Ideas to try for this style

I am going to use this theme to draw something I wanted to try for quite a while now: an interior drawing in a one point perspective with lots of details. I've never done something like this before and I wanted to use this opportunity to challenge myself a bit.

 

Here are some other ideas I was playing around with that should work really well for an illustration like this:

 

-orthographic objects (you can find a grid online and use it as a guideline)

-single character illustration (no background)

-exterior design (in perspective but orthographic would also work well)

 

 

Setting up a perspective grid

The easiest way to set up a perspective grid in CSP is to add it via the "Layer Menu" in the top bar: go to "Layer" - "Ruler/Frame" - "Create Perspective Ruler..." like shown in the image below.

A window like this should pop up:

For now I need the one-point-grid. Also, I keep the "Create new layer"- box checked, since I don't like to draw on the grid layer.

Your canvas should look somewhat like this now (I'm using a 2000x2000px canvas):

 

By default the grid will appear in the middle of your canvas, placing the vanishing point in the middle as well. The blue line crossing this point is the horizontal line.

If you are unhappy with the placement of your grid you can select the object tool (shown below) and click on the lines of your grid. Little handles will appear, which you can use to adjust the grid to your liking.

 

As soon as you add a perspective grid, the lines should automatically snap to it when you draw. You can turn it off by hiding your grid layer, which is why I don't draw on this layer. Alternatively, you can turn it off by going to "view" in the top bar and disable "snap to special ruler". If there is no checkmark next to it you should be able to draw freely on the canvas.

If you prefer to turn off the snapping (but keep the grid layer visible), it might be a good idea to add some more guidelines. If you select the perspective ruler and go to the tool properties you are going to find the process menu. When you select "add guide" (as shown below), you can add guidelines that automatically follow your vanishing point. You add them by clicking and dragging.

 

 

If that doesn't work for some reason you can just draw some guidelines by hand and keep the snapping on while you do that.

I am going to keep the snapping on for now, it will make my sketching process faster and easier.

Laying out the base objects

I am going for a simple top down interior, so I am starting with a rectangle as the floor and four lines following the vanishing point outward from each corner. Connect the new lines with another rectangle and draw another, bigger one just around it and we have a room:

Now we block out all the bigger objects we want in this room, a window, a door some basic furniture - nothing to detailed yet and I'm not going to be super neat about it.

This step is for finding a good layout for this room.

Fitting the objects to the grid

This step might seem a little complicated at first, but since we already know the basic dimensions of the objects this is actually not very hard to do and I'll try my best to explain the process.

 

We are going to start with a simple object like the window:

We already have the shape and the base perspective.

Since we are looking down on the window we can see the lower part of the inset of the wall and at least one side.

You can follow these steps as shown in the image below.

We start by adding the windowsill (step 1). This is a surface we are directly looking down upon, so it's not affected by the perspective - with all surfaces like these, we only use horizontal and vertical lines.

We finish the inset by connecting the the outer corners to the upper part of the window by following the perspective grid (step 2).

From our point of view we can't see the upper inset of the window, which means you are basically done.

I know it can sound complicated in the beginning but the more you practice the easier it gets.

 

Now you can add some details by following the same three to four steps:

1. sketch the details with simple lines (step 3)

2. draw the surfaces that you can directly look down on (step 4)

3. connect the new corners to the upper line that blocks your view (step 5)

4. erase unnessecary lines (but keep in mind what you see and what you don't)

Of course this is not the most clean result but it should do as an example.

After you cleaned up some of the leftover or intersecting lines it should look somewhat like this:

 

The armchair is going to be a bit more difficult (the big block in front of the window). Keeping in mind that I am going for a bit of a vintage feel in this illustration this "first perspective blocking" of the chair is going to need a few adjustments later on.

Here is how I tackled fitting the chair to the grid:

 

I started with the back of the chair, uppermost surface first, then dragged down the lines of the front(1). I drew the upper surfaces of the two armrests connecting to these two lines(2). For the seat, I drew perspective lines going down from the inner cornersof the armrests and connected those with straight horizontal lines(3). The outer corners of the armrests lead to the lower end of the chair(4).

I marked the upwards facing surfaces in the image below, so there is no confusion, which points to connect.

