Forest
A tutorial on how I draw simple forest clearings! This method of drawing forest clearings relies heavily on having digital leaf brushes. I primarily use Clip Studio Paint default leaf brushes and Porforever Clip Studio Paint natural brushes. Similar brushes for leaves/scenery are also available for Photoshop, Paint Tool SAI, Medibang, FireAlpaca, and presumably many other art programs. If you don't know if your art program supports brushes, look up "[Art Program] brushes" or "[Art Program] leaf brushes".
Step 2On a new layer, using a leaf brush, create a general shape of a leafy forest backing. Use either a very very dark green or just black. If your leaf brush has pressure sensitivity that will change the opacity of the leaves, use a very dark green for a great effect.
When drawing these leaves, make sure that you leave small gaps in between the trees. You may want to add small streaks of light coming through the trees in the final few steps. |
Step 3On the same layer, lock the transparent pixels of the dark leaf / forest backing. Using slight yellow-green and golden colors with your leaf brush, add lighting. Be sure to add more lighting around where there are gaps in the forest and add more lighter colors towards the top. Avoid adding too much highlights, especially towards the bottom (less light reaches the bottom of a thick forest than the top)
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Step 6On our last layer of grass, add a new layer in front of previous layers and using your grass brush, create a new row of grass that will cover most of the past layers of grass. It is very important that you are doing this on a new layer because we will blur this layer to create a sense of depth.
Feel free to add more stray strands of plants/grass, hand-drawn or brush-made plants are both fine as these plants will stick out. Add more of these stray plants towards the right and left side of the grass versus the center, to "frame" the piece. |
Step 8On a new layer, using a light yellow-green color, use an airbrush and lightly "dab" at the lighter areas of the leaves. Make streaks of light that are seeping through the trees by setting the airbrush to a smaller size and then making lines down towards the edges of the canvas coming out from a center.
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