Tutorial: Painting a Face Using Lots of Textures | Digital Character Design and Painting: The Photoshop CS Edition (Graphics Series) (Charles River Media Graphics)

When you're ready to start painting the portrait, follow these steps:

Open Photoshop and create a new image file or open a scanned image. The original image painted for this chapter was sketched in pencil, scanned in at 300 dpi, resulting in an image 2100 pixels wide by 2661 pixels high. This sketch (Figure 17.1) is on the CD-ROM if you want to use it as the basis for your painting.

Figure 17.1: The initial sketch scanned into the computer.
Copy and paste the sketch back into the image. Change the blend mode of the newly created layer to darken and temporarily hide this layer by clicking on the eye icon next to it. Change back to the background layer and choose Filter > Render > Lighting Effects to get rid of all of the very bright white in the image, as shown in Figure 17.2. A bluish lighting scheme was chosen .

Figure 17.2: The initial sketch with a bluish lighting effect applied.
Switch back to the hidden layer. Click the eye to unhide the layer, and double-click on the layer to bring up the Layer Style window. Check the Pattern Overlay box. In the area where the thumbnail of the pattern is visible, select a pattern of your choice to be applied to the layer. The pattern used for this tutorial is included on the CD-ROM. Make sure that the blend mode is set to Multiply so that you can see your sketch through the pattern and lower the opacity to something around 65%. Of course, feel free to experiment to get a look that you like, and when you're satisfied, click OK. Figure 17.3 shows the Layer Style window with the settings we used.

Figure 17.3: The Layer Style window.
Figure 17.4 shows the image with the top layer, the layer style applied, and blend mode set to Darken over the bluish background layer. When we are happy with the look, we merge the layer down. For the remainder of the painting, we will be painting directly on the background layer.

Figure 17.4: The image with both layers visible.
As when you paint with traditional tools, start by laying in some of the darks first, as shown in Figure 17.5, and then working toward the lighter colors. Airbrush Pen Opacity Flow is a good brush to use in varying sizes and opacities. Use a brush that is about twice as large as you think you need. This will keep you from fussing over the details. Your first goal should always be to establish a strong value statement.

Figure 17.5: Beginning to block in the colors working from dark to light.
Continue to fill in and refine the colors still using a large brush (Figure 17.6). You might want to increase the opacity as you work. The opacity of the brush has been increased to about 60%. Do not neglect to work some color into the background as you are painting the face. Go ahead and add some smaller details in a rough fashion. Notice the eye now has some color in the iris.

Figure 17.6: Continuing to add color in the face and the background.
Switch brushes to something with a little texture in it (Figure 17.7). In this case the brush is meant to imitate using pastel or chalk. Continue to paint the colors of the face and the background. This brush and the others used in this tutorial are available on the CD-ROM.

Figure 17.7: Painting with a textured brush.
Figure 17.8 shows a closeup of the face so that the textures being used are very apparent.

Figure 17.8: A closeup of the face.
Still using the textured brush, paint some of the skin colors into the background, as shown in Figure 17.9. Painting background color into the foreground, and vice versa, will help maintain a color harmony that is sometimes hard to achieve otherwise . Remember not to get into the coloring-book mindset by just filling in your original lines. A painting is a fluid creation, and you will be much more successful in your efforts if you don't try to fill in your own lines. Your lines are probably wrong anyway.

Figure 17.9: Adding some of the flesh tones into the background.
The image now is in what can affectionately be called the 'ugly stage.' Almost all artists have their images go through this stage. It usually starts when you are about 17 percent into the painting and lasts almost to the end. We are mentioning this seemingly silly point for a serious reason: about this time, we might start looking at our image and tell ourselves that it will never get any better. We may be greatly tempted to simply give up and start over. Don't do that. Remember that everyone you respect as an artist goes through the same thing that you are feeling. Continue painting. If you don't, you will never finish anything and as a consequence will never improve much. Look at Figure 17.10 and notice the eye has been cut pasted and scaled. It was drawn completely wrong; in fact, notice just generally how bad things are looking. Nevertheless, we'll continue to add more detail into the eyes and face, and try to gradually correct some of the additional drawing problems.

Figure 17.10: The ugly stage has begun, but keep painting and correcting the errors.
In Figure 17.11, we are still using the texture brushes and are seriously trying to cover some of the flesh tones and correct some of the drawing errors by copying, pasting, and scaling the pasted section. When we are happy with the size of the correction, we merge the layers. Notice that the forehead has been slightly lowered and the nose made smaller. The corrections to the painting around the nose have not been made yet. Never be afraid to make a change to improve the picture.

Figure 17.11: Correcting the size of the nose.
Continue to refine the painting in the face using a smaller size brush and start to paint in more of the costume, as you can see in Figure 17.12.

Figure 17.12: Using a smaller brush to paint in more of the face and to paint the costume.
With a small brush, start to paint in the beard, as shown in Figure 17.13.

Figure 17.13: Painting the beard.
The painting is looking a little pale. To correct this, copy the entire image, paste it back into itself, and change the blend mode to Multiply. The image is very dark at this point. It is, in fact, way too dark, so move the Opacity slider down until you get a slightly darker and much richer-looking image. Merge the layer down onto the background or flatten the image, as shown in Figure 17.14.

Figure 17.14: The result of copying, pasting, changing the blend mode to Multiply, adjusting the opacity, and merging the layer down.
In Figure 17.15, we have some definite drawing problems and we're still fighting the size of the eyes, but we're starting to think that maybe we can save this one. We copy and paste the eye again, and the scale is slightly smaller in the width.

Figure 17.15: Scaling the eye again.
Blend some of the textures in the face and paint more texture into the background. Also, we can paint the zipper on the jacket at this point. Paint a few more details into the hair using a smaller brush, as shown in Figure 17.16.

Figure 17.16: Adding the highlight areas into the hair, painting the zipper, and blending some of the face.
As shown in Figure 17.17, repaint the strand of hair that hangs over the forehead and in front of the ear.

Figure 17.17: Painting in the hair curls.
A shadow is added under the curl, as Figure 17.18 shows. The image is looking as we had hoped. A significant amount of work is done in the background and the image is basically finished.

Figure 17.18: A shadow under the curl.
Just for fun, we superimposed the sketch over the finished painting to see how close we remained to our original idea, as shown in Figure 17.19.

Figure 17.19: The sketch superimposed over the painting.