Hi!

 

I have a small intro tutorial on drawing Food Illustration. I’m not an expert at drawing foods, I rarely draw foods nowadays, but here’s what I do when I used to make food illustrations. From preparations, to the process and even the shading! But the one thing that brings everything together is the rendering! I'll be showing you guys how I render and all of the final touches I do to finish the drawing!

 

This is just a small introduction to food illustration, but I hope it’s useful!

 

Video is right here:

 

Brian will be doing my TTS (Text-to speech) because I got shy. uwu.

It’s already timestamped. It's actually pretty short, the speedpaint at the end just made it seem long.

The video is more on for entertainment, basically saying the same things that's on here, but you can hear Brian and my thoughts as I color!

 

Okay! Let’s start!

Prep. 1. What do you want to draw?

Like seriously. Think first of what do you want to draw. When you’ve decided, do some research on that food; shape, colors, toppings, etc. Researching is key! Always research! It’s not cheating. You should never be ashamed that you’re researching.

 

For this example (video), we'll go for Ramen!

Prep. 2. Perspective

This is where we start! At what angle do you want to draw your food illustration? There’s three (3) angle you can choose from; Overhead, ¾ Angle, and Straight-On

 

• Overhead | From Above – is good for capturing details and scenes - good for telling a story. Good for minimalist style!

 

• 3/4 Angle - is good for showing off the dish, details, and also the environment. Quite complicated when you're drawing this, because you have to focus on the angles - making sure it's accurate. This angle is pretty popular anywhere, especially in food photography and game art

 

• Straight-On | Side view - is good for big/tall foods; foods that you want 'to look tall', like foods that stacks, ie. pancakes, burgers, etc. Or even transparent foods/things, like a glass tea cup.

 

Prep. 3. Remember the 3 “S”

I always take note this 3 "S" when doing food illustrations; Size, Shape, Structure

 

• Size - if you want something cute and simple; you go for something small and chubby. If you want something serious, then the normal size it is.

-------- something small is good for stickers, icon, cute game art

-------- something serious is good for illustrations, also for game art

 

 

• Shape - start off by placing shapes as your layout. Technically, you're making silhouette, now polish that shape and can you recognize the food? This is also the part where you focus on the arrangement / layout of your food. Like you will start deciding what's on top, bottom, 'should I put this here?', 'what else can I put here so that it doesn't look an empty space?' etc.

 

• Structure - This is like knowing the texture of the food. Ex. Fried foods will have that rocky/edgy lines because they're crunchy whilst pudding will have smooth lines because they're soft foods.

 

Okay! Now we start the setup of our drawing

 

Set up: Canvas

Just set up your canvas; on the example; I used 1600 x 1600 at 200 dpi cause my hardware is not that strong, but if you have a heavy duty PC; go all out and go 2k pixels at 300 dpi.

You do have to remember that, setting up a big canvas means you have the intention on working on the details.

 

Big canvas + High Resolution is good for doing details and print. Since this is just a personal drawing, I went small and that's fine with me.

Set up: Line art

I’m just using the default pencil brushes on Clip Studio. On this example, I want to draw something serious so I made my lines thin.

 

♦If you’re aiming for something cute and fun, go thick lines or even no lines.

 

I didn't use any Shapes/Vector/Rulers for this because I love the imperfect strokes and gives off a more natural look for the serious vibe that I'm aiming.

 

♦ If you are going for something cute and fun- you can use Vector/Rulers

Set up: Base Colors

Okay! Now for the Base Colors, I separate the base colors PER ELEMENTS; example, Bowl is a separate layer, egg is on another, etc. Did you remember the 3 “S” that I mentioned; especially on SHAPE? On that part, you arrange/did a layout of your food sketch, and we make use of that here. The arrangement is that:

I did the base color for the bottom first; which is the bowl

 

Then I went to the one at the very top going down; egg, fishcake, green onions, kikurage, meat, noodles, and seaweed.

 

Then I added the base color for the soup at the very top; this is above the lineart! Because, I don’t want to erase any line art and technically; the soup can be above or below the main objects – this is when I make use of the Blending brush and Pen pressure, to make is seem like the “soup” is see-through .

 

♦ Naming your layers and grouping them is good practice for organizing your Layer Tab!

