Sky Illustration

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In this tutorial I will teach you how to draw yourself a simple sky illustration on Paint Shop Pro 8. This method is pretty simple and also comes very much in handy when it comes to layouts! Here are some examples of where I've used this technique: [x], [x], [x].

To begin with open up an image on Paint Shop Pro, adjust the image to whatever size you want your illustration to be; my image is sized 650 x 339. Depending on what colour you want your sky to mostly be; weather it's reddish like a sunset, or blueish like a sunny day - fill your image with this colour. I am using the colour #6190A9.

Then take the selection tool as a rectangle shape and feather of 71, and highlight half of your image. Take the fill tool again, and fill in this half with any colour you like that is completely different from your base colour, and press CTRL+D to lock the lines in place. I am using the colour #DB9E3F.

Next, create two new raster layers. On the bottom raster layer you have created, we are going to repeat the previous step, however this time fill it with black. On the top raster layer, highlight half of the black you've just filled in and fill that with black. Make sure to press CTRL+D both times to lock in the lines. Then set both of the raster layers to Soft Light - the first one at 70% and the second at 18%. Merge together your layers. (Layers > Merge > Merge All).

So right now the image looks really disgusting, weird and in no way like a sky! But this is something we will fix in time. Go to Adjust > Blur > Gaussion Blur and blur it to 75.36. Lastly, like before; create a new raster layer and use the selection tool to fill in a small section of the bottom white. Merge together your layers.

Now it's time to colourize! These steps may not work with every colour, if some things look weird with the colours you've chosen, just adjust the settings and get creative!

» Duplicate your base layer and set the duplicate to Screen at 78%, merge together your layers.
» Go to Adjust > Hue and Saturation > Auto Saturation, and match your settings to Less colourful, Normal, Skintones present.
» Duplicate your base layer and set the duplicate to Burn at 32%, merge together your layers.
» Go to Adjust > Blur > Gaussion Blur and blur it to 23.00.
» Duplicate your base layer, go to Adjust > Hue and Saturation > Colorize, change your Saturation to 0. Nomatter what your Hue is the picture should go gray, set this to hardlight at 100% and merge together your layers.
» Go to Adjust > Hue and Saturation > Auto Saturation, and match your settings to Normal, Normal, Skintones present.
» Go to Adjust > Blur > Gaussion Blur and blur it to 28.09.
» Duplicate your base layer and go to Adjust > Add/Remove Noise > Add Noise, add a Uniform - 50% noise, then set the duplicated layer to 16% before merge together your image.
» Create a new raster layer, then take the paint brush tool at a size of 200 and hardness of 0, and use various colours as colou bubbles on your image. Then go to Adjust > Blur > Gaussion Blur and blur it to 43.49. Here is an example.
» Lastly, duplicate your base layer and set the duplicate to Screen at 26%, merge together your layers.

Now the last few steps are all about adding elements to your image to make it more than just a background. In this case I'm simple going to add clouds and birds, but you could add anything: grass, rainbows, planes - just picture a sky and let the ideas flow.

I won't walk you through creating clouds and birds, but I'll give you the basics. Select the tool; using a circular shape, simple use it to throw together some clouds, when you've done that go to Effects > 3D Effects > Drop Shadow, and having both the vertical and horizonal at 1, change the blur to 0, opacity to 100 and colour to black. Covert the Vector layer to a raster layer at 35% and merge all of the layers together.

Making the birds is even easier, take the tool at a width of 0, cross out pallet 2; and use the point to point setting to draw birds.

Merge together your layers one last time - and with that - your image is complete. :)