Introduction

Weather is the state of the atmosphere in a certain location and time. Weather is periodically short and the place where it happens usually only covers a relatively small area. The condition of weather can be drastically different in certain locations. For example, it might be raining in a city but its suburban area might have a clear sunny day.

 

The type of weather is influenced by the temperature, humidity, precipitation, and other conditions of the atmosphere itself. Any slight changes in those elements can change the weather in a relatively short time. A certain rainy weather in the morning may turn into a sunny weather later in the afternoon and vice versa because of those changes.

 

Since the atmosphere is synonymous with the outdoor, we can say that weather is the same. Weather conditions almost always need to be included when depicting any outdoor scenes but, what about indoor scenes? What if you want to tell the viewer the behaviour of a certain character inside a classroom when it's raining outside? Or what if you want to create a contrast between a warm living room with the cold snowy day on a winter season? There are plenty of reasons why we may want to include weather conditions even in indoor scenes.

 

With that in mind, in this tutorial, we will try to explore how to depict weather so that it can be used to add certain mood to any indoor scene that you want to illustrate. We will be using default brushes in CLIP STUDIO PAINT as well as brushes from CLIP STUDIO ASSETS. Let's begin!

Preparation

There are many types of weather conditions but in this tutorial, we are going to focus on three common but very distinct types of weather: sunny, rainy, and snowy weather. We can paint some of the other weather in between them such as cloudy weather, which can be the transition between sunny and rainy weather.

 

Before we can start sketching, we need to identify two important requirements first for depicting weather for any indoor scenes. To be able to depict weather for any indoor scenes, we will need:

 

1. At least an opening to the outside environment, using windows, doors, or other elements, to give the viewer the information of the weather condition itself. This may sound obvious but unless the viewer already had clues about the weather conditions before (such as in animations, where the weather might be depicted by an audio or by a previous outdoor scene), it would be almost impossible to tell about them without any openings to the outside environment.

 

2. Specific color and lighting conditions in order to be able to convey the intended mood caused by the weather.

 

For the first requirement, we will be using a window for the opening to the outside environment. You can use other elements such as doors or maybe and open walls if you like. Feel free to experiment what's best for your illustration.

 

For the color and lighting conditions, we will be using colored lights and colored shadows. This will be explained below.

 

Maybe you've heard the term "warm light cool shadows" and "cool light warm shadows". It's commonly understood as a warm-looking source of light will cast cool-looking shadows and a cool-looking source of light will cast warm-looking shadows.

 

You can try to observe this phenomenon outside on a sunny day or rainy day. The sun on a sunny day will cast cool shadows on the ground because the sun itself is a warm-looking source of light. When it's raining, the sun is blocked by rain clouds and generally, the light coming from it is a cool-looking source of light. This will cause the cast shadows to look warm relatively to the surrounding lights.

 

Although the concept is not absolute, we can use it in this tutorial as it's a very good method for conveying the mood from any type of weather for any indoor scene.

Sketching the Indoor Scene

Let's begin by creating a new document. We will be using a 2000x2000 px 72 dpi document. It's called square format and it's quite good for a neutral-looking illustration. You can also use it for presenting your art fully on social media because it won't got cropped.

 

We will start by sketching the room interior. The concept of the room is simple: it is a reading/relaxing room filled with a lot of books. Inside the room, there will be a medium-sized window for depicting the weather, bookshelves and a cabinet, and a sofa for relaxing and reading.

 

You can use 3D primitives/3D objects to build the room interior or you can draw it manually. Since I've covered how to build a complicated object using 3D primitives on my previous tutorial, we will be drawing it manually by using good old perspective ruler. That doesn't mean we can't use 3D primitives to help us as shown next.

 

There is a nice trick we can use to create a perspective ruler without manually setting it. If you drag & drop a 3D primitive on a canvas, you might notice that it will automatically create a new perspective ruler on the newly created 3D Layer.

It is disabled by default but you can enable it on [Layer Property] palette using [Set ruler range].

If you move the camera on the 3D layer, the perspective ruler will automatically match the 3D primitives on that layer. This is a time-saver since setting the perspective ruler is much simpler using this trick.

You can use any 3D primitives to do this but I recommend using a cube since you can see its three-sides at the same time.

 

By using this trick, we can now set the perspective ruler for the illustration. Using rule of thirds, we can position the horizon line of the perspective ruler in the bottom-third. This is done so that we can focus on the sky where the weather is happening.

