Skin Painting Tutorial

Posted on 10. Dec, 2009 by DAS Team in Figure, Tutorials

Brazilian Artist Amelia Woo has be gracious enough to share with us her tips and secrets on how to create realistic real life skin. Woo is a famous comic artist who creates illustrations, graphic art and characters that are simply amazing. We hope you guys enjoy this.

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I would like to first state that this tutorial cannot be considered as the only way to paint skin, this tutorial is just MY way of painting skin that i think is very efficient. Feel free to follow it entirely or just the part that is more to please. I will be using the program PHOTOSHOP, but you can also follow this tutorial on any other program that has good painting tools.

The base of the painting is the outline of the drawing. The first lines are very important to your painting, because the application of the shades later on will depend on your knowledge and understanding of the first lines in the drawing.

STEP 1:
The first thing i did was to draw a fast sketch with the main lines that will be used. I follow these lines later on when i apply the colors and shadings.

TIP: To improve that, i recommend Bum Hogarth’s books and any complete book of about anatomy.

With a second layer in Photoshop, i filled out the white space with a base color. The base color will determine more or less for me the atmosphere of the image. If i want to change the bottom, i create another layer with another color.

TIP: Artists such as Rembrandt began with the dark tones, clearing them up later. That is a way. I however begin with the medium tones because i get lost with easiness. Test several different base colors to begin your painting with.

STEP 2:
Here i determine which colors will be used in the whole drawing. From now on, the colors that appear are mixtures of various choices. To blend them, i use a brush edited by myself. The colors are just studies of the variations of the light inside the skin and their reflections. In this drawing, i am using “near” colors. In other words, i use colors of adjacent values (colors that are in relation to the dominant color). For details on the rules of colors, read “Art and Visual” perception, Rudolf Arnheim’s book, one of the biggest masters of the visual field. I particularly use highlights and strong colors in my palette because i like them and they make my thematic more explosive (inheritance of the Shounen manga). That works with any palette, whether it’s acrylic, oils or pastry. In that apprenticeship, i paint freely without caring with details. I pay more attention to where the colors will be applied. Shades = color + complemental color + black. Color intermediate is between the base color and the shade (color saturated base with two tones above). Light color = I never put white because it leaves an artificial aspect in my works, i always use the base color with five levels of tonal values above this. Where can this be applied? Well, determine where the light comes from and if there are reflections somewhere, apply it.

I am always testing brushes to facilitate my life. This seems as a  standard brush, but it’s not. It has several modifications in the set up brushes. Since Photoshop is not the best program for blending colors together (so as Painter), i make this for substitution.

STEP 3:
Now i begin to work in the details. This is the most dangerous stage since it’s the stage where you work with small areas to help give your drawing its own form. The details make the whole different in a semi-realist drawing. Here, with small brushstrokes, I determine the gradient of the shades.

TIP: FOR PHOTOSHOP USERS: HOW TO BLEND COLORS TOGETHER?
Always work with brushes that have adjusted transparency for the tablet pressure. With the mouse, i always work with the most transparent brushstrokes possible. To blend or mix, i use a dark color. Different from Painter and Open Canvas, Photoshop doesn’t offer a blender tools for colors to blend as real as the other programs offer. Oh yea, don’t forget to add green to the skin palette since it adds a reflection effect from the blue blouse.

STEP 4:
In that stage, i leave the surface as soft as possible, removing the brushstrokes impression. I used a larger brush for the pores and beard so that there would be visual contrast with the more smooth brushes.

STEP 5:
Well, for the polished drawing i think the texture is key for me. After all, without texture there would be no game characters In that stage, i increased the pores. I don’t use the filter NOISE in Photoshop because its very uniform. The skin is not something that is perfectly uniform. To increase the pores of the skin, create another brush with small spheres and half-transparent. I used for each area of illumination of the face different colors. Sure, i made pores here because it was all very close. I would not use this in a whole person. I might though increase more brush strokes under the eyes for more  ’wrinkles’ effect.

STEP 6:
It needs a lot of patience to do the brows and beard accurately. I used ‘Hard Round #2′ BRUSH to scratch out thread for thread. That is very monotonous, but it is not long. To increase the speed, i used the ‘Aerograph’ brush in the areas that possesses more hair concentration.

For more information, you can contact Woo through:

E-mail: wooamelia@terra.com.br

Agency Link: http://www.glasshousegraphics.com/creators/painters/ameliawoo/

DeviantArt: http://crazydwarf.deviantart.com/

Tags: skin, skin tutorial