A quickie explaining my method of making steam and vapor effects for speed paints and illustrations. It should take you roughly about a minute to paint a good looking plume of steam, fog, or smoke this way. The purpose of this tutorial is not to achieve photo realism, but instead to get an acceptable result when you're planning to finish an artwork in just an hour or two. Also great for thumbnailing and composition planning speed paints.

Edit - One other tip for consideration: I don't consider this important enough to put into the tutorial, [because you should be able to tell through observation,] but just in case... Remember that steam never goes in a straight line. There's always some winding twist or turn in a plume of steam from the airflow or wind passing through it. Steam is just water vapor, so it's lightweight and lofty. Smoke, on the other hand, is much denser in mass, and will usually billow and spread as it gets higher. Smoke gets blown pretty uniformly at an angle from wind. See this as an example: [link] .

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