Next, we can disable the grid (click the ruler icon first by using [Object] on [Operation] sub tool) and hide the cube (click the 3D layer thumbnail by using the same sub tool) by disabling the visibility option [Sub tool detail] palette (the wrench icon on [Tool property] palette).

After that, we can put the 3D layer on a new layer folder (sketch layer folder) for better organization and set the ruler to [Show on All Layers]. We can also lock the 3D layer so that it won't accidentally get changed. Don't forget to enable [Snap to Special ruler] on [View] menu before drawing.

To begin, first we can sketch the window as the opening to the outside environment. You can use any brush you like to do the sketch (I used [Chalk] brush with 6 px size).

 

Here, I chose a medium-sized window and positioned it on the upper-left third of the canvas.

Next, we will try to direct the eye of the viewer to the window opening by using indoor elements. Here, I used a cabinet with books on top of it and a plank shelf above the cabinet. You can try using other indoor elements if you like.

After, that we can sketch more details like a sofa and a wall skirt on the canvas.

After that, we will try to stop the eye of the viewer from wandering too far to the right side of the canvas by adding a tall bookshelf there. This is done to give the window opening more attention as it will be our main focus for the illustration.

I added a decorative plant on the window sill to liven up the room since it felt a bit too bare. Feel free to add more indoor elements you like so long as it doesn't take the main focus on the window opening.

Finally, we can add an outdoor element for the outside environment. I added a basic tree for this but you can add more outdoor elements if you like. While it might look simple, it is quite effective to depict the weather as we will see later on the next steps of this tutorial.

The sketch is now finished.

Creating the Lineart, Flat Coloring, and Basic Rendering

For the lineart, we will be using vector layers and [Milli pen] with 6 px size.

 

First, let's create a new layer folder (lineart folder) above the sketch folder and then create a new vector layer inside it. Set the sketch folder to light blue after that using [Change layer color] and reduce its opacity to 30%.

Next, we can draw the lineart on the vector layer by referencing the sketch below it. Use [Vector] eraser to erase unneeded lines.

You might notice that I didn't draw the lineart for the plants. It is because we will be painting them using specific brushes later on the next step.

 

Here is the final lineart with the sketch and perspective ruler turned off.

Next, we can use [Refer other layers] sub tool on [Fill] tool category to do the flat coloring. Enable [Refer multiple] option and set it to "Reference layer" first.

 

Before filling out the color, we can set the lineart as the reference layer for flat coloring later. This is one reason why we were drawing the lineart in the first place, it is really useful to define the boundary for the flat coloring process.

After that, we can create a new flat-color layer folder below the lineart folder. You can fill the color on a single raster layer or multiple raster layers. I used multiple raster layers so that I can adjust the color if needed.

 

Since the main focus is the window where the weather happens, we need to choose the color of the interior that won't catch too much attention while also still providing support for the main focus. Here, I used a fairly neutral color (mainly browns, except for the wall and the books since they need some variation) for all the interior elements.

After finishing the flat coloring, we can now begin to do a basic rendering of the interior.

 

First, we will add textures to the wooden elements. We will use this amazing wooden texture brush on CLIP STUDIO ASSETS.

 

 

Create a new raster layer above the wooden fill color and set it to "Clip to layer below". Paint the texture along the directions of the wooden elements and set the layer opacity to 65% for the window frame and 54% for the bookshelf and the cabinet. Use a brush size that is not too huge for this.

After adding the wooden texture, we can add more details to the books since they look too plain.

Next, we can create a new layer folder for the shadow and lighting above the lineart folder. Set it to "Through".

 

We can figure out that the main shadow will be casted mainly on the opposing side from the main light source (the window). By using [Refer other layers] Fill subtool and [Soft] airbrush subtool, we can fill out the shadow on a new raster layer inside the shadow folder. Use neutral 70% gray for the shadow itself and set the layer to "Multiply".

Next, we can add a shadow gradient vertically on the walls, the bookhelf, and the cabinet using [Foreground to Transparent] Gradient subtool on a new raster layer. This is done to add more realism to the interior.

 

Before adding the gradient, set the layer to "Multiply" first and the opacity to 70%. After that, create a layer mask on it and mask all the elements (except described above) using the same [Refer other layers] Fill subtool. You can set the color to transparent and erase/fill the elements using the subtool.

