Artist Q&A
Question
How can I recreate the
effect of an angelic backlight
on a character?
Nicola Bradshaw, England
Step-by-step: Creating angelic backlight
Answer
Dave replies
Painting bright light can often
be a challenge, but mastering
a few simple techniques will
make this much easier for you.
A mistake I used to make was to push my
bright light source as white as possible, but
since we can’t get whiter than white, where
does one go from there? It’s actually simpler
to create the illusion of brightness by
careful handling of the areas around the
light source instead.
Direct light scatters, both in the
atmosphere and in the human eye. Learn
to simulate this corona effect in your art
instead of blowing out the contrast in your
light source, and you’ll produce a much
more satisfying result. If you combine this
with careful edge lighting, you can produce
a powerful visual effect.
Crepuscular rays, or sun rays, are perhaps
the most obvious effect, but it’s easy to
overdo them. A soft touch with these can
do the job very well without things growing
out of control. In addition, a hint of bounce
light from your foreground can contribute
to the sense of a scene being bathed in light.
Let’s look at how adding each one of these
effects drives the image closer to our
desired result.1
Here’s my basic line
drawing and colouring.
I’ve scanned in my pencils
and used digital watercolour
brushes. The value range
isn’t yet all the way up to the
white point: I want to have
somewhere to dial things up
to! I’ve also darkened around
the edges of her hair, which is
mostly where I’ll be using the
colour corona effect later on
in my painting process.2
I use a big grainy brush
to spray in light behind
the girl’s head, and then on a
separate layer, set to Overlay,
I employ the same brush to
dust light around the edges
of her form. The end result is
called colour corona, and
gives a sense of brightness
to the figure. I’m still not up
to pure white yet, but already
the feeling of the image has
changed for the better.3
This stage shows just
the application of the
edge light layer. Don’t outline
everything evenly, but instead
think about where a light
source behind the figure will
break through most. I hit those
areas with a bit of airbrushed
glow. You can see that even
this effect alone can be
effective and dramatic. The
edging can be pure white
here if you want.4
Here are all the effects
combined, along with
added crepuscular rays, but
with the colour layers turned
off. It’s clear that this type
of lighting can also work
independently of colour,
and can be applied to toned
drawings or manga styles
equally effectively. I’m always
a bit wary of crepuscular rays,
but with careful treatment
they can work very well.Using several simple
optical effects, you
can turn a staid
character portrait
into something
more striking.LAYER CAKE
For this kind of combined lighting effect,
it’s good practice to keep each effect on
its own layer. You’ll be able to dial each
component up and down, and develop a
sense of how much is too much.Here’s my line art,
scanned in and applied
to toned paper. I’m
going to change the
drawing’s impact.Artist’s secret