Heyy, Today i’m gonna share how I use pictures that i took myself in my paintings!

Hope you can find something interesting !

Making manga style backgrounds

Using the monochrome layer

Here’s a picture i took myself the other day:

First, import the photo you want in clip studio, usually the photo will be too dark so you will need to use the tone curve and make it so that the darker values get lighter, that way when you convert the picture into lines, it will be easier to tell.

I also recommend that you use the sharpen filter to sharpen your picture beforehand . That way the lines will appear clearer. You can sharpen it twice if you want.

After that, there are multiple ways to do it,

for now we will do it by converting your layer into a monochrome layer.

Duplicate the original picture so you can use it again if needs be. You can play around with the settings to see what you like.

I will actually make two layers separately with different settings and thresholds . That way I can pick and choose which parts from each of them I want.

Now I’ll select the layer that has the higher color threshold( the one with the more black areas) and now turn it into a tone layer then I’ll choose an airbrush and start erasing the areas that should be white.

i’ll do the same with the other layer but instead I’ll erase the unnecessary lines and detail it has so that both layers can fit well together.

 

 

Because I used a low density airbrush and without applying too much pressure there are gray areas too but it looks much cleaner now as you can see

I recommend you use the line tool, so it doesn’t look weird. You can register a brush shape from whatever brush you use for line-art and then apply the brush shape to the line tool. That way it will look cohesive

No, it’s still not good enough so I’m going to add line art by hand in areas where it’s missing such as the core or some parts of the building

After that, i’ll add the sky by myself by simply putting down the gradient and using a cloud brush

Don’t forget to turn the sky into a tone layer as well!

you can repeat the same steps for every photo you take although every time you will have to adjust the settings differently, since all your photos will not have the same values or saturation, etc.

Using convert to lines and tones

we’re going to attempt to do the same thing except this time with a different technique in Clip Studio that is the convert to lines and tones option that is accessible if you click right click (or long press for iPads) on your layer.

Here since we’re dealing with foliage, I don’t want there to be too much details actually so I will use the artistic effect that you can find in the filter menu.

I’ll select color only in the artistic filter settings so that no lines show up and instead only the colors of the photo will look more painted.

A window with all the different settings would appear, it lets you change and modify the values that will be turned into tones. You can also manage the line art As you wish.

When it’s done,

a folder with every value as tones will be created, allowing you to change the values and/or organize them.

Although I must admit, I almost never use this technique when it comes to photos it is more useful, however to use with 3-D assets,

so usually if I use this method, I’ll end up merging it with another layer using the previous method, and as you can see above I made three different versions , there is no right way to do it, it’s only up to your preference and the mood you’re trying to go for.

The last one was made by merging the Line-art from the monochrome method, while the tones are from the convert to lines and tones tool.

Using your own photos for backgrounds for Webcomics.

Making a background for Webtoon with a line art

You can also use your photos to make backgrounds and such in a style that would fit in a digital comic/ Webtoon.

I will reuse the same picture from before except this time I also will use the artistic filter.

Usually I either use the artistic filter, smart smoothing or an auto action that I got from the assets that I will put down below..

I Made a pink sky that I will apply there. Keep in mind that whatever the color of the sky is , you will have to make the scenery fit the color because of ambient light ,

So for example, here since in the original picture, the sky is blue I will completely bucket fill a layer on top of the picture layer then Fill it with the sky color and either it to overlay ,multiply or color mode and put it on low opacity so it matches better and seems more natural.

Also, feel free to add anything that you might find cool, here I even added some very light tones and set them to overlay on top of the layer to give it more of a comic feel

For The final touch I’ll take the line-art that I made from the monochrome technique and turn it into a dark red and set it to multiply mode. You don’t have to turn it into a specific color however, for it to feel more more vibrant I usually usually use it a bright color although here I tuned it down, but you can use very pale colors and see how that fits.

This is great because it means you can reuse your assets. For example, is this if this was a background that you would use multiple time in a comic you could use it and change the colors to make it feel like different time of day.

Making a background for Webtoon without line art

Once again, do the same with the tone curve, make sure that the colors get more vibrant, and that the shadows are less dark.

since this is a more natural background again, use the auto action, I showed previously or the artistic filter instead of sharpening

Then since the grass looks somewhat too crowded use foliage brushes that you can find in the assets.

Start by blocking in the grass first and then you can add various foliage like flowers or tall plants .The ground is too detailed so using these types of brush will make it seem more like a painting.

You can make make it more cartoonish by using vibrant colors. I usually do this to make it seem dull, use the color or the overlay mode to do this or you can also play around with gradients from the gradient map

To finish add the last details to your drawing such as sun beams, birds, and of course your character.