After that, we will add an ambient occlusion (AO) effect on the room. Ambient occlusion is basically soft shadows that happen on the surface where ambient lights can't reach. It's commonly used in modern 3D renderings to give them more realistic look.

 

To add the ambient occlusion effect, we can duplicate the lineart layer and rasterize it first. Then, we can blur the rasterized layer using [Filter]→[Gaussian blur] with value set to "10".

After that, we can lower the opacity the blurred lineart layer to 35% and the original lineart layer to 15%.

To make the effect stronger, we can add more ambient occlussion effects on top of the blurred lineart layer by painting it using [Soft] airbrush. Here, I painted the effect on the area where the ambient lights supposedly can't reach. After, that I set its opacity to 60%.

With that, the basic rendering of the room is now complete and we can move on to the next step of painting the weather.

Depicting the Weather: Sunny Weather

Before beginning to paint the weather, let's establish the layer folder structure first for better organization. The structure of the layer folder is as follows:

1. Decorative plant folder (To paint the decorative plant since its properties will be different for each weather. It is also positioned on the topmost to not interfere with the lineart.)

2. Glow folder (To paint the lighting effect for the interior based on each weather. We will be using the colored lights colored shadows concept as described in the preparation step.)

3. Lineart (and ambient occlussion effects) folder

4. Weather folder (To paint the weather itself. We can put all layers related to it such as the sky, the clouds, and the outside tree inside this folder.)

5. Base light and shadows folder (To add base light and shadow according to each type of weather. We will also be using the colored lights colored shadows concept here. It is also used on the previous rendering step.)

6. Flat color folder

7. Perspective ruler and sketch folder

 

Set all the layer folder mode to "Through" except for plants, flat color, and perspective ruler/sketch folder. Also, create a mask for the weather folder and mask all except for the opening on the window. I used the same [Refer other layers] Fill subtool with color set to transparent to do this.

 

This layer folder structure will be used for rendering all types of weather in this tutorial.

 

We will try to depict the sunny weather for the interior as the header suggest in this section. Here are the colors I used for this section of this tutorial.

First, create a new raster layer inside the weather layer folder and fill the layer with the sky color.

After that, we can add a white gradient below and a darker blue gradient above the sky. Add them on different raster layers and then set the white gradient layer opacity to 60%.

Next, we can paint the faraway clouds using [Clouds] brush using white color. You can also leave it without clouds to depict a cloudless sky on a very hot sunny day.

After that, we can paint the tree that is on the outside environment. To do that, we can use this awesome tree branch brush on CLIP STUDIO ASSETS.

 

 

To paint the tree, we will start by making its basic structure first. We will separate the branches and the leaves on different layers. This separation will be useful when we paint one specific type of weather later.

 

Paint the main trunk first in a raster layer inside the weather layer folder and then continue adding branches and smaller branches using black color.

After finished painting the basic structure, we can make it more jaggy looking and natural by using [Filter]→[Correction]→[Adjust line width]. Set it to [Narrow] and its value to "2.00".

Next, we can paint the leaves using [Leaves] brush. I turned off the [Change brush tip color] on [Color Jitter] option on the [Sub Tool Detail] first. After that, I used the colors described before (shadows, midtones, and highlights) to paint them.

 

Start with the shadows first to create the base silhouette. After that, add the midtones sparsely on the leaves that are struck with the sun light.

Finally, paint the highlights above the midtones and set its layer opacity to 85%.

We can also paint the decorative plant with the same brush. Here, I didn't paint the highlights since we can add them later using a glow layer.

The tree and the decorative plant can be reused later when we depict the other weather types.

 

After painting the plants, we can add white tints to the glass portion of the window so that it won't look glassless.

Next, we can paint the colored lights and colored shadows to the illustration.

 

For sunny weather, we can use "warm lights cool shadows" concept since the sun light coming through the window is warm-looking. This means we will need to use cool-looking shadow to complement it.

 

Let's add colored shadows first. Create a new layer inside the base light and shadows folder and set it to "Multiply". Position it above the base rendering shadow layer.

 

We will use dark blue for the cool shadows. Set the layer opacity to 70% and fill the layer with the color. This will cause the interior to look cooler because the blue tint of the shadow.

Next, we will add a very light interior lighting on mainly on the parts that are supposedly struck with lighting from the outside environment. Paint it using a saturated light orange color on a new raster layer inside the base light and shadows folder and set it to "Glow dodge". Adjust the opacity to 50~70% for the raster layer. I used a layer folder for this instead a single raster layer since I wanted to be flexible with the adjustment.