Keep in mind that with this step you can already add in some details that are going to be helpful with the actual sketch. Be careful though to not initially overload your drawing with lots of details, it can be hard to keep track at some point. It might be helpful to zoom out regularly and check.

I made a few changes for my first perspective fitting along the way but the process remains the same.

Here are a few tips to that might be helpful:

 

-don't be afraid to use many layers if it helps you to keep track of all your lines

-don't be afraid to use many (messy) lines, you can always erase them later

-if you want to measure distances in the room you should use the floor plane to do so - it is the only unit in this room that is not distorted by perspective

-start with the room first, add details to the room and THEN move on to the furniture

 

This is what the sketch looked like before I cleaned it:

adding details

Small things don't need to perfectly fit the grid. Frames on the wall can be crooked for example, I will also add some stacked books and curtains.

Little details help to break up the monotony of a neatly fitted design.

Of course you are free to use the perspective grid for these little details as well. Personally, I like to mix freehand and perspective.

 

Some three dimensional objects like the wooden boards can be crooked, so I just added them as I saw fit and freestyled the fitting to the grid. Objects like the bookstacks, I do want to kind of fit to the grid, so I will draw some guidelines for them on a different layer:

This is also a good time to adjust the blocked out furniture. For the armchair I just rounded some of the edges while keeping in mind which surfaces face upwards.

When I'm happy with the interior I clean up the sketch again - I don't want to lose track of what I'm doing.

 

Adding characters

When I first pictured the final Illustration, I didn't think of characters in it, otherwise I would have added them in earlier in the process. Now however, I think characters would do nicely in this and I will make this a lot easier by using the 3D tool to drag and drop in the characters and poses you like (of course ,you can also use this tool to trace furniture or set up the whole room).

This is what the 3D material bar looks like. By default all preinstalled items, characters and poses should be stored in the 3D tab.

Make sure your character fits to your environment and your camera placement fits your point of view. With your 3D object selected, a variety of icons should pop up at the top of it, with which you can manipulate the camera placement, rotation and distance.

Somewhat like this:

This is my final sketch:

Feel free to make your sketch more detailed if you don't want to wing a lot of the actual outlines later. Speaking of which..

 

Lineart

Once you're happy with your sketch it's time to move on to the lineart.

Before I do this I move all my layers to a folder, select it and resize my sketch to better fit the canvas. Click on the icon shown below and a frame with handles on the outside should appear around your object. Click and drag the handles in each corner to resize your sketch.

Now trace the lines you like and in case your sketch, like mine, is not too detailed, add some details.

What I really like about this type of illustration is that the execution of your outlines doesn't really matter. Your strokes can be straight and confident or wobbly, thick or thin - it's going to work out nicely.

You can use whatever style you prefer or try something new.

For flat color illustrations you don't necessarily need outlines, skipping them and going straight to colouring (or deleting outlines later) can lead to really cool results.

If you do want to draw outlines it might be a good idea to do them tidily and thoroughly.

In most of my drawings I barely clean up my sketch and just paint over most of it but with flat colored illustrations that won't work very well.

Fixing some lose ends and filling in some holes in your linework can make your coloring process so much easier! (good luck finding all holes though...)

Focal point

This should be clear when you look at the name, but the focal point is the focus of the illustration. It's where you want the viewer to look.

It could be a certain aspect you want to highlight or, for larger illustrations it could be a specific part of a landscape or a scene that is playing out.

 

Here are a few very easy ways to direct your viewers' eyes:

-point at it (basically or literally)

-frame it

this is part of the reason I changed the window behind the character I want to highlight. The vertical window braces point toward my main character, and since I resized the window it kind of works as a frame. There are different types of compositions that incorporate framing as a major element in their set up.

 

-highlight with contrast

Theoretically this could mean all kinds of contrasts, details, colour or lighting etc.

Of course with a flat colour illustration we can't just use dramatic shading to push our main element into focus and since I am going for a rather monochromatic and detailed look to fit the vintage style, my options are a bit limited.

We are going to deal with this after we've settled on colours.

Choosing your colours

If you are not confident choosing a colour palette, there are a few helpful tricks you can try:

 

Trick 1: choose three base colours you'd like to use. One of them is going to be your strong colour (don't use it too much)

You can see in the example below how I started using the colours, adjusted and mixed them.

