Digital Portrait Painting

Digital Portrait Painting

This tutorial will take you through the process of painting a digital portrait. To follow this tutorial, you should have a reasonable ability to draw and, ideally, a graphics tablet of some kind.

Step 1

First of all, you will need to find an image that you can stand looking at long enough to paint.

Step 2

Next you will need to create a new canvas the same size as the image you wish to paint. This can be done easily by opening the original image in Pixelmator. Choose Select All (Command + A) and then Copy (Command + C) and finally New (Command + N).

This takes the dimensions of the original image and allows you to automatically create a new document the same size.

Step 3

One of the most important parts of painting digitally is using the correct brush. If you cannot see your brushes palette, choose View > Show Brushes (Command + 5).

Here we are going to choose a soft-edged brush, which allows us to produce more subtle brush strokes than a hard-edged brush.

Step 4

Next you are going to double-click on the chosen brush to modify some of its settings. For this particular painting, we are only going to change two brush settings.

First, you are going to click on the disclosure triangle at the end of the Diameter slider to reveal a menu called “Control Minimum Size By.” Both of these sliders need to be on 0%.

Then click on the disclosure triangle at the end of the Flow slider to reveal a menu called “Control Flow By.” Here the Pressure slider needs to be at 100% and Speed needs to be on 0%.

When complete, press the “OK” button to save the brush.

Note: These settings allow you to determine how much paint is applied based upon how much pressure you apply to your graphics tablet. If you are not working with a graphics tablet, you will need to adjust the flow slider manually depending upon how much paint you wish to apply at that particular moment.

Step 5

Before we start painting, one of the hardest things about painting is mixing the correct color. In Pixelmator there are 3 ways to choose your color.

Scratch – Wall containing all of the colors
Swatches – A list of commonly used colors to which you can contribute
Apple Color Picker – A variety of color mixing tools

So which one do you use? This is totally up to you; I would say experiment using all of them and see which one you find more useful. For this tutorial, I used the Apple Color Picker and Swatches.

Step 6

OK, let’s get on with the painting now. Make sure you have selected the brush tool and now choose black as your paint color.

The first stage is all about getting everything roughly sketched out. Use a reasonably small brush to begin with pressing down quite lightly to begin with as you would do with a pencil on paper.

To increase or decrease the size of the brush press the [ and ] keys.

Step 7

Once you are happy with the initial sketch, choose Image > Brightness and Contrast.
Here you are going to reduce the contrast to -100 and choose OK.

This should make your image appear washed out with a light gray background and dark gray lines.

Step 8

With the overall image now gray, you are going to paint in areas of light and shadow.
Choose a much larger brush and begin painting the light areas with a very light gray (not white).
When you are happy with the result, choose a dark gray (not black) and paint in the shadow. areas.

Step 9

Now, with pure black and pure white, paint in the areas of absolute shadow and highlights. Keep painting in areas of gray, black, and white until you are happy with the overall image in black and white.

If it helps, convert the original image into black and white to see how accurate your sketch is in comparison.

Step 10

Everything we have done so far should have been on one layer. (If not choose Layer > Flatten Image)

Now you need to create a new layer. Call the layer “Color” and choose OK.

If you cannot see your layers palette, choose View > Show Layers (Command + 3)

Step 11

Next you need to change the “Blend Mode” of this layer from “Normal” to “Multiply.”

Blend modes determine how each layer interacts with the layers beneath it. In this instance choosing “Multiply” will allow the color we paint on this layer to replace any white areas, blend with any gray areas, and not affect any black areas.

Step 12

Onto this layer, now choose a color that represents the picture as a whole. In this instance a red/orange color that is not too vibrant will work perfectly. Notice how it blends with your original sketch.

Now keep going with additional colors. In this painting I added a light skin color, a vibrant orange/red, and a pink color for the lips.

Step 13

Finally, create one last layer and call it “Final Details/Corrections.”

On this layer you are going to paint in any highlights or shades that would not work on the “color” layer. For this painting, I added a lighter skin shade on the hand, more vibrant orange/red highlights around the face and hand, and additional pink colors to the lips and nails.

Keep going until you are satisfied with your final painting.

Conclusion

Obviously, some of the steps vary depending upon what kind of image you are painting, but hopefully this workflow will help you create better digital paintings in a shorter period of time.