After that, we can add glowing lights on the window for increased effect. Paint this using the same color on a new raster layer inside the glow folder and set it to "Add (Glow)" with 10% opacity. Also, paint the glowing light on the decorative plant with the same "Add (Glow)" layer setting but in 15% opacity.

You can leave it like this to make an impression of a overcast sunny day or you can paint the lights coming through the window for an impression of a late afternoon in a sunny day.

 

To do that, turn off the overcast glow light layer first. After that, paint the stronger lights using [Soft] airbrush with "Hardness" set to maximum and paint it on the area where you want the sun rays struck. Paint this on a new raster layer set to "Add (Glow)" and opacity to 45%. Then, increase the opacity of the glow layer on the decorative plant to 40%.

Next, we can add stronger glowing effects to complement the stronger lights. Create two new raster layers above the strong lights layer. Set the first layer to "Add (Glow)" and its opacity to 10%. Paint the glowing lights from the window using a more saturated light orange.

Set the second layer to "Glow dodge" and its opacity to 45%. Paint the lights on the window frame. This will create a stronger glow effect on it since it's supposedly closer to the light source.

Here is the final layer arrangement of this section of this tutorial.

The sunny day room illustration is now complete.

Depicting the Weather: Rainy Weather

In this section, we will try to depict rainy weather for the interior. We will begin from depicting cloudy weather first and then transitioning into rainy weather. Finally we will try to depict a thunderstorm by transitioning from rainy weather. Here are the colors I used in this section.

For rainy weather, we can begin by creating a new raster layer for the sky. Put the layer inside weather folder and fill it with gray color. I recommend choosing a bluish gray color for this.

After that, we can paint the heavier dark rain clouds on a new raster layer above the sky layer using [Cloud] brush. Use very dark gray to paint them here. Also, it's important to still follow the perspective projection here (you can use the previously made perspective ruler) otherwise the clouds will look too flat.

Next, we can add lighter clouds above the dark clouds. Paint them using a very light gray.

After that, we can reuse the tree made on the previous section. Since the original color doesn't match the mood here, we need to adjust its color to a colder bluish-green color scheme by using a [Hue-Saturation-Lightness] Correction layer. You can also change the color directly using [Edit]→[Convert to drawing color] and use the colors described in the beginning of this section.

We also need to adjust the decorative plant colors here by using [Hue-Saturation-Lightness] Tonal correction (or a correction layer if you like).

Once you've done that, we can add the base lighting and shadow colors. We can use the same layers created on the sunny weather step and adjust either by changing their colors directly or use [Hue/Saturation/Luminosity] on [Edit]→[Tonal Correction] menu.

 

Since we're painting the rainy weather, we can use the "cool light warm shadows" concept. Instead of using warm-colored lights, we will be using cool-colored lights. And also, instead of using cool-colored shadows, we will be using warm-colored shadows.

 

To do this, we will need to change the color of the base shadow to dark brown and adjust its layer opacity to 85%. You can reuse the shadow layer from the sunny weather section and change its color using [Edit]→[Convert to drawing color]. Once done, it will cause the interior to look warmer because of the brown tint of the shadow.

For the interior lighting, we need to change its color to very light blue. Use the color described on the beginning or use a [Hue-Saturation-Lightness] Correction layer for this. I also adjusted the opacity of the layer folder and the layers inside it to match the shadow.

After adding back the window tint, you can finish here for the impression of a cloudy day.

To add the raining effect, we will be using the manual method to create the rain since it's very simple.

 

To do this, you can create a new raster layer on the weather folder and paint the rain drops by using [Spray] airbrush with white color.

After that, we can use [Motion blur] on [Filter]→[Blur] menu. Set the [Strength] to "9.00" and [Angle] to -88°. I duplicated the resulting layer to make the rain look more opaque.

Next, we can add the rain mist on the tree. To do this, we can use [Soft] airbrush and paint it on the area that is hit by the rain. Use white for this and then adjust the layer opacity to ~45%.

To increase the effect, we can add raindrops on the window glass. We can use this very good brush on the CLIP STUDIO ASSETS to paint them.

Paint them using small size brush and spread it on the glass. Add more raindrops on the bottom of the glass since it is probably the most exposed part to the rain.

