3 elements + 1 composition, let you easily draw various forest scenes!

Hello! Little cutie

I am Comic Black Rainbow.

Is drawing scenes one of your weaknesses?

Most of the people who draw favorite subjects to draw are people or animals.

If you just draw some simple works, there is no problem.

But we all know, it is limited to drawing people and animals.

It will not satisfy our desire to create.

At this time, we will want to draw some complete works.

For example, works with background.

But for those who usually draw people and animals, the difficulty of drawing background lies in:

1. It requires perspective when drawing backgrounds.

2. The background is full of complex objects

3. It's not used to drawing backgrounds because rarely draw backgrounds.

Painting backgrounds is also a professional field of painting.

For different stories, situations, and creative needs, the background required is also different.

This is why there are scene painters in the game industry.

Miyazaki's animations will also have animation artists who specialize in drawing scenes.

Because drawing the details of the background is very complicated and requires homework and research beforehand.

But even so, the presentation of various scenes can still be traced.

Today I want to talk about just one scene and share with you simple drawing techniques.

That is the scene that many people often draw during the creative process - the forest!

Today I will also use Clip studio paint to demonstrate because many painting auxiliary tools are using Clip studio paint.

It can help us when drawing forest scenes.

It is simple, convenient, easy, and fast to draw all kinds of forest scenes we want to present!

Further reading you might find interesting:

• 海浪如何畫？拆解給你看！ 

3 Basic Elements for Drawing Forest Scenes

First of all, when we first draw a forest, if we don't consider the details, such as differences in geography, seasons, countries, climate, etc., just based on our understanding of the forest, we must first understand the three most basic elements of the forest scene: trees, bushes, and grass.

Most forest scenes can be drawn using only these three elements! But at this point you might ask, how do you draw trees, bushes, and grass? If you were to depict each blade of grass and leaf, it would be impossible, so let's take a look at how to easily draw these three elements! And finally, combine them into various forest scenes!

But before we look at how to draw these three elements, because the Clip studio assets are rich in materials about forests, trees, leaves, etc., you may not know where to start, but don't worry! Among these numerous and scattered materials, I found an illustrator who shared a set of brush materials that can be used to draw tree trunks, branches, leaves, and grass at the same time. This is the most complete set of tree and grass brush materials I have seen so far! So I highly recommend that you use this set of materials to start your forest scene painting journey!

Brush Link：https://assets.clip-studio.com/zh-tw/detail?id=1829085

How to draw trees?

First, let's start with the largest trees. In fact, trees are mainly a combination of trunks, branches, and leaves. Trunks and branches are easy to draw, but the complexity of the leaves makes it impossible for us to draw them one by one. At this time, we will use the leaf brush, so you can try the set of brushes I recommended above!

Generally speaking, our eyes see the leaves of trees in front and back, so when we draw trees, we usually lay a darker base color, sometimes dark green, and sometimes we can add a little blue to show the leaves behind that are covered by shadows, and the leaves closer to us will gradually show a clearer green, or a warmer green, so usually the leaves or grass will be painted layer by layer.

After the overall appearance is finished, I will use some leaf brushes to draw some leaves with clearer appearance. At this time, I usually absorb the color I have laid as the color of the leaves, and then make some embellishments in the dark and bright parts appropriately, so that the tree we draw will look more layered.

Finally, we add a simple trunk, and basically, our easy-to-draw tree is complete.

If you want the leaves to look more colorful, you can also use brighter yellow leaves as a final embellishment!

How to draw bushes?

The method for drawing bushes is the same as that of trees, except that the trunk is missing and the leaves are more detailed.

In the beginning, we also spread the base color on a large area of ​​the canvas. Here I used darker blue, green, and a slightly brighter green, and used a rubbing method to roughly outline the shape of the grass.

Next, I paint the leaves in the same way as I paint the trees. I use the color I laid down as the color of the leaves and dot the surroundings appropriately. Generally speaking, I won't paint leaves all over the base color as this will look too messy, so I add leaves to some parts and leave them out in other parts so that the grass will look more comfortable. The leaves painted last are usually the brightest colors. Here I used a brighter turquoise color.

Finally, because this brush has two types of leaves, I used another larger and more diffused leaf as an embellishment. After I drew a lot of leaves here, I felt that the whole picture was too messy, so after drawing, I also erased a lot of leaves to make the whole grass look more comfortable and not too messy.

How to draw grass?

Finally, for the grass part, I used dark blue and green as the base color and painted the area of ​​land where I wanted to draw the grass.

Next, add a brighter green color on top of the base color. The painting method here is the same as the leaves, which are painted layer by layer. The difference is that the brush used is the brush for painting grass.

After the overall base color of the grass was almost painted, I used a clearer grass brush to start painting small clumps of grass locally. I also used the color I laid as the color of the grass and embellished the grass appropriately. However, here, to increase the richness of the grass color, I added a brighter yellow as a little embellishment.

Of course, I will draw a lot when I start to paint. When it looks particularly messy, I will start to adjust the position of the clearer grass, or erase some grass that feels too much, to make the overall grass look less messy. Just organize it until you feel comfortable!

