0. Prologue

Greetings, friend. So you want to draw some flames, but not sure what to start with.

Don't worry, I'll try my best to explain it to you. So, grab your pen and let's roll!

 

*Everything you read in this article is only my personal ways of drawing flames (depending on my mood and genre). Thus, you can experiment and make your own unique (and maybe even more simple) methods (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

 

1. Understanding the Flame

Don't worry, there will be no "lick the flame" or "become the flame" afterwards ( ◔ ౪◔)

Let's memorize few simple rules:

・Flame always moves upwards from it's source (unless there's source of external influence)

・Flame always "hugs" any obstacle

・Flame has no solid form, thus you should not draw black outline around it

・Flame color is mostly orange, while more red areas are colder and yellow areas are hotter (sometimes, you can add even white areas within yellow areas to contrast how hot it is)

 

Following those simple rules will help you draw flames much easier.

2. Drawing Methods

・The Sampler

--------------*On Clip Studio's Menu bar press [Filter] > [Effect] > [Artistic...]

 

For colorful art, I suggest processing [Color only]. Adjust bottom 3 sliders until you are satisfied with result.

This method also works very well for manga illustrations.

But for manga, I suggest using 2 copied layers instead of one:

• Top layer will be our Screen-tone base created with [Layer property] effects.

• Bottom layer will be our Line-art base created with [Artistic Fliter] and Monochrome [Layer property] effect

The only thing left to do is combining both layers for perfect manga-style bonfire.

・Smooth Flames

Let's try drawing a burning torch:

1) Draw torch itself

2) Add direction of our flames (remember rules? move upwards and "hug" our torch)

3) Draw intended shape of our flame

Next phase is bit more difficult, but I'm 1000% sure you'll succeed.

Just follow my lead（ ゝω・）

 

1) Prepare your flame base:

・ Fill intended shape with base orange color

・ At the bottom (coldest part) draw a bit of red

・ At the core of the flame (where torch head is) add some yellow

 

2) Use Blend and Blur tools to blend the colors inside and blur the outer edge of the flame

 

3) Use [Airbursh] > [Shadow] > [Multiply mode] > [Hardness 1] to add some live to your flame

** follow the shape of the flame from its bottom to the top adding a bit of red

 

4) Using same [Airbrush] switch to orange or yellow color and draw it over to give even more life to your flame

** DON'T be afraid to draw over previous airbrush, they SHOULD overlap to look more lively and real

 

5) To finalize the drawing we should add light and shadow to torch handle

** Also I prefer adding some visibility for burning material (torch head in our case).

To do so:

・copy original head to new layer above flame

・clean areas that should be hidden with Soft eraser (to get smooth semi-transparent edges)

・set Opacity of the layer to 24-27%.

And that's it. The torch is burning and warming your heart with it's gorgeous look (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

・Edged Flames

Edged flames are mostly used in korean manhwa (based on my reading experience) and sometimes in manga and anime that share stylistics of effects. Drawing them is much easier than Smooth ones.

 

Let's try drawing a small fireball:

・[Layer #1] Draw a circle (the base that will burn) and add direction of the flame

・[Layer #2] Draw desired* shape base on based on step 1

• some people prefer simply drawing flat lines and then erase "holes" in them. I prefer drawing shape on my own from the start.

・[Layer #3] Fill in the shape with bright red and add some molten life inside as yellow blobs of random shape

・Return to [Layer #3] and clip another layer above it to give it new dark red color and merge those two layers into one

・In Menu bar go to [Filter] > [Blur] > [Gaussian blur...] > Set it to 60-80

You did great! it's time to enjoy result of your work! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

 

 *Chilling time*

└[∵┌] └[ ∵ ]┘ [┐∵]┘

 

"We can dance if we want to

We can leave your friends behind

'Cause your friends don't dance

And if they don't dance

Well, they're no friends of mine"

￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣ Men without Hats - Safety Dance

└[∵┌] └[ ∵ ]┘ [┐∵]┘

3. Epilogue

If you made it this far, first of all I want to thank you sincerely for that. And I hope that everything I've taught you today was easy to understand and helped you figure out how to draw beautiful flames that will make you and everyone around feel warm.

4. Appendix

Here's some additional examples of using first two methods. I think, that 3rd method is pretty straightforward and doesn't really require more explanation (^▿^")>