Principles of Digital Painting for Portraits

Principles of digital painting for portraits

“We first start by studying the nature of shadow and light, shape and form, and finally color. Remember: less is more, and the simplicity of your figures in space is the secret to illustrating captivating portraits. Then we did the still life exercise in gray. We exercise our ability to synthesize and map light and shadow to later incorporate more specific aspects of light and volume. Sketch We start the final project with the sketch, with which we return to the elementary forms. If we see the head as a cube and then as a series of simple volumes, we can connect much better with the idea that in the portrait we are painting illuminated planes and others in shadow. We apply the basic proportions of a head and finish our drawing ready to be painted. Remember that the face comprises approximately half the height of the head, and the width of the face is from 5 eyes, following realistic proportions and canon.

Light and shadow mapping We continue the project by mapping the light and shadow on top of our base drawing, in a simple way. We must understand the importance of simplicity and legibility before continuing to paint a portrait. Once this base mapping is finished, we can deepen and detail our tonal scale in the gray painting, where we will also work with the volume and soft and hard edges. Remember that a smooth transition will suggest a smooth and rounded volume, while a more abrupt change is used to suggest more solid body shapes, such as the places on the face where the structure of the skull protrudes. Color We went on to apply color and learned to work in detail and by materials, as well as choosing a palette thinking about style and composition. We delved into the nuance changes in the face and learned to integrate additional details to our reference. Final touches Finally, we worked on the details such as highlights and secondary lights with the dodge color technique and made some final adjustments to our colors and tonal values so that they have better coherence. With the image ready to export, we use the Save for web option so the world can see what we've created. Before saying goodbye, I wanted to thank you for taking this course and learning about my digital painting techniques. Let this be only the first step for you to consolidate your knowledge in the fundamentals of art and its application in digital art. I genuinely expect great things from you and your work in the future. ”

Partial transcription of the video

“Final project We have reached the end of the course and I hope it has been useful to you to get closer to the fascinating world of shadow, light and color. Before concluding, I want to give you some recommendations. For your final project use your own portraits and references, Well, that's how you will learn to express yourself from your tastes, your preferences and your knowledge. Think of your portrait as a character that you had in mind, but that you never dared to paint. The idea is that you are passionate about the subject of this project and you want to do it giving the best of you. W...”

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Course summary for: Principles of Digital Painting for Portraits

• Level: Beginner
• 98% positive reviews (160)
• 4404 students
• 4 units
• 15 lessons (2h 35m)
• 12 downloads

• Category

  Illustration

• Areas

  Digital Painting, Painting