How To Draw Glow Effect Digital

Alphabetize

Intro
Sketch
Rough Colour
Lighting Last
Sketching in Low-cal
Painting Light
Detailing
Special Effects
Decision

1. Intro

In this tutorial, I'll be walking you lot through how to create a magical portrait, starting from the limerick to the lighting, then adding spellbinding effects to your portrait. The main focus will be on tips and tricks to make your portrait fantastical and middle-catching.

For this tutorial, I'grand using Clip Studio Paint, a versatile software for illustration, comics, and animation.

2. Sketch

To commencement, I went with a horizontal limerick, mostly because information technology's easier to show for a video. Since a horizontal limerick emphasizes horizontal lines, in this case, I decided to make the hair one of my main focal points and stretch it out to fill the canvas. I then settled on a symmetrical composition to give a sense of stability, peace, and repose. For many people, 2022 has been a tough year and wanted to do something uplifting. All of the curved shapes also help emphasize tranquillity and harmony. The choice of flowy clothing and organically-shaped accessories likewise back up this thought. Since all of these agree, it amplifies the intended issue of the composition. I would not add straight lines to a painting like this unless there was a good reason for it.

3. Rough Color

Sometimes I experiment with several color schemes, but I already knew roughly what I wanted for this painting. The jewel in the center volition be some sort of opal or irised quartz, a lot of calorie-free blues and pinks.

Since I'thousand centering the character around this crystal, a night night-themed groundwork will suit it well. The background is a natural night color to back up the feeling of tranquility. A unlike color could be interesting but would draw more attention to the background, which is not what I desire in this instance.

Because this question comes up a lot, I pretty much merely use these brushes for the whole painting unless otherwise specified!

4. Lighting Concluding

It's not always necessary, but if I'm working on something in an organized way with a particular idea in mind (instead of experimenting as I go), it'south a pretty adept idea to divide as much as possible while all the same respecting the original thought. Painting the low-cal separately lets me focus on just the lighting, experiment with it, and make mistakes in a slice where the lighting is extremely important.

Most of the details at this level are rendered out with a soft frontal low-cal. I keep all the values quite low because the higher values are reserved for the glow. In the colour wheel, this is the lower-left area of the triangle.

At that place will be some other detail pass at the end. For this laissez passer, the important thing is to have a clean base to work from.

I use a webcam selfie equally a reference for the hands. I've used this method for a long, long time, and it has never failed me. It is very reliable and a lot less embarrassing than request a friend.

5. Sketching in Light

I roughly sketch in the desired lighting using an Add together Glow layer.

Yous can experiment with which layer to utilise specifically (between add and contrivance), just I thought this worked best for this piece. Here's an example of how these can look quite dissimilar on the hands, still nevertheless all have the consequence of making something expect like it is glowing.

This step is completed on dissever layers and very quickly, and once it's done, the slice starts to come together. If I zoom out and squint, the image is really eye-communicable. For a magical portrait, information technology'southward essential to have things glow for absolutely no reason at all. In this slice, I'm defining the glow every bit the jewel and the nether part of the hair. This has the do good of highlighting the magical floating pilus, the similarly floating jewel, the face, and the hands. I use the lighting to emphasize parts of the image that I would most similar the viewer to capeesh.

6. Painting Light

After sketching in light, the next pace is to clean it up and brand it fit the existing epitome. Sadly, this takes mode longer than simply sketching in the light, but for a painting to expect polished, information technology'south an important pace. The key to making something glow is a mixture of hard and soft light. The actual part that glows needs to be very, very bright.

The apartment-lighting image from the previous step has less contrast, and all the color values are in the lower one-half – in other words, they are closer to blackness than they are to white. I reserve the higher range for the glowing elements. This makes up the hard part of the glow. The soft role is merely taking these glowing light sources and diffusing them into the surroundings. The simplest style is to airbrush everything, but the part that will take the image to the side by side level is when we pay attention to materials where calorie-free is partially blocked, similar vesture, hair, and skin.

The color I utilise to pigment in the Add together (or Contrivance) layer is in the lower half of the color wheel value. Why? Well, the Add layer mode adds the value of that layer to all the layers underneath. My layers underneath have values upwards to 0.5, and if my Add layer is 0.5, then I end up with values up to 1. ane is the brightest y'all tin become in an image – if your values exceed 1, it ends up being over-exposed, a very common mistake. One time an paradigm is over-exposed, it starts to lose particular that you would have to pigment dorsum in subsequently, merely it is easy to arrange an under-exposed prototype's brightness.

Here's an example of what it looks like if yous paint in the Add/Dodge layer with likewise bright a color. You can run across a lot of the area turns pure white, losing all detail that was in that location earlier.

We all know that if you lot hold upwards your hand to the lord's day, it looks super red. Similar phenomena happen with hair and calorie-free cloth. I won't get also technical hither, but looking at references for these phenomena and incorporating them into your painting can take an image from good to smashing. Here I add some ruby subsurface scattering to the hand.

The lighting needs to exist clear when you're zoomed out at this stage, but the details will be fixed later on. Information technology'southward important to consider how the extremely bright low-cal affects the remainder of the scene. The skin will be lit, the metal, cloth. Additionally, the low-cal in the hair spreads out through the residuum of the hair as well. Alongside low-cal, it may be necessary to add some additional shadow based on these new light sources. I use an overlay layer to shade places where I don't think these lights bear upon as much, calculation contrast to the overall prototype.

vii. Detailing

I use the Droplet airbrush to add some stars in the background.

For the confront, I zoomed in and brushed on some sparkle with a unlike airbrush. I continue to pigment on Glow Dodge or Add (Glow) layers to add together more strong lite to the face. Once I'one thousand satisfied, I repeat a similar procedure for the body and a fiddling on the clothing.

At this point, I besides take some time to clean upwardly some details, such every bit lines and colors that aren't where they should be. There'due south non much to explain here. It'due south mostly something that comes from experience. The details make the painting more than pleasant to look at over a long period of time.

8. Special Effects

At this betoken, the epitome is mostly done – we but need to add the finishing touches.

I used this brush ( https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-united states/particular?id=1752622 ) from Prune Studio Assets; it has a rainbow pattern with an irised expect. I use the radial blur to make the effect await similar it's coming more than from the middle of the epitome and gear up the layer blending fashion to Color Dodge to make information technology await similar information technology'due south glowing.