Intro:

We all probably started traditional sketching when we started drawing, and for some reason or another we moved to digital art. However, it’s always good to keep sketching, it relaxes your wrist and works as practice. It’s really helpful for me as a digital artist because not only is it a way to put my ideas down when I don’t have a computer available but also there is less pressure to make it look good because I know I’m going to translate it onto digital.

 

In this tutorial, I’m going to share how I take my random sketches and do just that.

Before anything else, a sketching tip: Measure

So, first thing is first, if you’re just sketching or haven’t done it in a while, I have this one great tip for you.

 

When sketching most people have a reference image, and I usually have it available on my phone. Something that helped me during sketching is to take measurements. So for example here we have our “reference” image.

The way we can measure this image is to use our pencil as a ruler, measuring horizontally and vertically.

Then we take those measurements and put them in the paper we will be using, here we can see that the image fits twice both horizontally and vertically.

As such, we can determine, that whatever is inside the image will also fit twice in our paper. So, in the image below you can see the “reference” fitting twice, in this case needing a minor adjustment.

This is a good exercise for beginner artists or if you’ve lost practice because it works for measuring proportions as well, simply apply the same method, example: an eye from your reference image will fit twice on the large picture.

 

Keep doing this and eventually your eye will be trained for drawing proportions without needing to measure, allowing you to draw quick practice exercises.

 

Now, I’m going to show you how I translate those sketches into digital.

Import and Adjust Image

Firstly, you need to import your image. To do so, go to File at the top of the screen. In the drop down menu select Import, and then Image.

Once that’s done, right click on the layer and Rasterize.

Then we will select the section of the image we want to work with and adjust the size accordingly. In this case I deleted the areas showing my desk, straightened the image and enlarged it.

Now you have your sketch setup.

Line up 3D Models to Sketch

Since this is a five minute sketch, the proportions aren’t the best in both the face and the body. So, in order to adjust the body, I will import a 3D model and adjust it as best I can to original pose.

Adjust the figure using the Sub Tool Edit window by clicking on the far right button to adjust the shape, gender and proportions.

If you have Ex version, use the all sides view by clicking on Window, then in the drop down All sides view. This helps when you wish to line up any accessories you might want to add and make any edits to the pose without having to move the pose on your canvas.

When drawing a quick sketch you might not always like something in the original, such as the pose and outfit for me in this case, this why if you’re planning on passing it to digital, I suggest you only focus on the face.

 

In the end, after adding and adjusting the models, move the Pose layer behind the image, then lower the image’s opacity to see if it’s properly aligned.

 

This is the result:

Materials used:

 

Spiked Collar

Content ID：1959056

 

Jewel Choker【3D】 (宝石チョーカー【3D】) 宝石チョーカー【3D】

Content ID：2064079

 

3D Beret (3Dベレー帽) 3Dベレー帽

Content ID：2112325

 

【3D】Boots(14) (【３D】靴⑭) 【３D】靴⑭

Content ID：2087951

Adjust Values

Because my sketch doesn’t have very defined lines I had to darken the image a bit to see them clearly. For this I went to Layer at the top, selected New Correction layer in the drop down, and then Hue/Saturation/Luminosity.

This window is going to pop up, in this case, I lowered the Saturation and Luminosity until the lines become clearer, thus making them easy to trace.

Trace key areas from the sketch, such as the face, and hair in my case. Because I wasn’t sure about the outfits, sketching it in digital is a lot more helpful than if I were to sketch in traditional, here I can erase and redraw it as much as I like.

 

The result is this:

Use ALL the Editing Tools

The reason I don’t focus on making a well-drawn sketch is because I know that when translating it to digital drawing it is much easier to edit and correct mistakes, especially with the tools Clip Studio offers.

Move Layer

It’s useful to draw individual parts of the face in seperate layers, such as nose, mouth, and eyes, so that you can easily position them along the shape of the face. For example, in the image below, I only moved the eyes and mouth with the Move layer tool while the hair and shape of the face remained in the same place. Can you tell the difference?

Lasso Selection

In this case, I only want to move the mouth, so I will use the Lasso Selection to position it properly. I’m sure some of you noticed that the lips are too far left, so I selected those and aligned them properly on the face.

Free and Mesh Transform

There will be areas in the face that will only require a few adjustments, for this you can use the Free and Mesh Transform tools when selecting the area of choice. The Free transform tool allows you to transform an area along the axes. Mesh transform lets you make detailed adjustments to an area.

 

In one example, I only needed to adjust the upper lip, in the other, one nostril and in the third, the lower part of the eye.

