Using a simple scale converted into an image material and a perspective ruler, I will easily draw stairs and the surrounding space.

First, practice. I'll draw stairs for a girl about 160 cm tall to descend from her current position.

 

The height difference I want to descend by eye is about 90 centimeters. Since the height of one step in a typical Japanese house is 20-22 cm, about four steps should be just right.

 

*Normally, for stairs with about 4 steps, drawing with diagonal division might be faster, but here, for convenience, I will start with a simple drawing.

① Create a simple scale for drawing stairs. Display a grid on a new layer, snap to the grid, and draw a line divided into 4 segments. As long as they are equally spaced, the size of the tick marks can be approximate. Convert the drawn tick marks into a material using Layer Conversion -> Image Material Layer.

The materialized scale can be freely resized and placed anywhere on the screen.

② Create a perspective ruler to match the screen where you want to draw the stairs. This time, it's two-point perspective.

From where the character you want to descend the stairs is standing, roughly draw a box large enough to contain the stairs. An approximate eye measurement is fine.

 

③ Temporarily turn off perspective ruler snapping and draw diagonals on the sides of the drawn box with the straight line tool.

 

④ Adjust the size of the scale created in ① and align it with the position in the diagram. (I've changed the layer color to red for clarity.)

⑤ Snap to the perspective ruler again. Draw lines on the side of the box using the scale as a guide.

 

⑥ Temporarily turn off perspective ruler snapping again and draw diagonals on the opposite side.

Snap to the perspective ruler and draw lines from each intersection of the diagonals and dividing lines on the previously divided face to the diagonal on the opposite side.

Organize the lines for now.

It sounds a bit complicated to explain in words, but if you've created a slope with contour lines like this, you've succeeded so far.

⑦ After that, use the slope lines as a reference and roughly draw the steps with the perspective ruler. This stage is quick if you use a vector layer and an eraser up to the intersections.

Erase unnecessary lines, and you have natural-looking stairs. You can draw one-point perspective stairs using the same method.

Once you get used to the series of steps, drawing stairs with any number of steps should become very easy. Here, I've drawn a four-step staircase for now, but once you create a scale, you can draw stairs with any desired number of steps. This method can also be applied to grand staircases or stairs that change direction midway, which might be a bit troublesome to calculate by division.

You can draw stairs in one-point or two-point perspective spaces almost freely. This method is suitable for intuitively drawing stairs needed for characters, so try changing the number of steps, or placing characters of equal height in the space, and practice.

Using the same perspective ruler, I've drawn a rough sketch, including the surrounding space, starting from the maid who was just about to descend the stairs. As you get a feel for the space, you'll be able to sketch this much more quickly.

In the application section, let's consider a slightly more complex space.

Let's set the height of the character in the space to about 160 cm, and the distance to the second floor to about 3 meters. Assuming each stair step is 20 centimeters, 15 steps are needed to reach the second floor, so create a scale divided into 15 segments and make it an image material.

 

Place it on the screen and create a perspective ruler to establish the initial layout. This is a space with stairs that follow the room's wall and change direction at a landing.

This is a rough sketch of a corner of a library, drawn quickly with a perspective ruler, using the initial layout as a reference.

 

After creating the scale and getting used to it, I suppose it would take less than an hour to reach this point.

When you can draw appropriate stairs for a character, you'll feel a sense of accomplishment, and drawing backgrounds will become much more enjoyable. Let's do our best!

↑ Here's how to set up an appropriate perspective ruler based on a character; please refer to it as well.