Trick 2: there are lots of free to use colour palettes online and I think they are great for getting a feel for what colours work well together.

I'm using one of my own colour palletes in this example but the principle remains the same.

Trick 2.1: There are a lot of online tools you can use to generate a colour palette, either from photos, randomly or with partial input. These tools are a great starting point for your colour palette or just to get an idea of what colour mood might work with your illustration.

Here are some pallettes I created that I think would fit my illustration:

Trick 3: use the colours you like, regardless if they work well together and adjust them afterwards. I think the easiest way to adjust colours if you are a beginner is to add a new layer, fill it with a colour of your liking, change the layer mode ("color" or "hue" work nicely) and adjust the opacity.

I tried to visualize this:

As you see in the example above I chose the shirt colour to do my adjustments. It will draw all the colours you used closer toward the colour you used and this will make the colours harmonize more. Keep in mind however, that depending on the colour you use, this method is going to mute your colours.

If you are going for strong hue or saturation contrasts you might want to use this method more sparingly.

Colouring

Since I am going for a vintage look and a bit of a gloomy atmosphere in my illustration, I am going to use earthy and muted colours in memory of the 70's.

As for the methods I am using a bit of a mixture of some of the above.

I start with a single coloured layer in a middle tone violet, on top of that I add the actual colouring layer but I lower the opacity to 70 % so the violet shines through a bit. This is closely related to trick 3.

I decided to use the colour palette I showed in trick 2 "70s vending machine". As the title suggests I was inspired by the 1970's for this palette so it already fits the theme.

I add some random colours in between to make the characters recognizeable (OCs) and I mix some of the colours but mostly I stick to the palette with no major changes.

I also think its helpful to adjust the brightness to draw attention to your chosen focal point.

We could of course achieve this by adding shading but a "vignette" will work nicely and push the less important parts of your drawing in the background.

 

Add a new layer first. With a dark colour of your choice and a soft brush go over these areas, smudge the colour around a bit until it's smooth. Erase the parts that hide important parts of your composition (with a soft eraser)

Lastly, adjust your layer mode to "brightness". That way your original colours will only be affected by the new layer in their brightness, not hue or saturation. Adjust the layer opacity if needed.

More details

This part is rather time consuming but I think it's a lot of fun. Adding details to your objects but only with colours. These details are unimportant for the composition so I won't use lineart to draw extra attention to them, but I think they add a lot of charm to an illustration and imply a history of what has happened in your scene.

Details I will add:

-wall details (wallpaper, cracks, stains and other signs of usage)

-paintings for the frames on the wall

-floor details (floorboards, stains, footprints)

-carpet details (patterns, signs of usage)

-fabric details (patterns on the curtains and clothes)

-book covers and details on the stray paper

 

For this level of detail its a good idea to ask yourself "what happened here?", "who lives here?", "how is this place being treated?"

 

Tips for colouring

The bucket tool:

-if your lineart is clean you can duplicate the lineart layer and fill in the empty spaces with the bucket tool

-if your lineart is not clean you can still use the bucket tool, you just have to draw the outline of the shape you want coloured first

 

Per default the bucket should only change the layer you currently have selected, if it doesn't make sure your sub tool is set to "refer only to editing layer".

When you use the bucket tool, make sure to check the "apply to connected pixels only" box, otherwise you are recolouring all areas of that colour. Also only use the bucket tool in the tool bar for this. The one in your file bar is going to fill your whole layer.

The selection tool:

-if you decide not to use linework in your illustration the selection tool can be a great way to save some time in your coloring process

-of course it is also a great tool if you have lineart in your artwork

There are different default shapes you can use via click and drag. For more complex shapes you can use the "lasso" or "polyline" tool. Usually the icon for the selection tool represents the sub tool you last used.

Does your illustration work in black and white?

This is a great way to check if your focal point draws the attention you want it to. Seeing your illustration in black and white allows you to focus on your composition without getting distracted by the colours.

There is an easy way to achieve this without permanently adjusting the colours via filters or tonal correction:

Add a new layer and fill it black or white, make sure this layer is above all the others. Now set the layer mode to "color" and done.

