How to Draw Lightning

How to Draw Lightning

Hi everyone, it’s raining right now as I write this… just a little pitter-patter, not a real thunderstorm though. I wish it were a thunderstorm : ( with lightning and thunder and me sitting comfortably at home with a hot drink and a good book :). Eeeps! There goes the thunder! Once a thunderstorm broke during class hours when I was in college. We were in the middle of a lecture, but when the storm broke with lightning and thunder, the rest of the class was forgotten and all of us, teacher included, crowded at the windows to admire the storm! There is something incredibly fascinating about lightning isn’t there? I took a look at some videos of lightning strikes, they are sooo AWESOME! I was totally inspired… I just had to draw a lightning bolt! Therefore today’s tutorial is on how to draw lightning, hope you like it! : )

Step 1
Lightning needs a dark backdrop to show up well, so I’ve painted the sky bg a dark blue to start with. Next sketch the lightning with white pencil, use a thin pencil for the ends.

Step 2
Here’s where we give the lightning a bright vivid glow with the airbrush tool. Use transparent white for this. Make the white darker to make the lightning look brighter in places.

Step 3
To make the lightning look like it is piercing a dark sky, I have darkened the sky with black, dark blue and purple. These colours have been airbrushed.

That’s it on how to draw lightning. On a similar note, check out my online tutorial lessons on how to draw clouds, how to draw rain and how to draw a cloud.