Let’s Draw Calligraphy Style Illustrations

I always find calligraphy super cool.
In this tutorial, I would like to introduce the tips and useful brushes for drawing calligraphy style illustrations.
I hope this helps with your future illustrations.

Recommended Brushes

I will first introduce the brushes recommended for drawing calligraphy.
These brushes are cloud brushes available for download on Cloud Materials.

●Brushes for drawing the main strokes

In particular, the “Sumi 3” brush allows you to change the impressions just by adjusting its options and settings, so I recommend trying this brush for various uses.

●Brushes for drawing the details

These are for adding the details to the main strokes.
Drawing in the details with these brushes will allow for more of a “brush” feel.

Let’s start drawing.

Drawing the approximation (Atari)

Draw an approximate sketch of the letter.
You can use regular brushes for this step.

Drawing the main strokes

Based on your atari (approximation), start drawing thick strokes using the Sumi brushes.
Rather than flat, smooth lines, focus on creating dynamics between the beginnings and ends of each stroke.
The tip here is to pay attention to the stroke order and the silhouette of the body of the letter.

Add details

Once you are done drawing the main strokes, let’s start adding the details.
Use the “Sumi 4” brush to depict ink smudges and “Coarse brush (Sumi Ink)” for the fainting ink effect.
The tip for this step is to imagine how real brushes would move.

Lastly, let’s add the splashes.
Scattering them like sprinkles all over the illustration would make it look a little dirty so I recommend you to sprinkle them only around the key positions.

In the above illustration, I changed the splashes to red to make it clear to see where I added them.

Done!

This is the complete illustration!

Examples for use

You can use the calligraphy letter in your illustrations like this.
Not only for the background but it can also be used as effects for scenes with critical blows.

 

Lastly, how was this tutorial?
It is super fun to draw calligraphy style illustrations so I hope you give it a try sometime.
Let’s create cool calligraphy letters!

（Text・Illustration／つかさん）
Twitter:https://twitter.com/Tsukasan0823