SHADING

------------------------------------------------♦ MAIN SHADOW

 

From the word itself, this would be your MAIN Shadow.

 

• I start with a New layer > Blending Mode > Multiply. Then just get any brush you want, pick ANY light greyish color > and just start applying the shadow. Then hit CTRL + shift + U / Hue and Saturation and just change the color that you see will blend with the base color

 

 

------ If the texture of the food is smooth – then go use a blending brush to make a smooth shadow

------ If the texture of the food is hard/crunchy – do not blend.

------ If the texture of the food is 'textured'; ie. bumpy, rocky, edgy - mimic those bumps and basically take advantage of the pen pressure. Parts near the shadow area get hard strokes, parts near the light area get light strokes.

 

 

------------------------------------------------♦ Detail Shadow *

 

This is optional! This is basically creating an ambient occlusion or a small detailed but sharp shadows for your drawings.

 

• New layer > Blending Mode on MULTIPLY. Just use the same color as before and on here, like I said, just make those detailed shadows. Make shadows that would help you define the shape and depth of the object. Use Hue and Saturation to edit those colors, to help if blend more with the other elements.

 

 

• Again, THIS IS OPTIONAL. Because not everything needed an ambient occlusion! Not everything needed a detailing! I mostly use this if I feel like the shadow is too flat.

 

 

------------------------------------------------♦ Shadow Support

 

This is like making a gradient shadow, BUT not using the gradient tool. Make your own!

 

• New layer > Blending Mode on MULTIPLY. Get any brush, get any color, heck even the same color as before. Make some small points/line at the opposite side of the light area > then grab a BLENDING BRUSH and blend those upwards! Change the HUE and Saturation to match the other colors!

 

• The purpose of this layer is to add depth – to add a SHADOW SUPPORT!

 

• WARNING! Doing Shadow support is expensive on your hardware. This computes a lot and takes a lot of RAM, depending on how big your canvas is and your DPI, just take caution when using this. If you wanna ‘reload’ your RAM memory, I usually stay idle for awhile or even restart the program altogether.

 

 

------------------------------------------------♦ Glow Support

 

This is the same as Shadow support but this time, we focus on lights rather than shadows.

 

• Make a New Layer > Blending Mode on OVERLAY. Get any brush, this time, pick a lighter color, just not white! > Make some points /lines but this time, at the area where the light is > then get a Blending Brush and blend that downwards. If you don’t think the colors fit, CTRL + SHIFT + U; and edit !

 

------------------------------------------------♦ Main Glow *

 

This part is also OPTIONAL! Because not all foods SHINE. Okay!

 

• Make a New layer > Blending Mode on Overlay (or whatever light blend mode you want) > get any brush you fancy > pick a light color; but not WHITE! > then make lines/stroke that will act as your “Shine”. Remember to use Hue and saturation to change the color and luminosity.

 

• The tip on making Main Glow is that the same as of Detail Shadow, but focusing on the light. Because on Detail Shadow, you gave detail to the shape of the object on the SHADOWS. Now make strokes that will help you define the shape and the details but on the HIGHLIGHT area.

 

 

------------------------------------------------♦♦♦ WHY DIDN'T I USE THE RAMEN THAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT AS AN EXAMPLE?

• I want to show you guys my shading style first. Since the Ramen has a lot of elements on it, not all of the Shading Style will be used, because not everything shine, not everything needed a Detailed shadow; I believed that I only used all those five on the MEAT area.

 

The speedpaint for the RAMEN is on the video above and it shows how I distribute/use the Shading Style

 

This is how I shade, even on my anime/character drawings. Yes, it uses a lot of layers, if that is quite heavy on your hardware, you can combine some BASE COLORS onto One Layer, just make sure you separate or use a Wand Tool when you color.

 

• Again, the main purpose of this is to use HUE, Saturation and Luminosity and Blending Modes.

PLEASE! You gotta make and decide the colors yourself! You won’t know if you won’t try.

• Also, ALWAYS look at your Navigator! Always check the thumbnail and if possible, avoid zooming in too much unless you're doing major detailed stuffs

• If you have to color something that is WHITE, do NOT use the color white itself, at least use 5-10% grey. So that you can still have a chance to add glow when needed.