Through the drawing process I will use these editing tools, depending on how I want it to look in the end. But for now, I’ve used them mostly on the face to get my digital sketch to look like this.

Get Your Lines and Flats

For line art, I use the turnip pen, tracing over the sketch, the model, and adding details. This is why the digital sketch process is useful, so that you don’t have to worry about editing your lines, just focus on tracing them.

Now, you will notice that I haven’t quite finished the hair, and the figure has no shoes. This is because for the hair, I will be using some hair brushes. This is by far the most time consuming part, as I have to constantly adjust the hair strands with the editing tools, often using many layers to do so, but I really like the way these strands look so it’s worth it. It is completely up to you if you want to avoid this part and just draw the hair normally.

 

Material:

 

Hair Brush (머리카락 브러쉬) 머리카락 브러쉬

Content ID：1896205

Once I adjusted them to my liking I merged all the hair layers, then went to Edit then Convert brightness to opacity to get the lines.

Once the white areas were converted, I added the bangs manually, then erased any excess lines.

For the boots I decided to leave them as they were, at this point I wasn’t sure about the color, so I selected the models, hit Ctrl X and Ctrl V to paste them in another layer with the intent being to just rasterize the model. Eventually though, I painted the flats for the rest of the outfit and realized the color didn’t match so I decided to extract the lines with the Extract line effect before rasterizing them.

Then in Edit we go to Convert brightness to opacity to get just the line art to color in the flats.

The same procedure is done with this lamplight, which I added afterward, lining it up with the figure.

Material:

There are 5 kinds of external lights (外灯 全５種) 外灯 全５種

Content ID：1898429

Tone Curve Layers for Light and Shadows

Choose a background to decide light

I like using the background images Clip Studio has to offer, so I decided to use River_night. Then I added this image of a moon to add a backlight.

 

Material:

Full moon with anime winds (アニメ風の満月) アニメ風の満月

Content ID：2113853

Shading

For my shading process I prefer to use Tone Curves. To use these we need to select our figure. Since I have my flats and lines in one folder I will select the folder, right click Selection from Layer, then create selection.

Figure has been selected.

Above the folder, I will create another folder which will be set to Through, this setting will ensure that anything in this folder will affect the bottom one, helpful for when you want to keep your Shadows and Highlights separately or if you have too many layers you want them to affect.

 

Now I’m going to create a mask by selecting the Through folder then clicking on Create Layer Mask.

In this folder, I’m going to add a Tone Curve by clicking above on Layer, in the drop down New correction layer, and selecting Tone Curve.

This will bring up a Tone Curve window with four Tone levels to adjust. RGB, Red, Green and Blue. RGB is to determine how dark or bright you want the image, meanwhile the Red, Green, and Blue are to help with the color of the light.

In this case I wanted something dark and with blue lighting, so I adjusted only the RGB in a down curve, for dark shading, and the Blue.

This is now my “Base” lighting. In order to add more shadows to create depth, I right clicked the Tone Curve layer, then duplicated it.

Because this will make it twice as dark, I’m going to select the white square in the new Tone Curve layer and click Delete.

Now by selecting the black square, it will allow me to draw the darker shadows like you would in any other layer.

You can use any color for Tone Curves, since the levels are already set. I’ve also lowered the opacity so that the new shadows aren’t too prevalent. As such, drawing the shadows will leave something like this:

Lighting

Now I’m going to take the same Tone Curve Layer and Duplicate it again, only this time I’m going to adjust the RGB to make it lighter. And in order to do so, the curve must go upward this time.

The tone will be kept blue so in the end it will look something like this:

I’ll do the same procedure of erasing the white area on the Tone Curve and drawing on the black area.

Now because the light is behind the figure, I’m going to paint around the edges, in areas where the light will bounce off.

I then decided to add a fantasy fire image to get a little more lighting in the face. This image and the Correction Layer I will be adding is set above the Through folder, otherwise it will be clipped by the mask.

 

Material:

 

Fantasy Fire!

Content ID：1961570

Edited it with the Mesh edit tool.

I then highlighted around the flame and on the face with the soft brush, taking the color from the flame image itself.

In the end I decided I wanted to change the light of flame so I went to change in Hue/Saturation/Luminosity.

Here I adjusted only the Hue, until the flame turned blue.

Then I clipped the Correction layer to the flame image so that it would only affect the flame.

Finally I realized there was some glow missing from the backlight so I took the same Correction layer and created a new layer below it, both of which I moved below in the Through folder, at the very top.

 

Here I painted some light around the figure with the Soft brush.

This was the overall result.

Keep up the sketching, it's a great way to learn and useful for going into digital.