Flame On

Issue #17

I Cast Fireball

My quest to learn how to draw fire so far has seen me learning the basic principles of fire. From how color dictates temperature and fuel burning efficiency to how a standing flame tends to form a teardrop or triangular shape.

But, at the end of my first round of studying, I was left feeling like I had yet to make anything that would be usable in my comic. In my story, flames are often present as a result of magic, not candles and fireplaces. Conjured flames tend to look different from ordinary fire, and I would need to figure out those differences if I was going to draw convincing fire effects for my comic.

To get started with my magically conjured fires, I went with the classic fireball. A molten ball of fire streaking across the air to pummel into a target.

Using the basics I’d learned from before, and thinking in terms of the visual mechanics of a fireball with a circular source followed by a trail of flames, I made my first attempt without a reference.

It definitely looks…cartoony. Kinda like the amateur flames you’d see someone paint on a car. I was, understandably, not terribly enthused by my first attempt. So I found a proper reference to see what I could learn.

This one is much nicer. That circular fireball shape is still present, but the flame trail has been significantly thinned out and the shape is much more akin to if smoke were colored orange. This lacks the jagged edges of the flames I’d been drawing so far, but there’s something so visually appealing about it.

Notice, too, that the laws of fire temperature are still being followed. The fuel source, that burning ball of fire, is predominantly yellows, whites, and light oranges. This is where the hottest flames are, because they’re actively burning the fuel source.

And what is that fuel source? Uh, I dunno, magic? I imagine this would look a little different if there was an actual, physical fuel source like a burning rock inside. We’d probably be able to peek at the source of the fire, but here it’s completely obscured what the source is. I’m not going to worry too much about it for now though, since most of the time I’ll be using magical fire sources.

The other distinct thing I hadn’t drawn yet are the wisps of fire coming off the trail. This is something that can be observed in real fire: small bits of flame breaking from the pack and fizzling briefly beside the main source. They tend to be pretty small, but they make a nice visual addition.

Between the two, it’s obvious which of these fireballs is better. But it broke a lot of the little rules I’d been learning about fire. I needed more samples to draw.

A Gap in Skill

The next few fires I drew were all taken from anime references. I generally tried to replicate them to the best of my ability, while thinking about what I’d learned about fire so far.

For the first one, I was still seeing those principles I’d learned at play. This fire has a clear starting point for a fuel source toward the bottom and tapers upward as it burns. I was also beginning to add new shapes like what’s going on at the tip of the fire.

Once I started blurring and smudging the lines, it created a nice glow. That red on the outside progressing toward yellow and white at the center creates a really good glow effect.

Spurred by what I felt was a successful drawing, I found another reference. This one had far less color variation going on, but it represented a smaller, more flickering flame with some interesting shapes, so I gave it a go.

This one definitely still reads like fire, but I was finding that my blurring technique was making it a little too muddy for my liking. But not blurring it at all didn’t look good either. I applied that red-edge-yellow-middle technique I’d been using to moderate effect, but something wasn’t quite feeling right with this, so I moved on.

This next one is much more traditionally fire-shaped. It has a pleasing crescent shape that still follows the teardrop rule, and adding some variety in where the flames were hottest gave it a sense of being alive. This one almost feels like a flame creature.

I’d continued to blur my edges, because, as far as I could see in the references, they had blurry edges, too. And yet, something feels so artificial about my blur. It’s too uniform, certainly, and I did try varying up the blur amount, but I was beginning to think that maybe blur wasn’t the effect I needed. I just wasn’t sure what it should be yet.

Finally, I took a reference from some flying pieces of fire. These are wisps of fire coming from a magical source. The shapes are much crazier. Part of that is due to my own mistakes, but another part is that these are flames burning without a source. They’ve been removed from the source and are scattering from an impact, which means they’ll flicker out very quickly. Without a defined fuel source, flames become a lot more jagged and tend to follow the line of whatever force has been exerted on it, be that wind or some kind of impact.

This was taking me in a direction, but as I stared at my page of flames, the only one I really felt good about was that second fireball. It had no blurs, but it was still clearly a fireball. I’m sure I could add a few special effects to make it look more fiery, but it doesn’t need it to look good.

And maybe that’s the style I want for my comic. Something that uses hard lines to represent flames. I mean, that brush I’d been using for a bit did that, and I chose it because I did like how it looked and felt it fit with my aesthetic.

