Art Advice: Making Portals?

[krissyhalo]

I have a question for Clip Studio Paint artists here: Does anyone know how to draw portals? Not the game of course, but a magic portal. My main character uses portals all the time for traveling to different places, or just for fun. XD

[CommanderMarty]

It depends on what you want it to look like.

Do you want it to be a solid color with some glow or do you want your characters to be able to see where the portal takes them?

[SagaHolmgaard]

Yeah it depends a lot on your art stye! I also have a portal in my comic, and I've kind of improved at drawing it during the course of this chapter
This is the first time it appears:

And this is the last time I drew it (page not published yet tho)

Started using white lineart instead of gray, and it make it look more glowing, and made the center more like a bright core, which I also think works better.

You can also look and reference shows that have portals. Lion in Steven Universe comes to mind, but I'm sure there are plenty of other examples as well. Take some screenshots and see how different artists/IPs have solved this problem!

[krissyhalo]

Hmm...a little bit of both, I would say. Preferably both if I can pull that off.

[krissyhalo]

I'll definitely keep that in mind. Thank you!

[MeltingCORE]

Hello! I frequently draw portals/wormholes since they're a central focus in my story. I'm going to try and help! I'm using my own art as example but feel free to do your own thing or only take the bits you like!

Below is an image of a portal with my oc Tilde. This is how I do it:

1. I draw a black oval. Solid black.
2. I outline the edges with a lighter color. (Blue here.)
3. The crackling electricity effect around the border of the portal was made by combining free particle effects. I searched up "embers" and "ring of light". You can find these free drawing effects all over the web. (Just make sure they're truly free assets before you use them lol!)
4. I added some glitch overlay. (This is a personal style choice, you don't have to do this obviously!)
5. I doubled my character on each side and set the opacity very low (like 45%) to make it look like the gravitational pull of the portal is warping reality around her.
6. I slight lowered the opacity of the entire portal so you can see a bit of the background to make it feel real.
7. I added dimension juice dripping from the portal. Now I'm just being silly, this is another personal style choice.

I hope this helps in some way!

[krissyhalo]

Ooh, I’ll have to give it a try! The art looks awesome, by the way!

[jjfresh]

I really like the way these two made their portals above.

You really have to play with effects. Effects are what make them "portal-y." Looking at others for reference is really helpful. The coloured one is pretty cool with the broken reflection there.

You can warp the background in a portal or make it bright/dark to see into.

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This is kinda old and I dunno how helpful it would be for you but I included it anyway

The last one I like how I drew it disappearing.

Take some time to just experiment. Mess around using different references and see what works out

[krissyhalo]

Ok! I really like the use of a door as a portal. I know that's been used a lot in previous magic-related shows and books but it's still really awesome!!