CyberPunk the tutorial
Part 1: Cyberpunk Aesthetic and Visual Language
Cyberpunk has been growing in attention over the last 3-4 years. In its style and aesthetic, there are basically 3 pillars of reference a person needs to consume to therefore understand its place in media and etc.
Akira Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell
I’m not stating these to promote these films and IPs I’m just stating what most would consider foundational in the look and feel of the modern take on the Cyberpunk genre. Of course, there are a ton of great books, comics, movies, cartoons, and etc. going all the way back to the ’60s and ’70s in science fiction that have also contributed to these 3 pillars, but they are the most mainstream, and I would argue have stood the test of time… well the short future time (you know what I mean). Anyways the main thing you need to have when making Cyberpunk is to stick to this mantra: High Tech, Low-Life
Colors: Colors in the Cyberpunk genre are really easy. Neons on dark and muted colors. The dominant colors being pink, purple, and light blue. Offsetting these colors with deep muted versions are great ways to compliment them.
Shapes: Though there are relatively large diverse types of cyberpunk it Is mostly edgy and jagged cuts throughout a piece of equipment coupled with thin lines for cutlines and panels.
Then there are the motifs of Triangles, Hexagons, and basic Circles.
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CyberPunk, to me, is mostly about how our use of technology and consumerism has placed mankind as a type of a society-imposed slave state of predetermined life purpose to meet the ends of most corporate and governmental benefits. Everyone is in the system, and if you are not in the system, then you are a threat. So the art we create should reflect so. If it’s corporate it’s clean and cool. If it’s outside of corporate control, it’s a bit slapped together and grimy. If it’s governmental in nature it’s grimy and more mechanized. Remember High tech, Low-life.
Components: This is sort of a weird one. There are certain parts and pieces that you must understand in the visual language of Cyberpunk. First is cords, wires, and power lines. If you want to make something more slapped together and techy add cords and wires. Along with those we have to remember that things are being built upon the terrain and city to consolidate and move said wires, that where pipes or piping come in. And since there is more government and corporate regulation, I’m guessing no one wants to get sued so there are signs, stickers, and decals on everything. And finally, to keep all of that junk together there are bolts and rivets everywhere.
Research and Visual Library: Before you start jumping into making a piece let’s first collect exactly what you want to have as references in your piece. So if it’s neon signs, mechanical parts, or whatever just be sure to grab some images of those to refer to.
Part 2: Layout and Components
Let’s first grab a golden ratio material to use for our layout which is free from Clip Studio Assets.
Then let’s start a new piece in ClipStudio. Make your canvas 18x12” at 300-600px (your preference for performance). Place your golden ratio on the canvas.
I mock up a small sketch of what I would like for my piece to be. When doing this I can show what components will be placed in as layers. All the while I am thinking of where elements should be using the golden ratio.
Now let’s collect the FREE materials needed to make this piece work:
For the girl we need:
For the city we need:
And finally for the foreground I want it to look like it’s raining so I grab these
Rain brush
Part 3: the character
Before you start the creation of the girl I highly recommend you read my previous tutorial on how to “Create a concept character with free materials and 3d Assets “ there I go over the process of using your own 3d models, materials, and brushes and how to quickly render with them.
On your canvas create in your layers palette, create a folder and label it Girl. Now go to your materials palette and drag the 3d girl model onto the page. Adjust your model to the way you prefer on your canvas. Now for my model below, I would normally turn off the guidelines texture but, in this instance, it is a great “happy accident'', if you will, that we can use to create some cyborg elements.
Now place in the umbrella adjusting it as well to meet the needs of your model and then finally place the 3d sphere ball at the end of the umbrella. Once you have all of your models on the canvas be sure to adjust them all to the correct lighting and turn off any elements that you do not want such as their textures and outline width.
Next, we will rasterize each 3d layer and then create masks for every component of the character. This can be done by right-clicking the layer choosing selection from the layer and while selected just press the mask button on the layer palette. This way it will be easier to render everything in a controlled manner.
Once masked we can now get to rendering. We want the shade and render of the body to be blue so use the Color Balance under the Edit and Tonal Correction tab. Here we can move around the highlights, shadows, and mid-tones to get something a bit more colorful.
Once that Is done I want to change the Umbrella to be a bit more see-through so then I select the canopy (nonmetal areas) and cut them away from the umbrella handle, shaft, and runners. I place the canopy parts onto their own layer and then select them, delete them, then fill in the canvas with the solid light blue color we chose previously for our color palette.
To make it see-through I duplicate the canopy layer & hide the old one in case I want to use it again later. Then I lower the opacity of the new blue canopy layer to like 30 or 50%. Now, use a soft airbrush eraser with a lowered density and hardness and slowly erase portions of the umbrella to show clear highlighted areas.