This trick comes in handy when you want to check your composition regularly while colouring because you can simply turn the layer on and off.

Colouring the lineart

I like to colour my lineart but this is more of a personal preference than a stilistic choice. It will make your illustration appear softer so keep that in mind.

 

Here are some variations of lineart colouring that I considered for this illustration:

-mono coloured lineart (maybe a colour from your palette, darker colours usually work best because the lineart effect doesn't get lost)

-lineart just a bit darker than the object its surrounding (a softer feel to the lineart)

-same colour as the object its surrounding (for a no lineart effect). This propably won't work with every artwork and clean lineart is a plus if you decide to use this method. Depending on the level of detail you might have to go in and recolour the lineart in some places (like the face).

-no lineart. This can look super cool but it's propably going to need some clean up if you decide to delete the linework at a later point in time.

-black lineart (this is always an option too)

The easiest way to colour the lineart is to "lock transparent pixels"

When you enable this option for a layer you are only going to be able to draw on already painted pixels - with your lineart layer that means only on the lineart area. If you use a big brush to go over everything at once recoloring can be a matter of seconds.

I decided to use a dark but saturated violet for my lineart - it mirrors my basecolour

Final adjustments

I already have a few things in mind to finalize this illustration:

-blurring the lineart

-some final colour tweaks

-chromatic abberation

-a noise effect

 

Lets start with the blurry lineart. Duplicate your lineart layer, with the lower layer selected go to "filter" - "blur" - "gaussian blur" (make sure "lock transparent pixels is turned off again").

 

A window like the one you see above should pop up. Strength 5 is alright for our purposes, we don't want to lose the lineart after all, just make it look a bit softer). Click okay when you are happy with the blur.

You might not be able to instantly see the effect so this is the effect in a close up:

Keep in mind that I have both lineart layers visible for this.

Here is what the whole illustration looks like with the blurred outlines. It is not a very prominent effect but its going to add to the vintage feel in combination with the noise filter and the cromatic abberation.

Speaking of chromatic abberation, some drawing tools have a filter for it, as far as I know CSP does not but imitating this effect is not hard.

Again we start by duplicating the lineart layer two times this time, make sure not to use the blurred one.

The two new lineart layers are going to need some tonal correction, go to "edit" - "tonal correction" - "color balance".

 

A window is going to pop up where you can adjust the colours of your layer. One of them should have adjustments like these:

And the other one should have adjustments like these:

You should have these three lineart layers now:

You need to change the layer mode of the two colour-corrected ones (red and blue) to "screen".

Now select "scale/rotate" in one of the upper tool bars.

 

Move one of the two layers slightly left and upward and the other one slightly right and downward. You see what I mean in this close-up:

As you can see I tried to keep the original lineart and the colour corrected ones touching, also I lowered the opacity of the two new layers to 25 percent.

For the final colour tweaks in this illustration Im going to add a new layer and fill it with a preinstalled gradient.

When you click on the gradient tool, the sub tool bar will offer you a variety of preinstalled colour schemes to choose from.

I chose "midday sky" - white to blue.

You add the gradient by clicking and dragging in the direction you want thegradient to follow. in this case I dragged upward.

After that I set the layer mode to colour burn and adjusted the opacity until the changes were more subtle.

Let's finally add the noise filter now.

This step is going to imitate the picture quality of authentic vintage image material, it's an important filter for vintage style illustrations.

Add a new layer. Go to "filter" in the top bar and select "render" - "perlin noise..."

A window like this is going to pop up where you cn adjust the details to your generated noise filter.

You see my adjustments above, I tried to make it look like white noise but smaller. When you click "okay" your new layer should look somewhat like this:

Lower the opacity to 20 percent and set the layer mode to overlay, your illustration should have a slight noise effect now.

But since the illustration is on the bigger side we re going to add another layer and repeat the process, only this time set the "scale"-slider of the perlin noise pop-up to 5.00.

Select "overlay" for the layer mode again and adjust the opacity to 10 percent.

Here is a close up of the final effect so you can actually see it in this post :

And we are done!

Thank you for sticking with me till the end.

I hope you found this helpful and learned something new :3

Happy creating!