Making assets with your pictures

I often reuse assets that I made for myself using pictures that I took;

here’s how you can save time by reusing assets that you made yourself.

For buildings, you can change their colors by using gradient maps or correction layers, or we can turn them into planes by using the 3-D primitives.

Again here I had to use the tone curve as the original picture wasn’t clear enough.

You can also use the windows from buildings in pictures and put them again every time you draw buildings.

To make your original picture clear and straight I recommend you use the grid the and transform tool for this,

and then by using the free transform to you can make the windows match the perspective to your new drawings

Sky assets

I took a picture of the sky and thought it was very pretty so I want to reuse it sometime in my webtoon. When you take a picture of the sky, there’s always some objects like the buildings here blocking the view.

Here since the values of the picture were too similar, I duplicated the layer, and with the tone curve, I made it so that the sky is almost entirely white, whereas the building will be very dark. That way if I want to select it with the wand it will detect it easily.

After that, with the current selection of the sky, I can go back to the previous layer with the normal values and then cut and paste the sky or copy and paste it.

As you can see the original sky, since it is being cut off by the buildings if I want to reuse it, I have to make sure it looks good so you can either do it with two different techniques.

For the first one, I hand painted it.

Whereas the second one I used the copy stamp tool from Clip Studio.

here too, I did exactly the same, and I used the copy steam tool at the bottom of the sky to make it look natural

Also, usually because natural environments are filled with so many things, it can be hard for the program to select everything that’s why you can use the selection pen in your selection tools,

that way you can go select by hand what the program missed.

As I said, before the thing, that’s great about making your own assets is that, especially for skies you can reuse them and change the color by either using correction layers, such as changing the hue, or using gradients that way you can make really different moods, and indicate different things when you reuse them One could be at night while one could be in the morning for example

Making panoramas

Clip Studio has also a feature that lets you use panorama you can either download some from the assets or make them yourself,

You could make a panorama on the street for example, my phone model has the feature to make one.

You can import them into Clip Studio.

All you have to do is drag and drop a panorama into your canvas and then through the tool’s property,

go to UV map and you can export the map of the panorama.

you could also directly import a material from your cloud, although that would mean you would have to register the sky picture first as a material.

Then simply open the UV map in Clip Studio, and you will see the flat texture of the panorama.

You can drag and drop your sky image or import it into the canvas.

But you will have to make sure that your texture is tiling. Otherwise, you will have big cuts like these.

This way you can make everything into a panorama, a street or a sky. You only have to make sure that the texture is tiling when you edit the UV map.

Using panorama is fun especially for comics because they allow you to use the same location but you can actually navigate the scene in 3D.

Here are some great example of panoramas you can make your own;

Using the perspective from your photos

If you can figure out a certain perspective for drawing, you can always use the perspective from a photo and use it as a guide.

That’s a picture I took of my neighborhood with the Panorama mode from my phone,

though because i was moving the camera too much the perspective is all messed up.

I still want to use it as a base for a background drawing so I’m going to apply the perspective ruler on it.

First put down the perspective ruler and if you want it to be fisheye perspective, make sure you check the fisheye perspective box, also you can choose to have the perspective grid show to guide you better.

As you can see, the perspective ruler corrected the perspective from the photo, and i was able to draw a dynamic background. If you’re wondering how I drew the door and the railings I actually drew them flat first, and then using the mesh transformation tool, I placed them so they would fit the perspective.

It doesn’t need to be outside either. You can pick objects from your room and arrange them so that they form an interesting composition ,

here I just happen to think that the way my books were arranged looked nice therefore i wanted to try and do a drawing based on this perspective..

You can make any kind of scene using the same perspective. You only have to use your imagination and what you were envisioning.

It can be a great guide if you don’t know where to start a background drawing.

Drawing dynamic poses using pictures

Anatomy is hard, thankfully we can use our own bodies as reference for poses !

Using the pose scanner

Choose the pose scanner from the import menu and choose a 3D character.

When that’s done you can line on top of the 3D model. The pose scanner is great,

You can use it multiple times and with different angles and perspective.

You can also simply just line on top of the photo if you don’t plan on using the pose more.

For hand’s it’s also easy to use references, you just have to take a quick picture and trace it!

Hand pose scanner

You can use The hand scanner to give a pose to your 3D model’s hands.

First important a 3-D model on the canvas, check The tool properties for the hand pose section.

As you can see the camera Will follow my hand and the pose i make . You can come up easily with poses for hands now if you struggle with drawing hands.

Thanks for reading

Thank you ! hope that could help you a bit!

See you next time!

Here’s more of my art ;