#sky tutorial

[tanzdoesthings]

how to fall over IN 2 EASY STEPS

yes i recorded this in beta but there are no spoilers shown i even covered up the emotes so y’all good dw

[thelastpilot]

Could you show how you did the stars and clouds on that piece of art? So beautiful!!!

Okay sure! I’ll make a quick tutorial of how I did it. 

First step is to look up references. For one just looking at rad galaxies and stuff is super awesome, but it also gives you a good idea of a lot of different effects you can do so here is a good link to like 25 rad pictures just as an example 

start with figuring out the colors of your sky, darkest at the top and lightest at the bottom, this changes based on where and how late into the night so references!

then get a nice and big blur tool and even it out. After that you’re gonna start with the stars. Most drawing programs come with a brush or spray you can use for this with lots and lots of dots where you can change the density and opacity. i stay at 100% opacity and set the layer to Add (Glow) ((some programs have lumosity)). Density of stars change per image

you can make stars using white or blue or red, mix it up, have some fun, make lots of layers with different brightness and if you want a few slightly bigger stars pop out the pen, lower it way down and make a custom dot

Okay this part ^^^ is a little tricky and time consuming. With your refs in mind pull out a soft air brush and lay out the colors in the general area you want the galaxy. Then, I take a rough edged water color brush (you can tool around with brushes here to get what you want but something soft yet jagged edged is a good bet) then you set it to negative. I dont know what its called, but 

this little checkered bit beneath the active colors, this essentially makes whatever brush you have into an eraser, then go to town on your galaxy. Don’t be afraid to nearly erase it completely, then lay on more color and erase the edges again. Use alot of layer, erase edges, combine them, and so on to get sort of this whispy cloud kind of shape. Overlay some more bright stars through the middle and tweak to get it just right. Soft brushes, negative watercolor brushes, lots of layers. Even here im not happy so keep playing with it

I edited it a bit more, fudged with the brightness a little and also broke up the background gradient a little to make it not feel so artificial, adding imperfections and things can help with the overall image. This is okay as is, but if you want to do the reflected water look like i did then heres a few more steps. 

~~Reflection~~

Make a selection of a strip across and copy and paste it onto a new layer. Then once selected, select Transform and flip it vertically and slid it down the that bottom strip to replace the lightest part of the horizon. This will leave a very small strip of that bright color that is now the horizon above the water of the lake/ocean. If the edge is too hard then take a small blur tool and lightly run it along that edge to make the fade a bit nicer.

then over the top of the reflected space set a layer of black (or dark blue or whatever color works best just a dark color) then lower the opacity to make it look like dark water. blur the hard edge just a touch until it looks good and maybe add a lighter color towards the middle and smooth it out. 

I didn’t have clouds in this, but it essentially the same as the galaxy effect. Soft airbrush, negative rough edged watercolor brushes to erase the edges and blur tool. Hope this made sense and was alright! Thank you for asking ^u^ 

[gallostrart]

Steven Universe skies tutorial! (sort of)

I’m by no means an expert soo follow it by your own risk ;)

1. Set base colors. I prefer a darker tone on the top and a lighter one on the bottom.

2. Add a bit of texture.Depending on what I’m looking for I use screen, overlay or multiply layers with low opacity. I use @gemcrust CUSTOM BRUSHES on Paint Tool Sai!

3. Add the clouds. Try to add a bit of shade that matches with the sky, and also I blur the top of the clouds, to make them less hard-edged.

3. Add the sun or moon, if you want to!

4. Add a surrounding light to it, using airbrush and a luminosity layer.

5. Add more textures, same as before but more noticeable!

7. Add thin light strokes, with luminosity layer, to create the feeling of light I guess, it’s just part of the Steven Universe style.

8. Add diamonds in the sky! I usually do two layers, one with a lower opacity in order to have a bit of deepness.

That’s it! You can check HOW TO DRAW STEVEN UNIVERSE LANDSCAPES

[jen-iii]

Hey! Have you ever done a tutorial on how to draw the skies in Steven Universe? You seem to draw them just like the artist themselves so it'd be interesting to see how you do it! You don't have to of course, it's just a suggestion. ;;

Well first off, here’s the brush settings for the two brushes I use (not counting the default pen tool)

And I will show you the process of drawing this!

This may get a little long so it’s gonna be under a read more!

Okay so first off, I just use the bucket tool to fill in whatever color I choose the sky for, I then add in some normal colored streaks (with the first brush set to s-4)

Then we jump in with the pen tool and just throw in some blobby clouds

Then, erase the bottom portion of the clouds + whatever looks nice to you

Now, make a layer over it and set it to clipping group + multiply and add on the shadows to the bottom of the clouds

Set that layer opacity down and now, with the Rough brush, set it to erase (You see that lil tiny box next to your color picker? click that and it sets your brush as an eraser)  and go over the edges of the shadow

Now, create another layer over and set it to clipping group + overlay and choose whatever color makes it look nice

Okay so going back down to the first layer, make one over it and set it to ‘lumi and shade’ and choose whatever color fits good and then make some streaks with the first brush again

add in a luminosity layer on top of that and do the same thing, it’s always good to fiddle with the size of the brush too! Add in some lil stars with it as well. Luminosity is pretty bright so you might wanna lower it’s opacity a little

after that, you can put an overlay layer over everything and fiddle with the filters to make it complete!

and that’s how I do my sky backgrounds in my su style! I hope this helps~

[xatuta]

[shortnime]

I've decided to share the way how I paint sky background ^v^ I'll be using paint tool sai and the tools are airbrush, marker and pen tool. I'll be using 2 LAYERS ONLY! 1 for the sky and clouds while the other one is for the overlay. 

So here's an example of my previous work of sky. I majorly used airbrush, marker and overlay

First, use a marker tool and fill the space with solid blue (using one stroke of the marker) and then fill the upper part (or part you want it dark) with a darker blue

Blur the hard edge between the dark blue and light blue. After you've done that, use 'filter' to edit the color to a much brighter one if you find the original color you used is too dull. 

Choose marker again > Set to noise > use white and paint the clouds > use dark color for clouds at the back. Note: CLOUDS ARE NOT FLUFFY ALL THE TIME since it's a form of gas.

Clouds have shadows on them too. Use a dark color (blue or grey) and paint them on the white color. Later, cover the shadowed clouds with white so it won't look too dark

My favorite part! The overlay~! Create a new layer on top of the sky layer and set it to overlay. Using airbrush, color splash on the layer!!

Finally, using pen tool, draw lots of star on them (or if you have custom brush for star, you can use that too~ Edit some more colors and voila, you have a sky~!