For the lightning strike, you’ll need a very small round brush. I used a 10/0 liner and titanium white. I started with the large lightning bolt that hits the mountain.
Creating a Lightning Magic Effect
Hello! My name is Liz Staley and I’m a long-time user of Clip Studio Paint (I started using the program back when it was known as Manga Studio 4!). I was a beta-tester on the Manga Studio 5 program and for Clip Studio Paint, and I have written three books and several video courses about the program. Many of you probably know my name from those books, in fact. I write weekly posts on Graphixly.com and on CSP Tips, so be sure to come back every week to learn more Clip Studio Tips and Tricks from me!
Making special effects can be one of the most fun and also trickiest parts of finishing up an illustration. With the right tools and techniques, however, it doesn’t have to be a painful process! The technique we cover in this tutorial is fast and easy, but is so versatile that you can use it for tons of purposes – like lasers, glowing swords, magic, and even the glow from a button or screen!
In this article we will cover the following topics:
Creating a Lightning Effect
Let’s get drawing
Creating a Lightning Effect
Of course we’ll need something to add our lightning effect to. This could be a drawing or just a canvas if you want to try this technique out before applying it to a finished drawing. I’ve done a quick drawing and added a black background so that the effect is easier to see.
This same technique can also be used to create other glowing items, such as lasers, glowing swords, or even glowing buttons. You just need to change the shape of the core and then add the glow around it.
To start the lightning effect, I created a new raster layer below the staff the character is holding. The lightning will be coming from the gem at the end of the staff, so I started with white and made a halo around the gem. I’m just using one of my favorite inking pens here.
ow I start mapping out the lightning bolts by making random lines, varying the line thickness by increasing or decreasing the pressure on my stylus. This is going to be the “core” of our glowing effect and the most intense part of the light.
Now, create a new raster layer over the white layer. Set the blending mode of this new layer to Add (Glow).
Now we can add our glow effect! Select the color that you want your glow to be – I’m going to use yellow for our lightning in this example but you can choose any color. Then select the Soft air brush tool. Set the size to a bit bigger than your white core light shapes and then go over with the color so that there’s a halo around them.
When creating something like lightning, I feel like it looks best to vary the thickness and the brightness of the glow effect. For instance, the arc of lightning that the arrow is pointing to in the screenshot below was gone over with the mouse so that there is no variation to it at all.
However, when the width and intensity of the glow is varied I feel it looks a bit more natural for something like lightning. The more intense parts of the glow are where I went over with the soft airbrush a few times to build the color up more.
I continued adding color until I was happy with the look of it.
How to Make Pixel Art Lightning
In this easy pixel tutorial you will learn how to create pixel art lightning! We will go over the different steps it takes to create your very own lightning made out of pixels!
Are you ready to make your own pixel art lightning? Whether you’re looking to create a pixel art lightning sprite for your racing game or perhaps you just want to share some new pixel art icons to your social media feed this pixel art tutorial will help you create pixel lightning fast and easy.
How to Make Pixel Art Lightning
These are the basic steps for how to create pixel art lightning inside of Adobe Photoshop:
- Select a Pixel Art Software such as Adobe Photoshop, Mega Voxels or Aseprite
- Create a 32×32 pixel grid
- Sketch out an Outline for the shape of the lightning
- Draw a Shade on the lighting to create depth
- Fill in the Background with Color
Now that you are familiar with the basic steps on how to make pixel art lightning, we will cover each step visually so that you can follow along on how to create it.
Select a Pixel Art Software
In this tutorial we will be showing you the steps to make your own pixel art lightning regardless of what pixel editor software you would like to use. Before we begin you will need to know how to create a grid and use the pencil tool in the software of your choice. We offer tutorials on the following pixel art editor’s so feel free to pick the one that you feel most comfortable with:
- Adobe Photoshop Tutorials
- Aseprite Tutorials
- Adobe Illustrator Tutorials
Create a Grid
To begin we will be using a standard 32×32 pixel grid. This size is a popular size when making pixel art, especially for projects like video games. Be sure that your canvas is set to the color White (#FFFFFF). This will be our canvas that we use to draw our pixel art lightning. You should have a canvas that looks something close to this:
Sketch an Outline for the Lightning
Now we will start by drawing the outline for the lightning so we can get the basic shape of it. To do this choose the color Black (#000000) and activate the pencil tool in your editor. Since this determines the overall shape, feel free to adjust the outline to what match your game or art project. As a guide, you can use the outline we made for our lightning below or like we mentioned before feel free to make your own.
Fill in the Color
Now that you have your outline for your lightning, we will add some color to make it stand out. There is one main color we will use for our lightning. For the entire fill of the lightning we will be using a bright yellow color (#F5C84C). This will serve as a nice base for our lightning when we add shades later.
Draw the Shading
Now as with any pixel art you make there are essentially two parts to shading: the highlights and the shadows. We will start with the shadows. To create a shadow color we will start with a darker yellow (#CDA740) based on the yellow we used earlier. Color along the bottom of the lightning. If you need any help follow the image below as a guide.
So now that you are getting a feel for this we will continue adding some depth to our lightning to give it a 3D feel. Let’s create a highlight using the same yellow we used on the base of the lightning, but instead of going darker this time we will go lighter (#FFE486). Remember, this doesn’t have to be the exact color in fact this is an opportunity to make the lightning look like your own. In our version we highlighted the top side of the lightning.
Great! When you are happy with your shadows and highlights on your lightning, be sure to view your final product. To see your pixel art lightning go ahead and turn off the grid lines to make sure you like the way the lightning bolt came out.
