Introduction

Hi everyone! This is Akari. In this tutorial I will go over the basics of light behaviour and how to easily express dynamic lighting in your drawing. I also made a video to follow along :)

Light behaviour: main light source, bounce light, shadows

Before we start colouring and shading, and deciding which lighting we want to use in our piece, it is important we understand how light behaves. I'm going to go over the basic principles of light as briefly as possible.

 

First off, we have our main light source. This one is what we could call the standard light and the one that affects our artwork the most. You can think of it as a ray of sunlight or the beam of light a flashlight projects, which directly impacts objects differently depending on its intensity, creating the highlights.

 

Then, we have the shadows. First, we have the core shadow, which is the area of the object that is not affected by light and is generated by the natural volume of the object; and the cast shadow, which is the shadow projected by said object.

 

Lastly, we have the bounce light. Light rays bounce once they hit an object, creating a weaker light that reflects the environment into the shadows, i.e. the parts of the object where the main light source can’t reach.

Base coloring

When I want to express dynamic lighting in my artwork, I always choose a darker color pallet. I do this in order to be able to make the lighting really pop off. If we were to use our regular color pallet, the highlights wouldn't make the same impact.

Now tell me, doesn't the one on the right look much better? Granted, both girls look equally scary, but the one that has a darker pallet looks less bland and more cohesive with what we are trying to achieve.

Setting the main light source

Now it’s time to decide where you want your light to come from. In this instance, I will set my light source above my character. It's time to create a new layer set to [overlay] and, using white, block out the parts that the light hits directly, avoiding the zones where core shadows are formed.

 

"But... How can I know what parts are being hit by the light?" You might be asking yourself that, but don't be scared, I have a couple of tips and tricks that will make drawing the highlights much less intimidating!

In order to make this intimidating task easier, I will draw a simple diagram to aid myself.

 

In this diagram I will act as if I were a camera lens aiming in the same direction as my light source, as depicted above. Now, I can clearly see where I should be drawing the lighting according to the volume of the object.

 

It may still be a little bit tricky to visualize where the light actually hits and where it does not, so in order to make this easier for ourselves, we are now going to make use of Clip Studio’s 3D models!

Using 3D models for reference

As we all know, Clip Studio Paint has 3D reference models available to all users. I will briefly go over how to use them to our advantage when expressing light in our drawings.

 

Once we have our 3D model ready to use in our canvas, it's time to slightly tweak it to our needs, fixing it with a pose similar to that of our drawing's. Remember, this is only to guide us! No need to make an exact, perfect replica of the pose :)

Now, let's head over to the [Tool property] menu. Scroll down until you see [Light source] and click on it. Now you can change the direction, intensity and even color of the light by clicking and dragging that little sphere until it matches the lighting you're going for.

And there you have it! A perfect reference to draw the highlights. Aren't 3D models convenient?

Drawing the highlights

Remember that new layer set to [overlay] that we created earlier? Well now is when we are going to work with it. As I said before, it's time to draw the highlights! Now that we know exactly where to place them, we have to actually draw them on our character.

 

Forget the details at this point! Just lazily sketch the big highlights. You'll have time to polish them up later!

As of now, the highlights look a little bit rough. It's time to clean them up! Draw and erase highlights to your heart's content. Take as many creative liberties as you want. I, for example, wanted the left thigh to be hit by the light, even if it really isn't; just like some wrinkles in her dress. Art is subjective, don't be afraid to experiment :)

She's looking good! Now it's time to move on to the shadows and bounce light~

Shadows and bounce light

Now, you can add darker shadows if you feel like it. It is definitely not mandatory, you can skip this step if you feel like it, but if you want to add some more depth or definition to your piece, color in with a darker color in the places that are more ‘hidden away’ from the light, such as the hair on the back or the neck.

 

My personal suggestion is creating a new layer under the highlights and set it to [multiply]. Use a deep shade of violet to color in the shadows.

Finally, it’s time to color in our bounce light! Its color depends on the ambient, such as the floor color, the sky color, and so on. However, if your piece doesn’t have an environment, you can choose whichever color you’d like. I usually recommend choosing a cool, lighter color that contrasts with the core shadows, like a baby blue for example.

Wow! She looks like a completely different person now!

 

Technically, our drawing would be done already. But it looks like it could be a bit better, does it not?

Final touches

In order to make it a bit more interesting, I like adding a subtle inner glow to the highlights within the object, and a rim light wherever I see fit, usually in the parts where the light hits the hardest such as the top of the head and shoulders.

 

So as to add that subtle glow, we will select the highlights layer, invert and expand the selection. Then, fill the selected area in a new layer. Finally, we will change the duplicate layer’s color to a shade of orange, apply [Gaussian Blur] and set it to [hard light] or [overlay].

Looks much more vivid, right?

 

And we're done! Now you are free to finish your piece like you usually would. Maybe you want to tweak a bit the colors using Clip Studio's color correction settings, or perhaps you want to fix something that's bothering you with the [liquify] tool; whatever it is, go ahead and do it :)

Final piece

Ta da~! Now you know how to express different lights! I hope this tutorial was useful, if it was and you like it please don’t forget to like and share it! It would mean the world to me.

 

Thanks for sticking until the end! :)