Intro

Imagine a world where every kind of technology is powered by steam. From the biggest machine in a factory to the smallest home appliance and so on, everything is moved by nothing but the power of steam!

When you're creating a steampunk world, it's important to remember that you only have water to create movement. Boiling it creates a lot of pressure that can be used to move the pistons of an engine.

You don’t need to be an engineer to draw a steampunk world! The most important thing is that the mechanism you draw should appear as if it can actually work.

Don't get confused with the word 'punk' – the term steampunk was coined as a variant of the term cyberpunk, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to include punk elements in your drawings. This style is often associated with an environment and clothing that recalls the 19th century, with the addition of fantasy elements. So, it is a versatile style and you have a certain degree of freedom as long as you keep the fundamental parts that I am going to show you in this article. It is up to you to choose the mood you prefer, whether it is dystopian or utopian, or cute, romantic, etc.

In this article, I will show you how to manage all the fundamental elements that you need to create a fantastic world powered by steam.

Setting & Landscape

We want to set a world where pipes, pumps, meters, gears and of course steam smoke are the protagonists. As I said in the intro, you can think big without limiting yourself to a 19th-century world like, so you can mix the classic with other styles, keeping all the fundamental elements of the genre. In this case I choose to draw a greenhouse, but I want to include all the elements of steampunk.

Foreground, midground, background

First of all, I suggest a low horizon line which is a great way to create depth and place your characters easily into the scene. If you draw an aerial view with a high horizon line, it can be more difficult to manage the position of your characters in the environment. So, unless it’s necessary to the story, it’s a good idea to keep the horizon line low.

Clip Studio Paint has a fantastic tool: the perspective ruler, which you can see in the picture above, that allows you to trace lines in perspective. This is a really useful tool in this preliminary phase because it frees up your mind to focus on the creative process, knowing that the perspective is taken care of for you. You can just let your imagination run wild!

Setting the ruler is really simple, select Ruler (U) from the Tool window, and then click on Perspective ruler in the sub menu. On the canvas click to define your vanishing points and the horizon line will be created automatically, you will be able to adjust the position of the vanishing points and the horizon line every time you want.

In this article, I'll be using a two-point perspective, but if you want to learn more about the different types of perspective and how to use the perspective ruler, check out my article on how to draw castles.

Now that you've set the ruler, it's time to start filling the blank space. How do we model that space?

Pipes as viewer’s eyes guide (foreground)

The background will be composed by a foreground, made of elements that are close to the viewer, a midground where our characters and all the action will be, and finally a background that is far from the viewer and contributes to creating depth.

So, let’s start drawing a wonderful Steampunk scenario. It is a good idea to place pipes in the foreground, because they can act like a guide for the viewer’s eyes.

As you can see the pipes converge through the centre of the image in a specific place where I want the viewer’s attention to be.

A useful trick when you want to quickly sketch pipes in your drawing to see the result fast is to use the marker tool with a dimension that is equal to the diameter of the pipe you want to draw. Draw a single line with it. The thickness of the marker tool will be the pipe's diameter. This method lets you easily visualize your pipes and create intricate patterns with pipes of different sizes. Remember that in this phase you want to draw general shapes to create your scenario, we are going to work on the details later.

With the ruler active and using the marker tool you can easily shape your pipes’ structure in no time, and with the right perspective.

As I said before always think about the function in this case pipes carry water and steam that need to feed the plants of the greenhouse.

Playing with the proportions (midground)

When you draw backgrounds, it is essential to feed your imagination with real-world references. However, it is also crucial to play with proportions. If you see something in the real world that catches your attention, take a picture and then try to imagine that object on a different scale.

I wanted to create a silo to contain water. At first, I imagined a silo made of glass, but then I saw an egg that captured my imagination and I decided to make the silo with an egg shape, made of glass and supported by a beautiful carved metal structure.