Fill the Background Color
Finally, let’s change the background color of our lightning sprite to really make our lightning bolt stand out nicely. Select the Bucket fill tool in your editor. For the color enter a very Light Blue (#BCEAFE). Then simply click on the white area outside of the lightning sprite.
Where to Go From Here
Congratulations! You now know how to create your very own pixel art lighting. Try creating different lightning pixel art by using other colors for your lightning bolt like bright red or blue.
By megavoxels | 2023-10-11T19:14:53+00:00 September 8, 2023 | Learn | Comments Off on How to Make Pixel Art Lightning
Materials
- 11″ x 14″ Canvas
- Acrylic Paint
- Brushes
- Jar Of Water
- Covered Work Space
- Paper Towel
- T-Square Ruler or straight edge
Colors
- Ultramarine Blue
- Turquoise Blue
- Titanium White
- Mars Black
Brushes
- 10/0 Liner
- 3/4″ Flat
- #12 Bright
- Cloud Brush: #12 Round Or Larger (see notes below)
Notes
For the clouds, I used the #12 round brush in this pack of brushes. I recommend finding a very large, soft round brush. A filbert brush can work too. Or, if you have a brush you prefer to use for clouds, use that.
© Paintings by Tracie Kiernan are intended for personal, educational and noncommercial use. For licensing please email [email protected].
Project Type: Acrylic Painting / Category: Storm
Color Palette
Step 1 Draw The Horizon Line
Draw the horizon line using a T-Square ruler on the bottom of the canvas. Position it about 1″ to 1.5″ up.
Step 2 Paint The Rain Background
Load your palette with ultramarine blue, titanium white & turquoise blue. You’ll also need a 3/4″ flat brush.
Load your 3/4″ flat brush in all three of those colors. We are going to be painting the rain background.
Paint using the full width of the brush going in a sort of diagonal/ curved directions. Imagine this background as a round downpour. There are areas that may be lighter or darker.
Fill the entire area above the horizon line (but leaving some white space for the mountains). The paint blends on the canvas. Don’t blend the paint too much because everything will start to turn the same color.
Step 3 Paint The Water
Completely rinse your brush. Paint the water using just turquoise blue and your 3/4″ flat brush. Paint the entire area solid under the horizon line.
Step 4 Paint The Mountains
Using your #12 flat brush and ultramarine blue, paint the outline of the mountain. It starts out high on the left and dips down to the right.
Then paint the entire shape of the mountain in with the ultramarine blue.
To get different values of lights in the mountains, use titanium white. Also I made the hills into two hills by painting a diagonal line.
Blend the blue and the white in so it transitions smoothly. You can even add a bit of texture in the mountain by painting long wavy strokes while blending the white in with the blue.
On the lower right part of the mountain, I blended mars black in with the blue. This makes this area look very dark.
Step 5 Paint Reflection In The Water
Using your #12 Flat Brush and titanium white, paint left and right horizontal strokes on the water.
Step 6 Paint The Trees
Using your #12 flat brush and turquoise blue, paint three trunks of the small trees in the distance. I used the very tip of my brush to do these vertical lines.
Use the tip of your brush to stamp the branches. Start at the top of the tree and stamp very lightly to create the smaller branches on top. As you work your way down, do so in a zig-zag pattern making the tree fuller on the bottom.
Use mars black for the large tree in the lower right. Do the same technique of painting the trunk first and working in a zig-zag stamping motion from top to bottom. You can also see my post about how to paint trees with a fan brush (which is the same technique as using the flat brush).
Step 7 Paint The Clouds
I used a #12 round brush in this set. You can also try this technique with a jumbo round brush or a filbert. What’s helpful about a large radius round brush is that the bristles are soft and make it easier to paint little round strokes to form the cloud shape.
Start the color ultramarine blue. Paint a solid line of cloud at the very top of the canvas. That cloud line has a bumpy shape at the bottom. Then paint a single cloud. When you’re doing these strokes, sort of go in a small, rounded motion.
Paint another single cloud on the left, about the same size.
And then paint another cloud below those two.
Next wipe off your brush to get most of the blue off.
Dip the tip of the brush in titanium white. Paint the bottom of the clouds with the titanium white but allow it to blend with the ultramarine blue.
Paint in small circular strokes to blend the white back up into the blue. The clouds essentially are lightest and brightest on the bottom because of the lightning strike.
Continue to paint your white highlight on the bottom of the three clouds and blend it back up into the blue. To get that “fluffy” sort of cloud texture, paint in little circular strokes.
Then I brought that top cloud down a bit by adding titanium white and ultramarine blue to it. Again, it is lightest on the bottom and fades darker on top. I also added a few more brighter areas in the clouds.
Step 9 Paint The Lightning
For the lightning strike, you’ll need a very small round brush. I used a 10/0 liner and titanium white. I started with the large lightning bolt that hits the mountain.
Paint a line that’s sort of jagged and goes all the way to the mountain. Then paint the bright area where the lightning is touching the mountain.
Then paint lines stemming out from the main lightning strike. I found that painting lightning is similar to painting branches. You’ll want to make the thickness somewhat varied. There are parts of the lightning that look a lot thinner and others, thicker.
Continue to paint as many lightning strikes as you’d like. Also note that I added more white in the small area under the cloud where the lightning touches to make that area look extra bright.
You can also paint small lightning strikes that are touching cloud to cloud, or even in the cloud.
There would be reflection on the trees on the side facing the lightning strike. To represent this, I used that 10/0 liner and titanium white to paint white on some of the branches. I did this on the large black tree in front as well.
I found that painting the lightning was very therapeutic! You’re in control of how many lightning strikes to paint, what shape they may be, how long they are and how many branches they may have!
Tip: go over that large lightning strikes a few times to make sure it is nice an bright. It is also the thickest line out of all the lightning strikes.