For the girl I want a jacket on her, create a new layer label it jacket and grab a solid brush. Alternatively, you could grab a 3d model of a jacket and align it accordingly to the model and just render from that. Once you have filled in the basic silhouette shape of the jacket make a new layer and start placing it with a solid flat brush the components of it, like buttons and clasps, etc. Remember to refer to references so you can make that jacket hold components of a cyberpunk style.
We are just making indications here of where we want things to go.
Part 4: the background
Let’s now work on the city. I like to “cheat” where I can in art because cheating is sometimes fun.
I decided to first grab the city brush. Using the golden ratio as a guide it can help us with some hit points and areas where we can place them on the canvas. When I am spreading them I am thinking about Atmospheric perspective and depth, which is:
1. Small and darkon the farthest bottom layer
2. Medium and grey on the middle layer
3. Fat, lighter, and on the front layer.
Also, this is going to be at night so I make a sky and moon layer on the very bottom of the image. I want this to be at night and I want it almost cyberpunk surreal in a way. So I decided to make the moon that radical red and dark blue is used in the background.
With these colors laid down and the city in place, it’s time to make things more radical matching the grey scaled buildings to them using the color. Go to edit >Tonal Correction > Color balance here we can change the shadows, highlights, and mid-tones in various color ranges. So I sort of feel it out and use a reference to bring it to a color that is complementary to the girl’s jacket and how it can help make her “pop” more in later development, which in this case is purple.
We have now established our main background.
Part 5: Rendering the Character.
Now, let’s render up all of our pieces. Since we masked them and set the lighting onto the 3d models accordingly we can easily just start adding details to the piece: an undershirt on the jacket layer, a bracelet watch, and some other additional parts.
On the jacket I add a zipper with the cool zipper brush I got or free, clean up the stripes, and place some plastic-type shoulder pads on her. Then buttons and a sort of light up collar.
For the hand and arm, create some light-up joints and knuckles. I follow around the guidelines provided by the texture and create cutlines and joints that look like cybernetic parts. Making sure to put that triangle somewhere in that piece, l make a red one on her bracelet.
On her face, I just kept it simple and gave her some eyeshadow reminiscent of Japanese geisha makeup. For her eyes, I place in my eye material and even put a slight difference in the color of light to make it look even more artificial.
For the hair and top of her head I create some bangs with the sides curving in towards her face this helps frame it a bit. On top of her head, I created a hairband with horns to make it more fun and whimsical to me. For all of the hair I layout the shape with the Hairbrush we downloaded and then I use a finer brush to create the hairlines and streaks building up the volume as I go along.
Finally, since this girl is in the rain I take the rain droplet brush from my materials and scatter them around her and the umbrella keeping in mind the curves and directions the droplets would hit and flow upon each material.
Ok, She is looking pretty good to me now…
Part 6: Neon city time
Back to our city background. I first make a guide of where the girl is placed so then I know where I should be placing all of my effects and details on to the city.
So let’s give this city some color. I wanted the observer to feel like when they saw this picture that the girl was higher up than usual. In order to do that I place a gradient of light pink up from the bottom of the frame onto the buildings in the middle ground to hint at lit streets below. Then on the buildings in the foreground, I make them closer to us by creating another solid color bringing them closer to the viewer. Also, I add in some hanging wires and scaffolding to bring more characteristic of an industrial feel to parts of the city. Then I create some light rays coming up from the city below.
For the neon lights, there are all types of things you can do to decorate a building because essentially it is just a blank box. Create a new top layer and name it lights and set the layer to color dodge. Also alternatively you can just use some neon brushes they have in the materials store. Since things are geometric I can just make patterns in white and then place them accordingly to the city buildings. I suggest that you play around with neon glows, color dodge, and color dodge glows to get the effect you like the most.
Part 7: Check your piece.
Don’t try to do all of this in one sitting. Take a break, watch something, do some reading, maybe even more research. Come back and check your work. Is there anything else you would like to add or take away?
Once finished you can start adding in light and shadow to areas that need it more to bring out shapes and separate elements. Once all done with that, it’s time to bring the rain.
Grab your rain material, Place it on your canvas. Transform and rotate it to whichever angle you like. If you want it to streak even more just add motion blur to it matching the angle you rotated the material to. Erase the portion over the girl and her umbrella and then we are pretty much done. So, if you need to come back again and render up any spots you think you might have missed. I get sorta OCD with this and just zoom in and go from side to side on the canvas making sure that everything is good enough. Place your name on it and save it.
Cheers, you’re done.
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