Especially when you are creating a fantasy world sometimes you might have an idea of what your setting should look like, but you cannot find the right way to realize the image you have in your mind. Playing with the proportions is a great way to avoid getting stuck with an idea and to find solutions you didn't even think about. In other words, be flexible during the concept phase.

Last but not least, playing with the proportions will also enhance the viewer’s curiosity.

Emphasising depth with steam (background)

In the deepest part of my background, I decided to place the windows of the greenhouse, because they can help me to create effects with light.

But since in the greenhouse there is a lot of steam I can use these to my advantage to give a sense of mystery to the scene and to enhance even more the depth and the dimension of the environment.

Create a new layer on top of the background layer, leaving the foreground and the midground layer untouched. Paint with the Opaque watercolor tool and a white color selected, you want to create areas of white smoke. After you have done that select the tool Blend (J), Blur, and blur all the areas of the background layer that are covered with the white smoke you drew before on the layer on top.  

You can even use a silhouette for the foreground, to emphasize even more.

When you're sketching your concept, keep an eye on the navigator! It's your best friend! Go to the menu bar and select Window, Navigator. Now you can see a little window that you can adjust and move around your workspace. This shows you a small version of your drawing, which is really helpful because it gives you an overall view of your work. It's like you're taking a step back in reality and watching your work from a distance. This is a great way to see if the background works and if there are any parts that feel a bit weird and need to be adjusted.

Amount of detail

As we have seen so far steampunk involves drawing a lot of very detailed parts, you want to include as many details as possible to capture the viewer’s curiosity.

However, avoid overwhelming the viewer with excessive detail. To find the right balance between intricate pipes, detailed mechanical and carved elegant metal parts is important.

The background as a character

One last thing about creating backgrounds for the steampunk genre. Remember that they're not just there to fill the empty space behind our characters, they can play a role in your work. Especially in steampunk, the background is a crucial element. It's the gateway to a captivating world. Since it’s a fantastic world, you can play a lot with your imagination. You want your viewer to explore the background with his eyes, fuelling a sense of curiosity and a will to explore more of it.

So every time you draw a gear or a pipe, think about the function. Why that pipe or that gear is in that specific place?

Remember, even though the viewer may not be an expert, their mind will tell them if the world seems legit or not, and that makes a big difference!

The background will be perceived as a character in itself when it interacts actively with the characters.

Elegant metal parts

Since we are talking retro-futuristic style, we'll have loads of tech in our piece of work.

No matter what style you prefer, whether is the 19th century or something different, you'll always be dealing with a lot of metal parts. But it is important to draw the metal always in an elegant way adding details as if the metal has been carved by a master’s hand.  

In the picture above as you can see I added some decorations, you can use a different kind of decorations basically on every object. Even pipes and cogs can be embellished in order to create a sense of elegance.  

How to draw steam

We've already seen how to make pipes and gears look like they can work in reality. Now it's time to focus on the main character of this world: steam. Steam is really useful. It can show power, it can hide parts of the scene to communicate mystery, or you can also use it to emphasize the movement of an object that releases steam. Firstly, you can use steam in your scenario to hide areas, which can not only create a sense of mystery, but also it can be useful to save time since you don’t have to draw a lot of details. But it is also useful to balance the areas with a lot of details with other areas.

Of course, when you think about steam, you imagine something that is like air without a mass, but if you think about how your eyes perceive the steam, it is like a solid with a defined shape.

Let's see how to draw steam. The first thing to do is draw simple circles to define the area where you want the steam to be. You don't need to be precise in this phase, just think about the general shape of the smoke and the area that will cover. Have a look at the example to get an idea of what we're aiming for.

As you can see the movement of the steam develops from to bottom through the top and it tends to expand as higher you go. To the left side of the picture, you can see the steam expanding through the air without pressure, on the other side the steam has been ejected with pressure. In other to show the power of the pressure, the circles that constitute our base for the steam, have an elongated shape, the ones at the bottom are really long the circles at the top are almost rounded because the effect of pressure tends to diminish.

