Scenics

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Scenics: learn to create it all in this tutorial - the grass, the sky and everything inbetween.

In this tutorial I will take you on a guide to illustrating scenics. This can all come in handy when creating layouts and images, some examples that I have made can be found in my portfolio. If you find this tutorial useful a credit link will be appreciated, if you need any help on executing this tutorial then contact me.

To begin, open up Paint Shop Pro and create a new image that matches the size you want your illustration to be. My image is sized 529 x 416.

We're going to start off with the sky, move on to the grass and then move onto the little things like the flowers that tie the whole piece together. I already have a tutorial on how to create an advanced sky illustration here, but in this tutorial I'll keep it simple. First of all fill your background with #B8DEF5.

From there create a new raster layer. Take the Selection Tool (S) () and match your settings to mine below:
Selection Type: Rectangle
Feather: 100
Select 1/4 of the image and use the Fill Tool (F) to fill it in black

Press CTRL+D to lock the selection tool in place, then set that layer to Soft Light at 100%. Merge all of your layers together. Repeat the step above but this time select 1/4 from the buttom and fill it in white, instead of setting it to Soft Light at 100% set it to Screen at 60%. Duplicate that layer, drag it down using the Deform Tool (D), and change the percentage from 60% to 100%. A lot of information to take in? Check the example image to the left.

Merge all of your layers together. Create a new layer, then take the Brush Tool (B) at a size of 170 and Hardness of 0 and pick a bold colour; I have picked the colour #F67A00. Add colour bubbles all over the canvas and set the layer to Screen at 72%. Next go to Adjust > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and blur the colour bubble layer to a radius of 70.00. This as you can see adds a bit of depth to the image.

Merge all of your layers together again. Now we'll move onto the grass. To create the grass, select the Pen Tool (V) () and match your settings to mine below:
Segment type: Point to point
Meter limit: 15
Create as vector
The line width is not important as the top pallet has been made transparent.

Cross out your first pallet and match your second pallet to the colour #99C144 - then it's just a case of tracing. In order to trace your shape with curve, click where you want the shape to begin, click at a different point and then drag the mouse (Example (from my illustration guide tutorial). Use the pen tool to trace the shape of the grass; it automatically fills itself due to the second pallet being higlighted. Once you've traced your grass convert the newly created vector layer to a raster layer and rename it to 'grass'.

Right now the grass looks extremely plain. We'll fix this by working with layers and shadows. First of all duplicate the raster layer named 'grass' that we just created, take the Selection Tool (S) () at similar settings to below and select the top section. Go to adjust > brightness and contrast > brightness/contrast and change the brightness to its lowest (so that the top section is black); set this layer to Soft Light at 70% - merge this down to the layer it was copied from.

Duplicate this grass layer again and repeat the previous step instead this time select the bottom section and change the brightness to 5 and the contrast to 13. Lock the selection tool into place and merge the copied layer down again. Now the grass looks more interesting, but there's still more we can do.

Duplicate the grass layer and pull the duplicate before the original grass layer. Use the Deform Tool (D) to move this layer up so that it's visible behind the other layer, then go to adjust > brightness and contrast > brightness/contrast and change the brightness to -11 and the contrast to 13. Duplicate the grass layer again and drag it down. Then go to adjust > brightness and contrast > brightness/contrast and change the brightness to 11 and the contrast to 13. Using the Deform Tool (D) to make sure it is placed in an appealing place. Merge all the grass layers into one by using the merge down setting. If you're confused, check the image to the left.

The grass and the sky now look much more exciting. The hardest parts are done; now it's just time to add the little things in between that make the image more interesting: starting off with the clouds. Creating clouds is very simple so I won't walk you through it step by step. Select the tool; using a circular shape, simply use it to throw together some clouds, when you've done that go to Effects > 3D Effects > Drop Shadow, and having both the vertical and horizonal at 1, change the blur to 0, opacity to 100 and colour to black. Covert the vector layer to a raster layer at 35% and rename it to 'clouds', use your creativity to duplicate, resize and adjust the opacity to this cloud layer to come up with an image like mine on the right.

Highlighting the layer below the grass layer, draw in a sun. I've draw in my sun using the Preset Shape Tool (P) in the colour #FDDB3B (my top colour pallet was made transparent), I also drew it in a way that it appeared behind the grass. This image of the sun right now looks quite plain, but like always we can liven it up by playing with the layers.

Simply duplicate the sun layer and adjust the layer to Soft Light at 100%. Use the Deform Tool (D) to resize the duplicated sun layer, the original layer of the sun should act like a border. Go to adjust > blur > gaussian blur and blur the soft lighted layer to a radius of 6.00 - this blends it in so that the original sun layer no longer works as a border but almost as a shadow.

The last part of this tutorial are illustrating the things that go into the grass. This may mean small dark patches of grass, flowers or anything else you can think of. I won't go into details on those individual things in this tutorial, but I maybe in some others. You simple use the pen tool (which I explained about above), to sketch things together. When sketching new things right click and click 'new drawing object', work with your layers to add depth to these different peices.

Once you have made your scenics, merge them together (by using the merge down feature), so that the scenics are each in one layers. Then duplicate this layer and go to adjust > brightness and contrast > brightness/contrast and change the brightness to its lowest (so that the inage is black), flip this layer (image > flip), and change it to soft light at 100% - this creates a shadow.

For more information on how to create the individual things, such as the flowers, check out my other tutorials.