• Avoid using overly saturated colors. It's gonna exhaust your eyes fast and you can always increase the saturation on the final rendering.

 

 

Use any brushes that you want. I didn’t use any downloadable brushes on this tutorial, just the default Hard AirBrush, GPen (yes, for coloring), Gouache, and Opaque & Transparent Watercolor.

 

RENDERING - Lock Transparent Pixels

Okay!

 

Now that we're done coloring -- let's color the lines!

This is just a simple task and actually just a short one.

 

Make sure you're on the LINE ART LAYER > Lock the Transparent Pixels (button on the Layer tab) > then just grab any Coloring brush > Get a color darker than the shadows > Then just color the Lines!

 

This helps the line art and the colors blend more together.

 

*You can even get a different color, usually for fun and cute styles; Baby Blue, Light Pink and Soft Purples are the go to.

 

Feel free to experiment, the lines aren't going to disappear and you can always start over!

RENDERING - Gaussian Blur

Okay! Now add some final touches!

This is like a tone correction - kinda thing. Basically, we increase the contrast of the image but this effect give a more "Heavenly Feel" because of the Gaussian Blur.

 

♦ Merge the drawing layers onto a new layer – you can hide the drawing layers at this point > Now we have a (ONE) Main Drawing.

 

♦ Duplicate that > Click the duplicated Drawing > Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur

--- Blur it to the point that it’s blurred but you can still see the shape of the drawing > when you’re satisfied > Click OK.

 

♦ Now Click that Blurred Duplicate > Change the Blending Mode to SOFT LIGHT > Lower the opacity if the color is too strong > When you’re satisfied > Merge the both files / CTRL + E

Here's the Ramen Version:

Normal (Duplicated image) > Blurred (Duplicated Image) > Soft Light

♦ This is optional > Go to Edit > Smart Smoothing > Choose Strong > And your hardware -- I choose my video card because my motherboard is old. > Click OK.

----- This basically removes the pixel noise and makes it even more smooth

 

You can hit Hue and Saturation to change the saturation and colors even more. Please don't be ashamed to use Hue and saturation. No one is a god at color picking, okay?

 

RENDERING - Background Blending

*You can watch the speedpaint of this ramen on the video above the article.

** This is OPTIONAL! And only suited if you have a Background.

 

Okay, this is a simplified version of my Gradient Map Background Blending Tutorial.

 

Just make a new layer > Clip it to the Main Image > Grab the gradient tool > Get the darkest Color > make a gradient that mimics your shadow area > Set that on SOFT LIGHT > Adjust the Opacity if needed.

Then just do the same for the Highlight area.

Make a new layer > Clip it > Gradient Tool > Pick the Lightest color on the BG (not white) > Make a gradient that mimics your light > Set it as Soft Light > Adjust the Opacity if needed > And there we go.

 

Simplified version of my Background Blending.

This helps the image 'blend' with the background so that it won't look out of place and it doesn't kill the colors.

RENDERING - Correction Layer

You can use correction layers as well, Layer > New Correction Layer

*make sure you put this at the very top!

 

This gives the drawing a whole new vibe and makes everything feel more whole.

For the video example, I used Tone Curves, Posterization and Gradient Map.

 

(If you can't see the image properly; Right click Image > Open in New Tab)

Top Row; Left to Right : Normal | Posterization

Bottom Row; Left to Right : Tone Curves | Gradient Map

 

You can even combine Correction Layers, like the example below:

• Left: Posterization + Gradient Map

----------- gave off anime vibes

 

• Right: Tone Curves + Gradient Map

----------- personal choice; I love these kinds of tone, uwu

 

I made an Intro to Correction Layers; basically just explaining the adjustments and usage, it's here below:

DONE!

The amount of times I said that Hue and Saturation is your friend -- will make Hue and Saturation your ONLY friend.

 

Okay! That’s it!

I hope that’s helpful! I tried to make this user friendly without downloading any resources.

 

My deviantART is right here:

 

 

I use the same shading on ALL of my works! Yep! It’s the same shading~! Most of my drawing have 50+ layers and I can hear my RAM crying everytime but results are worth it.

 

Thanks for reading!!!