Following the edges of the circles you can draw the steam. To obtain a good result keep your wrist loose and make a smooth line without sharp corners, after you draw the external outline keep using the circles to determine the shadows. Yes, you need to think about steam as a solid, so guess where the light comes from and draw the shadows accordingly.  

Steam see through method 1

Another great thing about steam is that it can cover up parts of your drawing or it can create an effect where the viewer can still see what’s behind the smoke. This adds a lot of mystery to the scene! I showed you how to render this effect on the background in a previous chapter, but when it comes to representing a character behind a steam smoke, I usually use two methods.

The first one is to draw the silhouette of the character with a darker color and then add two layers on top in Multiply blend mode. On the first layer draw the overall shape of the steam and with a marker tool select a color that is slightly less darker than the one you choose for the silhouette. On the second layer draw the details of the smoke with the same marker tool. This is the result:

In order to give the soft smooth feeling of the smoke, if you look closely at the picture above you can see how the shadows embrace upward the part of steam like a hand is grabbing the puff of smoke and they are pushed from the bottom by the lighter part.

Steam see through method 2

Another method I use when I want to draw this effect in manga is to show just a hint of the drawing through the smoke. To do this, simply create a layer on top of the character and paint with white using the marker tool. This allows you to hide part of the outline of the character, and you can adjust it as much as you want because the original line art of the character remains intact underneath.

This method is really handy, especially when you have characters with lots of intricate line art, like in the example above.

Drawing robots and mechanical parts

Robots and machines play a fundamental part in the steampunk genre. Whether you're writing a story set in a utopian or dystopian world, introducing a little robot can be a great way to add some fun. In a dystopian world, a robot can help to brighten up the dark mood a little. On the other hand, in a utopian world, a robot can really enhance the feel-good factor. You can even make the robot a little bit mischievous and evil if you want to! It's totally up to you how you choose to characterize the robot. Robots can play a role in this genre since there is always a character that is able to build a robot or some sort of mechanism. Remember that this is a retro-futuristic environment.

Before you start sketching your mecha, it's a good idea to look at some real-world references. In this case, it'd be helpful to see pictures of steam engines, old trains, and other mechanical parts.

In this first phase, you don’t need to focus to the entire reference for example the entire train, you only need to observe every single mechanical part that you can reuse in your drawing. After you choose the parts you need you can pass to the second step, which is to rearrange all the pieces in your concept. When you're putting your robot together, there are two main things you need to do. First, you need to draw some simple geometric shapes to give your robot its overall shape. Second, you need to draw the connections between the mechanical parts as if they can actually work.

As you can see in the picture above, I got my inspiration from nature. I wanted to give this robot the shape of a mechanical fish that is powered by steam. All the mechanical parts that I used resemble actual parts that you can find in reality.

But the most important thing is the position where I put those parts: The engine is in the centre, because it’s the heart of the robot, the meters are near the engine because they show data about pressure, oil, level of water etc. The propeller is in the back because it gives a propulsion effect, the shock absorber is in that complex mechanism that moves the fins. In other words, all the pieces are positioned thinking about the function, this is really important.   

As soon as you see the robot, you think: who invented it? How it moves? That can also help you develop your story.

It's really important to focus on the connections between the mechanical parts because the viewer's brain will perceive them as if they're legit and actually working if the connections are clear.

I want to show you another example:

In the example above I want you to focus your attention to all the small details I used in my concept. The head of the fish it’s like a spring-loaded carillon, and has an opening at the front where you put the coals. A pull rod at the back allows the fin to move, the fin itself is made from a stretched sheet of leather and supports. You can continue by yourself exploring the other details in my drawing, guessing the function of every single part.

Outro

Now you know how to build a world powered by steam! You can play with the versatility of this genre, but keep all the fundamental elements that belong to it, such as pipes, gears, robots, and steam. Have fun inventing your own steam world setting it in the era you like the most and playing with the technology. Bye bye!