After adding them, we can add a fog effect on the window simply filling a new raster layer with 90% gray and adjust its layer opacity to 35%. Put the layer above the raindrops layer.

Next, we can add glowing light effect on the window and the surrounding room interior. Paint it using main glow color and set the layer mode to "Add (Glow)" and opacity to 32%. I also masked the layer on the window opening part since we will add another glow effect using different color.

After that, we can add the impression of a far away lightning by adding more glowing light effect. This time, I used a more saturated blue instead of light blue for the glowing light. I also set the layer mode to "Add (Glow)" and opacity to 15%. You can finish here for a basic rainy weather.

To transform the weather into a thunderstorm, we can add a depiction of a lightning struck by using this very good brush.

 

 

We can paint the leader of the lightning first then add the branches along the leader using white. Try to make it look naturally occuring here.

After that, we can duplicate the lightning and blur it using [Filter]→[Gaussian blur] by "8.00" value. Move the layer to the bottom and set it to [Glow dodge].

Next, we can enchance the lightning effect by adding the plasma clouds surrounding it. Use [Soft] airbrush and paint using saturated light blue along the lightning leader and the branches on a new layer below the blurred lightning layer. Set it to "Add (Glow)" and opacity to 40%.

Since the glowing light looks too weak, we can increase the layer opacity to make it look stronger. Set the main glow layer opacity to 50% and the additional glow layer opacity to 45%.

After that, we can increase the colored shadow value to 85% to give the lightning effect more focus.

Here is the final layer arrangement of this section of this tutorial.

The cold rainy day room illustration is now complete.

Depicting the Weather: Snowy Weather

For the final section of this tutorial, we will try to depict snowy weather. We will try to depict a cold snowy day room first and then a warm snowy day room by adding light effects. Here are the colors I used for this section of this tutorial.

For snowy weather, first we can create a new raster layer for the sky and fill it with bluish light gray color.

Since the clouds in snowy weather can look very uniform, we can skip painting the clouds here and just rely on the sky color for the weather effect.

 

Next, we can also reuse the tree from the sunny weather section but now we will hide the leaves layer and just use the trunk and the branches. The trunk alone will give the impression of a tree that has lost its leaves which commonly happens in a winter season. This is the main reason why we painted the leaves and the trunk in separate layers before.

After that, we can paint the snow on the tree branches. We can use [Crayon] brush using white color to do this. It's surprisingly good for depicting the unevenly fallen snow on the tree branches.

For added effect, we can adjust the decorative plant types. Here I changed the decorative plant into a small pine using this very nice brush from CLIP STUDIO ASSETS.

 

 

Paint the small pine using bluish-green with very low saturation.

After that, we can paint the falling snow using this amazing brush from CLIP STUDIO ASSETS.

 

 

Paint the snow sparsely to make it look like naturally falling from the sky. I used the "Simple snow" brush (シンプル雪) from it using white color.

After enabling the window tint we've painted on the previous section, we can then paint the fog on the glass using the same snow brush and also with [Soft] airbrush. You can adjust the snow brush so that the particles have less spacing. Erase some of the fog by setting the color to transparent.

After that, we can paint the piled-up snow on the outside part of the window sill.

For the the base lighting and shadow colors, we can use the exact same "cool lights warm shadows" concept as the rainy weather one.

For the glow effects, we can use a purplish-blue color to complement the shadow color. The purplish color will complement the white color of the snow nicely instead of light blue.

 

Set the layer mode to "Add (Glow)" and opacity to 50% and paint the effects using [Soft] airbrush. I also masked the window opening so that the glow effects is only shown on the interior.

You can finish it here for the impression of a cold snowy day.

 

To turn it into a warm snowy day, we can paint additional lights on the interior. We can add a yellow tint on the interior first. After that, we can paint the lights on the ceiling for the impression of an interior lighting.

 

Create a new raster layer below the main glow effect and set its mode to "Glow dodge" and opacity to 30%. Fill the layer with main indoor lights yellow tint. After that, create another raster layer below it and also set its mode to "Glow dodge" and opacity to 90%. Paint the interior lighting using [Soft] airbrush using very light touch on the part of the interior that is struck with the lights. Make sure to not overdo it here otherwise the lights would look too saturated.

Here is the final layer arrangement of this section of this tutorial.

With that, the snowy day room illustration is now complete.

Afterword

I hope this tutorial is useful and you can learn something new from it to use on your next illustration project. Thank you for reading!