Hello! My name is Liz Staley and I’m a long-time user of Clip Studio Paint (I started using the program back when it was known as Manga Studio 4!). I was a beta-tester on the Manga Studio 5 program and for Clip Studio Paint, and I have written three books and several video courses about the program. Many of you probably know my name from those books, in fact. I write weekly posts on Graphixly.com and on CSP Tips, so be sure to come back every week to learn more Clip Studio Tips and Tricks from me!

“Backlight” is a light source that is behind the subject of an image, and it can be used to bring out highlights in your drawing, add mood, and provide a sense of environment. It’s a really simple trick to take your shading and highlighting to the next level! 

In this article we will cover the following topics:

Setting Up the Background

Adding Backlight to the Characters

Let's go!

Setting Up The Background

Before we get into adding the backlight to our characters we should establish our background. This is because the background light will influence the color and type of lighting that is on the characters! Sunset backlights would be much different from backlight from the moon or from a city. 

I’m going to take this illustration I made a few weeks ago and add some backlight to the characters from two spotlights. But first I want to add those spotlights to the background to help visualize where the backlight would be, so let’s handle that first!

The first spotlight will be coming from the top right to the bottom left, so using the Polyline lasso tool I mapped out the shape for the light. 

Create a new raster layer and set the blending mode to Add (Glow). Next I chose a light yellow color. Use the “Foreground to transparent” gradient subtool to fill the shape with light that fades out at the edges. In the Tool Property window you can set the Edge Process to “Reverse” to get color in the center and transparency at the outside.

I created another layer with the same settings but with the light coming from the bottom right to top left. Then use the Gaussian Blur filter to blur the edges of both lights and lower the opacity of both layers if they’re too intense. 

Now that the background is set up, we can move on to lighting our characters!

Adding Backlight to the Characters

Back lighting is easy when you think about it just hitting the outlines of the character or object that’s in front of it. I created a new raster layer above my character’s colors but below the line art layer and set that layer’s blending mode to Add. Using the Lasso selection tool and the same yellow color I used for my spotlights in the background, I started going around the edge of my figures and adding thin highlights just around the edges.

Another thing that I love about using back light is that you can use it to draw attention to details that may have gotten hidden by shading or to separate areas that are blending together. For instance, in my image I used the backlight to add a few little highlights to the character’s faces since they are mostly in shadow. The male character’s pants and shoes also blend together a bit too much and it’s hard to tell which leg is which in the original coloring, so using backlight I can pick up the edges and make it easier to tell at a glance what’s what!

To add a bit more character to the lighting I decided to make the highlights on the top right areas yellow and the ones on the bottom left white. 

Using the Blend and Blur tools, soften the edges of any highlights that are on a curved area to make them look more realistic. At this point I also dropped the layer opacity to around 60%.

In a really strong back light, such as a spotlight or the sun, you will sometimes get obscuring of the outline of the subject in front of the light. To mimic this, create a new layer over top of all the layers in your image, including any line art layers. Change the blending mode to Add or Add (Glow) and select the color of your back light. In my case I’ll be using light yellow and white. 

Now, using the Soft airbrush tool, add light along some of the edges. I added them along the male character’s shoes, the hair, and a few other places where I thought the light might be hitting the strongest and reflecting. Depending on how close and strong your backlight is, you may even want to have the line art completely fade out to the lighting color in places as well!

Once I had the back light done, I then used the instructions in my article from a few weeks ago to add motion blur and some finishing touches to my illustration! You can read that article at the following link.

https://tips.clip-studio.com/en-us/articles/11403

And we’re done!

Conclusion

Back light is a great trick to use to add drama to an illustration and incorporate your characters into a scene. It doesn’t take much longer to do but it can make a big difference, especially in making details that may have gotten lost in your shading visible again!

For more information on CLIP Studio Paint, please visit https://www.clipstudio.net/en or https://graphixly.com