Hello everyone! Rei-chan here. For the 2019 December entry, I thought I would show you all how I draw galaxies. I've done these as a background in the past request drawings and figured it's befitting for the theme of Sci-fi portraying any deep space exploration.

Preparing Your Tools

For the majority of the tutorial, you can use preset tools that come with the Clip Studio Paint program. A few of them need some change in settings, which I will show you here! You can also learn to calibrate other tools using these tips as well. :D It's a little tedious, but it's pretty simple to do.

1) To start with, I will be modifying the Gradient Tool, Night Sky. Originally, the factory settings have the darkest color on the left and the lightest on the right, as well as the shape settings missing.

By clicking the wrench icon, we can access the settings. We'll switch the color order around by moving the triangle toggles, and turn on the visibility of the shape tool.

2) The other tool we need to modify is the "Mist Brush." This brush is good for loose texture. The preset brush does not allow change or modification in color, so we need to change that. We will do so by finding the "Mist" Image Material in the Program. The "Mist Brush 2" is my altered brush.

Once you have the "Mist" Image Material, you will want to make sure the settings is turned to GRAY not color! This is important if you want your brush to render color, which sounds ironic, yes but that's how it works. xD

Then, you will want to register that new Image as Material.

Give it a name that will be easy to find, turn on the Brush Tip Setting, Scale up/Down Setting and Save it to a folder.

You will then want to duplicate your brush by right-clicking on your original brush. Or, if you just want to modify the pre-exisiting brush, you can do that as well by clicking the wrench icon.

In "Brush Tip," click on the pre-existing image material and delete it.

Replace the Image Material with your Monochrome Version.

While you're at the settings module, make sure to make the Opacity and Combine Mode settings visible! While the Combine mode might not be necessary, particularly if feel more comfortable working with multiple layers, it can be helpful.

The Galaxy

I'm going to be working with minimal layers, but if you would like to work with multiple layers, you can totally do so! :D You can add a new layer every time I add a (+) sign in front of instruction.

After all the tools have been modified, I made a Night Sky Gradient with a broad oval shape.

(+) Then, with the brush set on Normal mode, I use a dark purple to make general shapes. You can look at various references to get some idea for what shape you want. Personally I was going at it Bob Ross style, and got a star shape rather than a spiral type. xD

(+) With the settings on OVERLAY this time, I used a light color to go over the general shapes I made to both lighten and give the shape some dimension.

(+) I used various colors in this stage, and used the same technique to create another galaxy in the upper corner.

(+) With the soft Airbrush, I set it to Overlay and picked a light color to further brighten galaxy. This time, I made sure to use a large size brush and only illuminated the centers

(+) Again, I added different colors this time, highlighting with a very light hand. I also went back and added more mist shape to the center of the purple galaxy.

(+) Using the Mist brush on Normal, I very lightly added some pop of other colors. I used a highly saturated teal in this case. Shape wise, I wanted to give my galaxy a general exploding appearance.

(+) I then used the Mist Brush with a dark color on "Add Glow" Color mode, and filled in some of the darker gaps to show some of the gas has cooled.

This is optional, but I wanted to give my galaxy more smoother of an appearance, with gradual changes in various areas of color and texture. I am using a cloud brush I picked up, but the "Blurred Edge" brush in the paint preset should work as well. I used this lightly on the darker areas that were even further from the center.

(+) Going back with the mist brush, dark color and on "Add Glow" settings, I bring out the various arms of the galaxy again. Using a dark color helps make sure you're not going too strong with the brightness.

(+) Again, I use the soft brush on Overlay, this time with a light non-saturated color in the center.

At this point, the main body of the galaxy is done.

I then duplicated the layers so I could get rid of some of the mist texture.

Using the filter for Blur, I added a Gaussian Blur effect on one of the copied layers. Blur this as much as you feel needed; I would suggest very light blur would work fine.

Using the soft brush with the "no color" choice, I took away parts of the blurred copy so some of the original texture could show up here and there.

(+) I've collected a variety of brushes for stars, but generally, you will want to use a light color on "Add Glow" color mode. Regardless of your canvas size, you will want to use smaller, fainter stars on the areas that are darker and further away from the center, and bolder, larger, brighter stars in the center. You will also want to make sure the center of the galaxy has a higher density of stars as well. Also! Make your stars colorful. Use slight tinge of yellow, red and blue.

(+)Lastly, you will want to save your more defined stars to be the biggest and brightest. For this, I also used a preset brush called the "Sparkle A" Brush. I also modified this brush by turning off the "Spraying Effect", which is found in the "Spraying Effect" department of the settings. Personally, it made it easier to place the stars where I wanted them to since they were fewer and sparse. For these stars, you can spread them where you like, but again following the size and opacity rule the further they are from the center.

(+) And as a final tip, if you want to refine certain areas with darkness, use the mist tool "Overlay" with black to make it seamlessly flow. Using black on a "Normal" mode will be a bit more noticable.

And It's Complete!

And it's finished! At this point, you can edit the colors on the hue/saturation slide as well as play with the contrast and brightness mode. Hope you found this tutorial helpful! Happy star hunting. ^^