TEKHNI BLOG: Digital Painting

Monday, March 15, 2010

Digital Painting

"Digital Painting" & "Speed Painting" By Priyanka Goswami (Concept Artist & Matte Painter at Tekhnix Studios)

Hello everyone, I decided to make two tutorials over Speed Painting and Digital Painting since some people have asked for tips and tricks for these things. I hope these short tutorials help you to understand the techniques and treatments of both areas. I use Photoshop CS 4 and Wacom pen tablet for both paintings. Please note that this is my very first attempt at making tutorial, so hope you all like these.

What is "Digital Painting"

Digital painting is an emerging art form in which traditional painting techniques such as watercolor, oils, impasto, etc. are applied using digital tools by means of a computer, a digitizing tablet and stylus, and software. Traditional painting is painting with a physical medium as opposed to a more modern style like digital. The artist uses painting techniques to create the digital painting directly on the computer. All digital painting programs try to mimic the use of physical media through various brushes and paint effects. Included in many programs are brushes that are digitally styled to represent the traditional style like oils, acrylics, pastels, charcoal, pen and even media such as airbrushing.

Digital painting thrives mostly in production art. It is most widely used in conceptual design for film, television and video games. Digital painting software such as Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, ArtRage, GIMP, and openCanvas give artists a similar environment to a physical painter: a canvas, painting tools, mixing palettes, and a multitude of color options.

Tutorial - Digital Painting- "ITALIAN MAFIA BOSS"

Stage - 1

Open new document. Fill the background layer with a dark color( Grey, Dark blue etc.) if u want. Create a new layer. Prepare a for your painting. Rename the new layer to "Outline". I decide to paint a portrait of a Italian Mafia Boss as my subject this time.

Stage - 2

Now create another layer and named it colors. Manage your color palette according to subject in this layer.

Stage - 3

Now create a new layer and named it "Skin". Start filling colors. I paint the forehead, nose and chick using basic light and shade. This time because of I want to create a portrait of an Italian, I have to study the facial features, skin colors of Italian people. So, I used light orange, Brown, Red as the base color of the skin. Try to keep the brush strokes according to the face surface to create the volume.

Stage - 4

Then I blend the colors with smudge tool and also use some more light yellow/orange color for the highlighted area.

Stage - 5

Use some light green, brown, red at forehead and chick for skin color and smudge it properly.

Stage - 6

Now paint the wrinkle with light orange color.

Stage - 7

Create a new layer and named it "Hair_Innercoat". I used Grey for the base color of hair.

Stage - 8

Now add some dark grey/black color over the hair and also for the inner coat.

Stage - 9

Again in the "skin" layer I add some dark brown strokes at the chick for a feel of age. Observe the wrinkles of eye. Try to maintain the muscle flow properly.

Stage - 10

I add white and purple color on the "skin" layer.

Stage - 11

Now I paint a portion of BG with Grey and blend the colors of "Skin" layer.

Stage - 12

Let's paint the overcoat now. First of all create a new layer, named it "overcoat" , paint the area with shape green color. I used cross hatch strokes (for fur).

Stage - 13

I used light green strokes for highlight and Dark green strokes for shadow areas of the overcoat.

Stage - 14

Now paint the hair and beared with white/light Grey color in "Hair_Innercoat" layer.

Stage - 15

Add a few details to hair by adding a layer over "Hair_Innercoat" layer, make it multiply(from blending mode), paint it with a grey tone and set the layer opacity to 50%. I add sunglasses with reflections and paint the collar of the shirt. Some extra detail of the skin also added.

Stage - 16