“Okay,” I thought, “let’s dive deeper into stylized fire and see what I find.”

Studying a Style

That led me to pulling up reference images from the Avatar: The Last Airbender comics.

As I was looking through how they rendered fire, I found it matched with the general aesthetic I wanted for my comic. There’s clear linework going into the flames, and since a lot of those flames are generated by benders (magic, in this world) they follow their own set of rules for how they look based on the type of fire attack being done.

That led me to roughly trying to copy what they were doing, while attempting to throw my own knowledge and style into the mix to see if I found something that I liked.

The end results? Well, I’ll be honest, I’m not particularly happy with how any of these turned out.

I mean, that fireball is cool. I like how it clearly shows a hot, yellow ball in the center being edged by cooler orange flames, and the red outline helps it stand out even more. This is definitely headed in a good direction.

The other ones, eh, don’t look too close. I was trying to emulate what seemed like a very random style of coloring to the flames, but just ended up with pieces that looked mediocre at best. Again, there’s just something that’s not clicking for me yet when it comes to making the flowing shape of fire. I have more studying to do.

But that’s where I’m going to leave off the study for now. As I mentioned last week, I’m going to start shortening these newsletters so I have more time to focus on the remake of The Chosen One’s Mentor.

Granted, I definitely need to figure out my fire style soon because the first chapter features a big fire sequence that I need to nail. It also features a water sequence, which is why coming up I’ll turn to water studies. Perhaps I’ll learn something in the process of drawing stylized water that will help me figure out my fire.

This week feels a little bit like a letdown in terms of teaching material. Feels more like you all just watched me fumble around in the dark for the last few minutes. But, that’s learning, and I don’t want to shy away from showing you all that artists can struggle to learn, too.

I know I’ll get this down eventually, and, when I do, I’d love to make a proper fire tutorial video. Same with a lot of my topics, really. So thanks for sticking around through the rough patches. I appreciate your support.

In any case, on to painting to wrap up this week.

Painting of the Week

For this week, I sort of wanted a break from my rendering studies. I think I was getting a little burnt out on all the studying (no pun intended) and I wanted to do something simple.

To be honest, this canvas started as the base for my coffee cup study last week. I have a blue tablecloth on my worktable, so I’d originally planned to paint the canvas blue and then put the coffee mug on top.

But when I got the base layer down, I couldn’t help but feel a little attached to it. It looked like a nice lakeside receding into fog. I didn’t think putting a cup on top of that would look right, so I put the canvas aside and told myself I’d work on it again later.

Later came, and then I had a new problem: I had already done a handful of waterfront paintings. Did I really want to do another? Isn’t that too simple for where I’ve gotten? Maybe with some creative thinking I could come up with something else.

Creative thinking led me to flipping the canvas upside down. Now instead of a waterfront, I was seeing the potential for an underwater scene.

So I had at it with an underwater theme in mind.

I didn’t take a picture of it, but let’s just say I hated where it went. So, just like with my first bad attempt at last week’s coffee mug, I painted over the parts I didn’t like and started over.

Annoyed with myself that my attempts to be creative were turning out poorly, I gave into temptation and made a waterfront anyway, but I tried using some of the new techniques I’d learned along the way.

I had a better understanding of color, so there’s some nice color harmony going on. I knew how to use my brushes better, so the grassy hills look quite nice in my opinion. (Thank you fan brush.)

I tried to add a foggy effect to middling success. I either used the wrong brush or my paint was too watery. Or both. Honestly, it’s probably both. The fog was a slog and it’s barely noticeable by the end.

When I finished, the scene felt a little too dark and blue, so I figured I’d add a pop of color by throwing some fireflies into the scene. I think it helps. I don’t mind it.

Honestly, I like nature scenes. I’d like to make more of them. But I often hold myself back because, as my inorganic paintings have shown, nature scenes allow me to skirt around my lack of refined skills. I need to challenge myself with hard lines and difficult textures in order to truly improve, so I usually try to come up with non-nature subjects to paint.

But sometimes your brain just wants a little break and you fall back on what you know. And that’s okay. I was content to call it a week and give myself the mental break I clearly needed. I’ll challenge myself next time.

That’s all for this week, gang. Thanks for reading.