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Digital Painting
I've been working like crazy lately on all sorts of projects, but thought I could post a piece I just finished up along with a step-by-step on how I got to the finished level on it. I've been having quite a bit of success with using Corel Painter as a base for my digital painting, then doing touch ups in Photoshop. The techniques below should prove helpful no matter what program you're using however, whatever tools you prefer.
This piece is a simple NPC portrait for Dungeon Magazine. Rather than going berserk showing a piece with a background and lots of elements, I thought I'd keep it simple for this example.
Here's the original line art I painted on:
The piece was drawn in pencil, then I scanned it in to Photoshop. From there, I used Image>Adjustments>Levels to get it crisp and almost completely black & white, saving me the extra step of inking it.
STEP 1: I load up the line art into Painter 6.1. Even though Painter 8 is already out, I stick with 6.1 because of the look that the Simple Water brush tool creates. Subsequent versions of Painter have made major changes to the Watercolor tools, and I prefer the look of the older version. I use a Wacom tablette and although I've heard of people using Painter without it, I can imagine it would be much, much harder to achieve the natural brushstroke look. Simple Water in Painter 6.1 paints color on the same layer as the line art without harming the line art in any way. Deciding on an overall warm color palette for the character, I grab a mid-range brown and loosely scribble it across the character's face. It looks really messy, but because I'm only going to worry about each area bit by bit, I start sloppy and then tighten it up bit by bit. I sometimes cover the whole piece in a 50% grey so that I'm not trying to compare colors over white (which affects the way I perceive dark and light substantially). In this case, I just dived straight in.
STEP 2: Grabbing a slightly lighter brown (a touch closer to red as well), I start laying in major areas of light and shadow. If you're not used to the light patterns of a particular subject, this is where getting good reference makes all the difference. Make sure that your shadows are logical based on where light is coming from. Even a background free piece like this benefits from consistent lighting. The pressure sensitivity of the Wacom makes it a breeze to create sweeping brushstrokes from light to dark or quick light scribbles that blend in with the color I already put down. I'm just worried about the face at this point... everything else will build off of that. Notice that even with only 2 major tones done, the face has already got some depth and a sense of form.
STEP 3: The next step is very similar to Step 2. Choosing a slightly lighter color, I start building up highlights on areas that would be getting more light than others, bringing those out by blending the lighter tone in bit by bit. I don't want the final piece to lose that "painterly" feel, so I don't blend in the new tone perfectly Sometimes I just quickly sweep my brush across an area to give it a nice energetic feel to the brushstroke. The fact that I can "undo" mistakes, means I can try different areas with light and go back if they don't work.
STEP 4: This looks like a bigger jump, but it's actually very similar to step 2 & 3. I continue to build up lighter tones until I hit a near white that I use very sparingly. These "hot spots" should only be put in areas that are receiving direct light and they help to really create a sense of form to the face. Too many hotspots or a lack of proper built up tones and the face will look like plastic or metal.
STEP 5: Moving in closer, I decided to paint the eyes and teeth. The "whites" of peoples eyes aren't usually actually white. I grab a light blue-grey and quick dab it in the eye area. I build up a bit lighter in a thin sliver to give the eye a rounded appearance. I place a white hot spot where light would be directly reflected in the eye. The eyes of a character are almost always a focus in any painting, so it's important that they have a good sense of depth to them. I do a similar technique with the teeth, but don't go as light, otherwise people might be drawn oddly to the character's mouth when it should look shadowed under the moustache. Rather than coloring perfectly to the edge of each line, I've been trying to paint a bit looser and keep more of a feeling of "energy" in my work. It's a balancing act. Too tight and the piece can look stiff. Not enough and it can seem overly sloppy or lazy looking.
STEP 6: Moving away from the face for now, I decided to start working with the hair. Grabbing a mid range yellow-brown, I start quickly sweeping a smaller brush in the direction of the hair, creating quick thin lines that show where light is striking groups of hairs. There are tons of ways to create hair, some more realistic than others. This method is fast and effective enough for what I need to present. I used the same brown for the shadows of the hair that I used for ths shadows on the face. It helps create a strong sense of connection between the two, but isn't a must by any means. Notice that the hair strands grow lighter and less numerous the farther they get from our light source.
STEP 7: A bit more work on the hair, then I lay down base tones for the color and gemstone. I grab a mid range blue-grey for the silver collar edge and then do a few lines lighter to give it a rounded appearance. Again, I'm making sure areas are covered rather than worrying about perfection.
STEP 8: Grabbing a mid-range orange-brown, I quickly give some light/shadow depth to the collar area. I also use white to carefully clean up the edges so I can see what the piece "really" looks like. Once the majority of my rendering is done like this, I'm ready to save it as a PSD file and import it into Photoshop. I've left the stone on his neck unfinished because generally I find that the cold technical FX that Photoshop excels at are perfect for things like the gem.
STEP 9: Taking the piece into Photoshop, I do touch ups for the final. I use the Dodge tool and a small white brush hot spot to create the gemstone's roundness and reflectivity. I add a cool grey as a slight "backlight" to the piece to give it a better depth within the shadows and make sure that piece doesn't get too dark. I also use Photoshop to slightly thicken the overall outline on the piece to punch it out a bit more. Once that's all done, I add my little sig to the piece and export it as a high reslution TIF file ready for print. I could have rendered a lot more in this piece and gone in to more detail, but there are a few factors to consider:
- The size that the final will be printed at. As harsh as that sounds, I have to make sure I can hit all my deadlines and make a living at this, so super subtle tweaks have to fall to the wayside this time unless the Art Director asks for changes. All told, coloring the piece took about 45 minutes. That's the tutorial.
Questions or comments? Feel free to E-Mail me.
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