Night, Food, Friends and Fireworks! This tutorial will cover composition, line art editing using Vector Layer, lighting and effects using Clip Studio Paint.

 

You can watch the drawing process in this video:

Let’s get started!

Draft

I made four sketches for this illustration. The first one has the elements I want but looks boring

The second one, there’s depth to it but not dynamic enough.

The third one incorporates perspective, but the feast should be the main focus, not the fireworks. So, another fail.

And this is the last one. There’s depth and it looks dynamic because of the angle. But, the position of the table isn’t eye-catching.

 

To fix it I’ll be using the Rule of Thirds.

Rule of Thirds is basically dividing the canvas into three horizontally and vertically, then put the main focus on any of the four intersections.

 

I’m using Rule of Thirds image below. I made it myself, you can save the image below if you want to use it in your works.

I adjust the Rule of Thirds grip until the food touches the bottom right intersection. I moved the fireworks down to fill the empty space.

 

Press Shift and double click the grid layer. Crop.

Adding some chairs, plates and giving more detail to the character... and the draft is done!

By the way, the fireworks were drawn using a fantastic brush by 27pt.

Not only this fireworks brush, 27pt makes a ton of good brushes and other assets like gradient maps. Most are free! Check out the assets here:

Sketch

I’m using Perspective Ruler to draw the table, the railing, the chairs and the dishes.

 

Since the horizon line isn’t straight, tilt the Perspective ruler by using Object tool and click on a dot on the blue line.

In this case, the horizon line is following the table.

The sketch was done roughly. It’s okay if it doesn’t look perfect at this stage.

Quick Access

By the way, I drew the table and the food interchangeably and toggled the Snap to Special Ruler on and off all the time. The Snap feature is usually on the top part of the screen, near the toolbar

 

I use Quick Access window to make the workflow more effective. It's filled with all kinds of tool I use often.

If you haven't used it and want to, you can turn it on from Window>Quick Access.

You get one set by default, but you can always add more.

 

Just right click on the title bar here and choose Create set. Give it a name.

Drag and drop the tools you want into the Quick Access window.

 

There are two options to change the order of the tools. You can access the options by right click the empty space>Change Order.

 

I personally choose Ctrl+Drag instead of just Drag because of the risk moving the tools by accident.

You can divide the tools into sections. Just move the tool you want to separate downwards until there's a red line.

I'll stop gushing about my favorite feature and continue the tutorial.

 

Onto the next step!

Color Planning

Color the foreground and midground with desaturated red. Add city lights to separate the table from the sky. Darken the sky a bit to bring the focus to the middle part of the canvas.

After that, color the characters. Choosing the colors was trial and error. Using the desaturated red as the anchor, I tried to pick colors that blends well with it.

Now the food. There’s a ton of them and all would be in different colors. It’d be such a pain to try the colors one by one like I did the characters. I’ve got a cheat for this.

 

First, get a reference picture or two. When picking the reference, make sure the color is neutral. No filter. My reference was a photograph, but I don’t want to get into copyright trouble, so bear with this unappetizing platter for a moment.

Paste the picture on the illustration. Go to Blending Mode>Hard Light. The colors might look over saturated, but it will fit in just fine with the rest of the picture.

 

(I delete the white part because it’s in the way.)

Resize the reference and use the colors to your liking.

After the base color, time for shading.

 

Create a new layer, set the Blending Mode to Multiply then clip it to the base color layer. Paint the shadow with the light source in mind.

 

After done with shading, create another layer, blending mode Overlay. This is for light effect, especially for the fireworks. I pick random light colors just to get the feel.

 

The messy sketch is done.

Final Sketch and Line Art

Time for the second sketch. You might wonder what’s the point, after all I’ve got a finished sketch.

 

I’m one of those people whose sketches often look better than the line art. Because the sketch line is thick, it hides my mistake and tricks my brain into thinking that the line looks good. I fixed my problem by mapping the perfect lines using thin and even lines in the final sketch.

 

Another reason is to add a layer of complexity to the final result.

I try to draw it as clean as possible, no overlapping lines. Add finer details and improvise, too.

After done with the sketch, fill it with color again for final check.

 

Also, paint the fireworks in separate layers with the fireworks brush. I will use the fireworks as is in later stages.

Next, draw the line art on a Vector layer. It makes erasing overlapping lines and fixing the lines easy.

 

There’s also another reason why. I’ll talk about it when we get there.

Coloring

Fill everything with base color, then make the fireworks visible.

The fireworks near the lamp are distracting, let’s erase them.

I group the colors for the table and the girls into a folder. Then create a new layer, clip it and change the blending mode to Multiply. This will be the shadow layer.

 

The main light source is the lamps on the right, I draw the shadow while keeping it in mind.

After the shadow, add light from the fireworks.

 

Create a new layer, pick one color and try it on one of the characters for testing. There are a lot of blending modes we can use for light effects, I often use Overlay.

I take the colors from fireworks closest to each character. Not logically correct if you think about the distance, but well, it looks good.

This picture needs more contrast. Let’s make the shadow darker.

Next, paint the table with the light from the fireworks. Like before, create a new layer, change the blending mode to overlay.

The most fun part is painting glass. All I have to do is use the Mapping pen, pick pure white for the color and highlight the rim and the sides of the bowls. Don’t forget the Ambient light from other items on the table.

Polishing

Time to fix the thickness of the line art.

 

Because I’m using a vector layer, fixing the thickness is an easy task. Go to Correct Line (hotkey Y), choose Correct Line Width. Turn off the Process Whole Line.

 

I’m using Thicker and Narrow to adjust the thickness.

The difference when the colors are on may be subtle, but the thicker line art makes things pop more in my opinion.

The characters look like they’re blending into the background, so our next step would be adding Rim Light.

 

Create a new layer, change the blending mode to Overlay. Paint the rim light with the colors of the fireworks. Add loose hair strands while at it.

Time to add second shadow. Create a new layer, change the blending mode to multiply.

 

The second shadow is mainly for Ambient Occlusion to give the character and items more 3D feel. It’s also to increase the contrast between different objects.

At this stage I changed the table cloth’s color, darken the chair, lower the fireworks’ opacity, reducing the glassware’s glare and adding more rim light.

Finalize

Let’s see the illustration in grayscale for the value test.

 

Because we can only change the expression color of a single layer at a time, right click one of the visible layers then choose Merge visible to new layer. Change the expression color to gray.

It’s too dark to my liking. To fix it, go to Layer>New Correction layer>Tone curve. This is the setting I used.

Let’s do the squint test using the merged visible layer.

Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Make the illustration very blurry, zooming out also helps. Looks okay.

Let’s give the illustration blurred effect. Redo the blur and use Gaussian blur once again. This time milder.

 

Right click the blurred layer>Layer Mask>Mask Selection. Then use Soft Eraser to hide the blurred part of the main focus.

For final touch, I want to reduce the opacity of the lineart. For illustration like this, if painted correctly, the forms will still be clear enough even if we remove the line art.

 

See?

If lineless is your preferred style, you can remove the line art entirely then fix the messy looking part. Personally, I love line art very much, I just don’t want it to look so sharp.

 

So I’ll reduce the opacity just enough to soften the edges (70%), but not transparent enough to see the mess underneath.

It’s done!

I hope you learn something from this tutorial. I’ll see you next time!