for different coloured skies and we as artists need to put these examples into their fullest application.

 

As a creator of illustration, whether that be in a comic/manga or in a one off image illustration, every decision we make creates a mood for our work. So don't forget to put good photo reference to use in your illustrations.

 

EXAMPLES OF HOW I USE SKIES IN MY WORK.

 

As I said before, I love using skies to create variation in my work.

In my comics Jesus: The Temptations, I am using the sky to set a mood.

In this panel Jesus is setting off in the desert in a positive mood, ready for the challenges he will face. I used bright colours and contrasts to uncover this feeling of excitement in the character, and enhance the 'otherworldly' tone:

But in another page, when the mood is dark and Jesus is under spiritual attack, I created a sky to fit that tone. There are contrasting and strange formations in the sky. There is a mix of purple, blue and pink. Things are not right in the spirit world, and everything in the illustration needs to communicate that in some way:

The variations and options are literally endless and you can use any colours that work.

 

In fact, the sky can actually become the subject itself, like in my illustration for the Clip Studio Illustration award, on the theme of Heavens:

 

So in summary, as the title of this section claims 'the sky is not blue'. It's only blue some of the time, and we as artists need to capitalize on creating skies that work, that take our artwork to a deeper and more impacting level, and as always, making sure we are having FUN when we paint our skies.

 

Now lets get into some 'how to' details.

Sky Compositions

One thing I have been learning again and again - composition really, REALLY matters. The more we think about, control and enhance our compositions, the better our work will be. So let's explore some composition concepts for our skies.

 

RATIO OF SKY VS SUBJECT.

 

Often, the sky just adds in a harmonious or contrasting background to our illustration or comic panel. In that case, we would often focus on the foreground detail, and have the ratio of sky lower than the subject ration in your composition.

On the other hand, sometimes we want the foreground / subject to be smaller and the sky to be larger. This can:

• give the illustration breathing space

• make the mood of the work more contemplative

• actually make the subject stand out more

 

In addition to illustration, in comics a large sky with a small background can be used to create silence or space around what your character is saying or doing.

CLOUDS VS SKY RATIO

 

In a sky, we basically have two elements in play:

• Gradient (sky colour)

• Clouds and sun / night elements such as stars

 

And how we control the ratio of each of the two elements makes a difference to the mood of the illustration.

 

For example, some skies may have little to no clouds, creating a clean, whispy feel to the sky and to the overall illustration:

Or the sky may have a nice balance to the amount of clouds, and the clear sky (gradient). This creates a neutral, rather happy mood in your composition. Things are balanced:

In contrast to the balanced composition, your sky may be mostly full of clouds. They dominate the sky, creating a busier, more complicated composition. In a comic, this may be reflective of your character's state of mind. The wold is a complex place to love in, and often the sky is just as complex with overlapping cloud shapes, and not much clarity:

We could also create a composition where the clouds are dark masses, and there is almost no sky visible. Playing with contrast here can give you a very dynamic composition and a dark mood.

In summary, the variations between the above compositions are endless. And remember, you can use colour variations, and even night skies to build more layers into your composition and create stronger contrasts.

Gradients in Skies

In Clip Studio, the gradient tool can help us develop some really nice variations in our skies. Let's explore this tool, and explore how gradients appear in the sky.

 

(Please note that instead of using the gradient tool, you could also get the same effects as details below using the watercolour or airbrush tools.)

As you can see in the below photo, gradients beautifully reveal the sky in different shades and tones. We can emulate this in our paintings for a realistic, or stylized effect. In this case, the gradient goes from a rich green/turquoise to pale unsaturated pink, to golden orange and yellow:

USING THE GRADIENT TOOL

 

To start with, select the gradient tool and then open the tool settings. A generic setting may already be loaded in your gradient tool, or else it will be whatever setting you used last time:

Make sure 'Where to create' is set to 'Draw on editing layer' otherwise Clip Studio will create a new layer every time you draw a gradient (unless that is what you want.

 

Also make sure opacity is set to 100, if that is what you want, or set it to lower opacity if you want to do your sky gradient in washes.

To adjust the gradients properly, we will need to get into the advanced settings. First click on the plus button next to the gradient, then 'Advanced Settings'. From there we can make all sorts of adjustments, including selecting premade gradient sets from Clip Studio Assets. I like OBongBong's Filter Set, it has all sorts of interesting gradients:

You can also select so generic gradients, and save gradients to the Sub Tool [Gradient], and there are some nice starter gradients, like 'Blue Sky' and 'Night Sky'.

 

But for now, please select 'Sunset' gradient, and we will adjust it to fit our illustration:

Open up advanced settings again and lets go in and adjust the 'Sunset' gradient. Select the darkest point of the gradient, and drag away from the gradient bar:

Now we will have a smoother transition that i think is more natural. You can add back in colour markets by clicking on the gradient bar at any time.

Now lets select a new colour for our gradient.