Composition Tips for Forest Scenes

Now that we know the basic elements of how to draw a forest scene - trees, bushes, and grass, we can now start to conceive the forest scene! Generally, experienced painters may be able to quickly conceive the composition of their works in their minds, but for beginners and intermediate painters who want to paint forest scenes, the composition can be a difficult step, so here I would like to share a composition secret for forest scenes, which is to distinguish between the foreground, middle, and background!

First, let's look at these three pictures.

Looking at these three pictures alone may seem like nothing special, but if we simply arrange these three pictures in front, middle, and backorder, you will find that the pictures change a lot!

Do you feel that the picture becomes richer, more interesting, and more orderly? That's why it's important to differentiate between foreground, middle, and background! This will make the picture richer and not too monotonous, and using various picture elements to distinguish the foreground, middle and background will also make the picture look orderly and not too messy! So if you want to draw a forest scene but don't know how to compose it, you can start with this simple concept of foreground, middle, and background to arrange the composition to make your picture rich and beautiful!

Draw a forest scene using techniques for drawing trees, bushes, and grass

I believe that after you have personally drawn trees, bushes, and grass, and understood the composition techniques, you will have a basic impression and concept of drawing these elements. At this time, it will become much easier for us to draw a forest! First, we can draw a simple sketch using the composition techniques of foreground, middle, and background.

Next, we can start drawing the trees in the background, the grass and characters in the middle ground, and the grass in the foreground based on our sketch, and make a color plan at this time. Because we need to distinguish the foreground, middle, and background, in this picture, the easiest way is to use color to distinguish the foreground, middle, and background.

After a simple color plan, we can start painting the details! I first drew the grass in the foreground and then the trees in the background. The grass in the foreground and the trees in the background do not need to be drawn in detail, just a simple drawing is needed, so that the people and birds in the middle ground can stand out. So I finished the simple drawings first, and then slowly adjusted the details of the middle ground later!

Next, I will focus on painting the grass in the middle ground. Here, I first use a green grass with a lower saturation, close to gray, and then paint the warmer grass on top of the lower saturation grass to make the overall grass look more layered.

Next, make some simple modifications to the overall mid-ground grass, and adjust the foreground grass according to the tonality of the mid-ground grass, so that the foreground grass can look thinner and not be too different from the mid-ground grass.

After the whole scene was painted, I started to draw the characters and the bird. Here, to make the characters more vivid, I made overall adjustments to the characters and the bird later. First, I added some shadows of leaves on the grass and then drew the body movements of the characters with simple line drawings.

Next, refine the line drawings of the characters and the bird because this will make it easier to color them later.

Then apply the basic inherent color. Here I want to draw a little prince like in a fairy tale, so you will find that the character's clothes look a bit like the prince in Snow White.

After the inherent color is laid, it is time to start laying the color of the large shadows, so here I use the airbrush brush, which is better for painting large areas of foggy texture.

After the inherent color and shadows are painted, the next step is the highlight of painting - the detailed part! At this time, we usually spend more time processing the more detailed light and shadow parts.

After the prince's entire body was roughly drawn, I began to add some light and shadow changes on the grass around the prince's seat and on the prince's body and also drew the bird part.

After the overall shadows are almost drawn, we can draw some strong light parts, so that the whole picture will appear to be full of sunlight. After all, the stronger the shadows, the stronger the light. Here, I use the "Add (Glow)" layer mode to draw the layer where the light hits the prince and the bird.

Basically, the main part of the painting is almost done, but I still want to make the picture richer, so I added shining spots around the grass, a little yellow light and fog in the background forest, and changed the foreground to feathers.

Originally, I should have stopped here, but I still wanted to enrich the picture, so I added some flowers on the grass and painted a ray of sunlight shining directly on the prince from above, giving the whole picture a hint of guiding everyone to look at the prince. This overall picture makes me feel that I can stop 😆

After read this tutorial, do you feel that drawing a forest scene is not as difficult as you think?

As long as you can draw trees, bushes, grass, simple mastery of foreground, middle, and background composition techniques, it is not difficult to draw any kind of forest scene.

OK!!! Now it's your turn to try drawing!

Open your Clip studio paint, then start wielding your paintbrush boldly!

I'm glad you read this little tutorial on painting forest scenes! This tutorial is a bit longer, but it covers some tips and tricks for painting forest backgrounds. There are even recommended brushes that you can download and use, which is convenient! But the old saying goes if you read the tutorial but don't use it, and now pick up your digital painting tools to try to draw, it will be difficult for you to really learn these skills, so hurry up and try to draw now!

Of course, if you want to learn more about the secret magic of digital painting, which can help you create good works with digital painting as soon as possible, you can come and participate in this 60-minute free painting course! I will share with you all the skills needed to learn digital painting, and how we can help us achieve our painting goals step by step!

If you want to continue learning more about digital painting tutorials and information, you are welcome to subscribe to my website's blog newsletter, so you can learn for free! If you want to learn or want to know about anything related to digital painting or drawing, you are welcome to leave a comment below, or share your questions with me via social media or email! I hope the above digital painting knowledge and techniques can help you draw the forest scene you want to present! I am also looking forward to you sharing your forest scene paintings with me!