I shall update this with pictures of the tools used instead of my attempts to describe them asap. Also, if you find any grammar failures or spelling mistakes, please let me know (as I'm not fluent in English it will most likely be some every here and there throughout this text).
Before the very first tutorial I've ever made will start with the "notes" that I didn't want to add in the picture itself; I just want to let you know two things. In case you can't make out what my not-so-readable handwriting says, let me know and I will tell you what it says (and don't worry whether or not I'll be offended if you can't read what it says; because I for one can't read my own handwriting at times, lol).
Also, if you have any further questions, don't be afraid to ask - I'll try to answer it in any way I can.
Before the very first tutorial I've ever made will start with the "notes" that I didn't want to add in the picture itself; I just want to let you know two things. In case you can't make out what my not-so-readable handwriting says, let me know and I will tell you what it says (and don't worry whether or not I'll be offended if you can't read what it says; because I for one can't read my own handwriting at times, lol).
Also, if you have any further questions, don't be afraid to ask - I'll try to answer it in any way I can.
Introduction
A good start to know about clouds is the simple fact that there are different kinds of them. This will help you compose your clouds better as you practice drawing them.
In our sky you will find clouds that are higher up than what others are, these are called Cirrus clouds. Out of all clouds they are the ones that are at the highest in the sky and are the very long and wispy clouds that "hide" behind the others from our point of view. As the second highest clouds we will find the Altostratus clouds; these clouds are unlike the Cirrus clouds what I'd describe as "puffy" and (in my opinion) similar to a fluffy pillow. Lastly, we have the Cumulonimbus Clouds, whom are the largest of our clouds. These come in many different sizes and shapes; they are like the Altostratus clouds with their fluffiness, however, they are usually rather flat and not-all-too-fluffy at the bottom - because these clouds are the ones carrying storms.
I will not go into more detail than that right now, if you're more interested in them and would like to know more about them - Google is your friend to help you with that part.
As for reference pictures (or simply having the very sky outside your window as reference, which also works perfectly fine), I'd say "use it". Even I do that. Though, it's probably quite easy to tell that I didn't use any reference for the clouds in this tutorial, so they look rather... Messy... And not-so-prefect-and-pretty-as-I-usually-want-them-to-be. It's nothing wrong with using references; just remember to use them "the correct way".
One of the settings I'm always using for each and every step in this tutorial is the pressure of the brush. On all tools - except the pen - it hasn't it activated, so I always start with making the black circle by the brush size black by clicking on it. However, this will only make any difference if you work with a tablet.
(if anyone's drawing with simply a computer mouse or touchpad and would like a tutorial for that, let me know, I'd be happy to do one for that as well. Not that I've a touchpad, but the way of having the settings is in my opinion the same)
Step one
As you can see on the base for the background I chose to make for my clouds, I decided to make it more or less like a gradient - fading the colours into each other with the lightest one on top and the darkest one at the bottom. I've seen many different ways people have done the base for their backgrounds when I wanted to learn how to draw clouds back in 2010. To me it seems like some people makes the sky darker where the clouds are meant to be; while some does it like I did it for this picture - making it lighter in the direction where the sun is shining (which I decided was from above in this case).
I usually do this different from one picture to another each and every time I decide to draw clouds, because I always let the picture decide that for me. So I'd say how you do this part is up to you, do whatever you feel is "you".
Step two
Now for sketching up your clouds, arrange and compose them to your own liking. I suggest that you do this on a new layer, so you won't risk ruin your sky. Refer to the different kinds of clouds in case you're going to attempt that. As you can see, my rough sketches are things I pay little to none attention to, you barely can make out what I had in mind for my clouds. But for me the idea is still there.
Also, another note to that; yes, you can of course use the airbrush for this step too - I'm just lazy and had already decided where I wanted them to be and I wanted the sketch to be at least "almost" viewable here.
Step three
The only things that I didn't write up there along with the picture for this step is as follows;
First off, you should either colour your clouds in the same layer as you made the sketch for them, or simply make another layer on top of it. This way you'll easily be able to fix them in case you aren't pleased with them and you'll be able to use "Lock alpha" in future steps.
Then there's the settings I used for the airbrush. For this one I didn't change its opacity from 32%, which is its standard settings in the chibi painter. However, I usually do that and I tend to draw backgrounds with it on somewhere between 6-20% at the most (yes, this will indeed force to you work during a much longer period of time with your picture, but I simply have as a habit to do this because in my opinion it gives you so much more control over your picture and you can see at an early stage if it's turning out good or bad).
Step four
For this it's fairly simple... Just draw some more with a small size on the brush along the edges of your clouds to make them look more... Cloud... And not just as a messy blob of colour.
Also, I just noticed that I wrote quite strangely for this step in the picture. With "They don't have to be perfect" I meant to say that the edges doesn't have too be "oh so perfect", clouds are far from perfect most of the times. Besides - you can always fix the edges you are displeased with in the later steps.
Step five
Nothing much to say about the shading, use the airbrush, with a low opacity to your own pleasing (I for one went for 10% here). As I already had decided that the sun would be shining form above on my clouds; I simply shaded the lower parts of them (and other parts in need of some shadows).
As for the colour you use to shade with it's probably up for you to decide. I for one mainly shade with purple or blue (of course, combined with a tad almost (or pure) black at the very "bottom" of the shadows) colours for my pictures these days. However, for clouds I don't use any black colours, for them I let the darkest parts be a nice dark purple or a nice dark blue colour. For this tutorial I decided to use the two purple colours I showed along with this step.
Step six
The highlights is probably the part I deem as the hardest one to make for white clouds. In this tutorial I made my clouds slightly too white when I coloured them because I wanted them to be easily seen due to that I drew them so small. So I can admit that I put the highlights on the blending option (well, I don't know if they're called that in the chibi painter, but I'm going to call them that; and the things I'm referring to is the drop down menu above the layer where it says "normal" when you haven't changed it and then there's a number of various different options to choose from) "add" to make them a little more viewable. I truthfully would say that "add" + clouds isn't such a great combination and I would suggest that you don't make your clouds suffer like mine did by using that, it looks so much better when just giving them some pure white colours in the highlights and if you're generous to them - why not a colour that will let the viewer know that the sun is shining on them?
Finished
And I finished off my clouds my just drawing some random rays of sunlight with the airbrush on a new layer above my clouds and then put it to the blending option "overlay" and put the opacity on that layer to 22%. I mainly did this because I thought it would give my not-so-good-looking clouds a little more life. I really do encourage you to play around with those blending options and see for yourself what can happen to a picture. Sometimes they really can surprise you, because you'll never know what you'll get unless you try...
The end.
I hope that it's at least to some help for someone out there and above all, I hope it's understandable.
This is just how I draw clouds; there are so many other ways to do it - many have their own way of doing it. There's nothing wrong or right with it if you ask me. One day it might even be you who's sitting there and making a tutorial based on how you draw your clouds.