 

Lets select the dark red colour point by clicking on it, then click on 'specific colour', and change the hue to a pinky/purple colour, to something like the below:

Now we have created a gradient, we can apply it to a selection, or Frame within our canvas. The way we have set up our gradients, we will need to drag in a downward motion to get the right result as the sky / atmosphere is ALWAYS lighter closer to the horizon:

 

Now it is up to you to develop your own sky gradients. Experiment with different colours. Start by creating an Evening sky gradient and a blue sky gradient, like the below:

 

To access a premade gradients, I suggest downloading some from OBongBong's set, download from the below:

Once you have loaded it OBongBong;s filter set into Clip Studio, you can access it through advanced settings as below:

 

Now you can use it to create a nice natural evening sky gradient:

Now it's time to play! Create a few gradients from your imagination. use photo reference, and try to recreate the sky gradients you see. Here are some of the gradients I created:

Remember, the lightest part of the gradient will almost always be at the horizon line. The atmosphere is darker.

Clouds

I love clouds.

 

There is something so freeing about just drawing, inventing, playing with the shapes of clouds. In this tutorial we will explroe a few different shapes and approaches to drawing clouds, but remember 2 things:

• Look at reference

• Be creative

 

It is important to look at reference when drawing clouds. For example, looking at this image, we can see that the bottom of clouds are often more FLAT, and the top of clouds are often more bulbous / bumpy:

At the same time, we need to be creative. Because, the more pictures I look at of clouds, the more I see how random they can be! Some examples:

Bulbous clouds, that fee very bouncy (my favourite to draw):

Whispy clouds:

Solids, very thick layers of clouds, full of texted bumps:

Lets explore how to draw these shapes. Take your favourite brush or pen from Clip Studio, and follow along these shapes.

 

WHISPY CLOUDS (Cirrus clouds)

 

Whispy clouds are fairly easy. Use reference, and make your lines all draw in the same direction. Remember to connect the shapes and think about composition. Instead of doing linework, you could also go straight in a paint the shapes on the layer:

BULBOUS CLOUDS (Mammatus Clouds)

 

Bulbous clouds, technically called mammatus clouds, are fun to draw. Remember that the top sections will be bumpy, and the lower sections of the clouds will be flatter, or softer.

 

The clours can also connect together to make larger bodies of cloud.

 

To create simple clouds, first draw the linework:

Then fill with different shades of white:

SOLID THICK CLOUDS (Stratus Clouds)

 

Solid, thick layers of clouds should be thought of as a large quilt or blanket, stretching out over the sky.

 

Parts of the cloud can connect and disconnect, but the basic shape should be heavy, connected cloud bodies.

STYLISED CLOUDS

 

Now we have covered natural clouds, we can experiment with stylized clouds!

 

In my below example, I have exaggerated the bulbous shapes to create fun, interesting feel to my clouds. I focused on layering the clouds, and using shadows to define where each cloud was, some in front of others, some overlapping:

Clouds can be in any shape you want them to be.

Flat:

Ball-shaped small clouds:

Tall and Skinny:

Those are just a few examples, but clouds can be almost any shape you want, as long as they still look soft and fluffy in some way!

 

I hope that gives you some ideas for your future work, and has given you some guidelines to play with and some rules to break! Next we move onto Stars, and fantastical elements in the sky.

Stars and effects

If you are illustrating a night sky or a late evening sky, you will be able to see stars, and even planets (if we exaggerate a little bit).

 

 

AIRBRUSH / DROPLET BRUSH

 

The easy say to create star effect is to use the spray brush, as per below.

 

First set your Primary colour to White, then select the Droplet brush from the Spray brushes presets, and adjust the tool as per below:

Then paint in your stars carefully, using the Droplet brush tool. A video of me doing so below:

OVERLAY SKIES

 

Another more realistic way of creating a starry night, is to use a reference image, import it and set it to overlay as per below. This gives a nice, realistic effect.

 

First find a nice space image from a royalty free website, like the photo below:

Import the layer and position it over your sky:

Set the layer to overlay, or Add, or Add (Glow), or whatever setting suits your specific sky:

Lower the opacity a little if you need to, and you should have a nice result like the below:

HAND-PAINTED SKIES

 

Finally you can draw your own stars on a night sky.

 

Create a new layer, and carefully draw dots, some close to each other, some father away from each other. Remember to vary the size of your brush:

Once you have painted in your stars, apply a bit of blur th the layer you have painted them on:

Set the layer to Colour Dodge, and lower the opacity slightly:

And you should have a nice result, like the below:

LARGE STYLIZED STARS

 

You can also do more stylized stars like the below.

1. Use a hard brush to draw a bright yellow line

2. fill the shape the same bright yellow, or with a slightly darker yellow for emphasis.

THE EFFECT OF THE SKY ON YOUR SUBJECT

 

It's important to note that the colour of the sky will effect your subject matter. In the first example, the subject is on a fine clear day background, so the colours are affected by the blue sky, so quite blue:

In the second example, the sky is twilight, and the tones of the subject are desaturated:

But in an early night sky where the sun is just on the horizon, the sky has deepened the gold tones and the values of the subject are darker:

In summary, don't forget that the colour and brightness of your sky will drastically affect your subject matter. But have fun with it!

Conclusion

The sky is above us at all times, but how many times in our life for we actually look up and obsevere the beauty above us?

 

In illustration, the sky is not just a background. it defines mood, emotion and created dynamic. I hope this tutorial has helped you explore some ways the sky can be painted, and use to great advantage in your illustrations!

I hope you enjoyed this (long) tutorial!

 

And don't forget to click 'LIKE'!