Creating Comic/Webtoon Backgrounds with Sketchup & Clip (Tutorial)

People often requested a tutorial on how to make Comic-backgrounds using 3D Software such as Sketchup. Today I'm going to share with you a few tipps on how to not only make quick, but also beautiful looking brackgrounds for your comic. The tutorial will be in English language - I'm trying my best to keep it simple and to use a lot of images to make it easy to follow <3  Step 1: The basics!

Lets start with the stuff you'll need for this tutorial.

• Google Sketchup
• Clip Studio Paint

A 3D-model to work with  A good place to find pretty good, partially excellent free 3D models is https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/

Another great source for 3D-models and other comic-resources (mostly not free, but worth every penny) is acon3d.com Go check it out, its paradise! :D

If you have your 3D-model of choice, head to Sketchup and open it.  Don't get distracted by the technical interface. We only need a few elements to create our backgrounds. For example the "style" window and the "shadow" window as shown on my screenshot.

Styles allow you to view the model in different ways (you can play with these styles to create more loose or creative looking backgrounds), but for this tutorial we only need the first option and the third. The first option shows your model with colors/textures and lines, the third option removes colors and textures, displaying lines only.

As you can see, some of the lines of that chair are missing. Head to view/edge style and activate "profiles". That should solve the problem of missing lines.   To create a good looking background we need to break down the model in different elements we can work with.  Its useful to save

• Lines
• Flat colors (or: optional a render of the scene)
• shadows

as seperate images. In Clip Studio Paint you can overlay these elements and work on each of them to create a more traditional look. But we'll get to that soon.  First, get rid of the lines by heading to view/edge style and deactivate ALL lines within your model. It should look like this now:

Now go save this image. Go to export/2D image and choose a resolution of your choice. I recommend going for higher numbers, because you'll get better quality, which is especially important if you're planning on printing a book.

Now go to the style-window and click onto that "line only" option. To extract the lines. Save the lines in the same size as the flat colors. This is important because it makes it easier to exactly overlay the lines with the flat colors later.   In the next step you deactivate the lines again via view/edge style (uncheck all line options). Instead we're going to view the shadows within the model now. Go to view/shadows and activate them. In my model it looks like this (because its an interior scene XD):

Not very interesting, but it might look more exiting with an exterior shot :> You can change the shadows via the "shade window". By toggling time and date the shadows change accordingly.  Save the shadows in the same size as flat colors and lines.   Instead of saving the shades seperately you can also go for a render of your scene. To achieve this you'll need rendering software. I recently discovered "Ambient Occlusion" as a very simple and effective tool to do that. You'll get it here: https://www.fluidinteractive.com/de/produzieren/erweiterungen-fur-sketchup/ambientocclusion/ It's very easy to use and provides you with a good looking render of your scene. A render of this scene looks like this:

As you can see, by rendering your scene you'll get a pretty good base of lights and shadows within and instant. On the other side it's less "comicy" and might look foreign with simpler styles. It's up to you if you like to go with the "flat color" style or with the "render style". It depends on the style of your comic!  I'll save the render too to show the difference in style at the end : )  Now let's head over to Clip Studio, where the real fun begins!  First, let's import the flat color image, the lines and the shadow and put these three elements together in one file. Now it looks like this:

The line-layer and the shade-layer are set on multiply.  Now let's try to get rid of that sterile 3D-look step by step. The most important tools we have to do that are

• colors (especially gradient maps! Godsent tool! :D)
• textures (paper/watercolor)
• adding lights (depends on the scene
• blurring (to convey distance and lessen the visibility of distracting details)

First, let's slap a gradient-map over the whole scene. You can download different gradient sets from the Clip Studio Assets site (https://assets.clip-studio.com/ja-jp ) or even create your own. To create this quick way of color tweaking head to layer/correction layer/gradient map

(sorry for the German screenshots btw. I installed the German version of Clip 🙈)  Now play around with different color modes and layer-modes. I like to set my gradient-correction layers on "color" with an opacity of approximately 50%. But different modes might create other, very interesting results! :D   In my example I went for a blue-ish green tint to create a cool, uncomfy atmosphere (because the whole scene is supposed to feel unpleasant XD). It looks like this now:

The color sure makes a difference! But we're far from finished with this. Next let's add some textures. I like to add colored watercolor textures on "overlay mode" (approx 50% or more .... Depends on the density you want) to create a more uneven, traditional look. After these changes it looks like this:

Much better! But I'm crazy for textures, so I add some more. A copic like structure and little "dots" that create the illusion of dust particles flying around. :> You can find TONS of different textures at the Clip Studio asset page. Don't shy away from experimenting with that.
After adding more textures (with overlay mode) it looks like this: 

Pretty okay-ish already. But there are more things we can do to enhance the image. Remember the shadow layer? We can play with this too! Try lighten or darken parts of it with the help of the gradient tool or adding color to it! Get creative! 

In my example I moved the shadow layer over the gradient correction layer, created a new layer and clipped it onto the shadow layer to color it (you can also use different layer modes on the clipping layer to create different effects. Just play around and have fun!).

Next, let's add some light! In my example I'm creating a new layer in "Add (shine)" mode and spray in the light in blue and red color with the help of the airbrush tool! :D

You can get really creative with this and add even more light if you like. I'm leaving it with this, because all of this is just an example to help you to develop your own background style.

Next, let's add some color to the lines. For this I downloaded an auto-action to speed things up. You can get it here: https://assets.clip-studio.com/ja-jp/detail?id=1784839

Install the auto-action, click on your lines-layer and simply let the auto action do the rest :D
Now it looks like this:

The difference is subtile, but noticable. The lines melt together with the whole picture much better!

Next let's add some blurryness to create the illusion of depth! To achieve this I flatten the whole image, copy it, undo the flattening and paste the flattened version on top. Now I blur the whole layer. It looks like this: 

That's what I see when I wake up in the morning without my glasses on...
Let's bring some sharpness back by erasing parts of that blurryness. I use the "gradient erase" tool to do that, but you can also use a big, soft eraser. There are many ways to do stuff in digital art :D
After erasing it looks like this: 

You can also change the blending mode of your "blur-layer" to create interesting effects. Have fun with this too! :D
To finish up you can add some color corrections on top. For example another gradient map to "unify" your colors more" or a "color balance" layer, or some additional gradients in different modes (like "soft light" to add lighter parts, or "multiply" to additionally darken some parts. Every image needs individual tweaking).
My final result looks like this:

The cherry on the top here is the glare effect on top. You can find lots of glares to use in the Asset Store.
But remember: You don't have to stop here. You can still paint in stuff in per hand (like dirt, graffitis, etc...). You can also paint over some digital lines to add a more personal touch.

Now a lil' bonus at the end. Remember the render I made at the beginning? Here's a version of the same background based on the rendering: 

Looks kinda different, right? :D This is just an example of all the things you can try to bring some more life into these boring 3D-backgrounds.

Have fun creating!
MAUS!