Dale D Ziemianski A Quick Digital Painting TutI put together this little step by step just to show you how I start on my digital paintings. If you look at the left side of the face on the right here, you can see the flesh tone I start out with. Once a silhouette of the face is painted, I start highlighting using a highlighting tool to show where the light is going to hit. This way I can basically color without having to "stay within the lines" because I'm simply lightening and darkening the color that's already applied. Later tuts will show how you can do this using a brush and color, but I did this painting this way. The dark shading is where the hair will overlap. You don't need to paint that first. You can wait til you put hair over it (on a separate layer) and shade it later. The lips coloring was created by selecting the area around the lips, feathering the selection about 20 or so pixels, then using the color balance settings to add a little red to the midtones and shadows, and a touch of blue to the highlights.
In a layer behind that, I add the hair that comes out from behind the head. Some hair will hang in front on the right so there's no need to bring that lock of hair all the way up to the head.
Now I add the retina and pupils. You can keep them together on the same layer or separate them into different layers if you like. the benefits to keeping the layers separate is that it's easier to change the eye color if you choose to at a later time. Or you can give her cat pupils if you change your mind, or make her eyes glow like she's an android. You can also now move the retinas and pupils around if you decide later that you want your subject to be looking in a different direction. Creating as many separate layers as you can, though it makes for a much larger file, makes it so much easier to customize your painting to any client's needs.
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Now I add a layer for hair on top those layers and behind them all a layer is started where I paint in a silhouette of the body.
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Now the background can be added any time you like. I had created this one before, but you'll see in a bit that I didn't like how I laid it out and made a few changes. Each section is of course in it's own layer, including the planets. BTW, I made the planets by using a select tool, changing it to a circle instead of a square, and creating a perfect circle by holding down the shift key while selecting the area and it'll make perfect circles. The pants are on a separate layer, too....so I can change color if I need to (or turn her into a centaur if I want!)
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The catlike creature is in three layers. You can see in the back layer what color I started out with. Sometimes it doesn't even matter what color you start with, as you can make color adjustments as the painting progresses. Jewelry can be one of the easiest, yet most effective things to include in your character. It breaks up the space and creates a personality.
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This closeup shows the detail in the pearl bra-straps and shoulder wear. I simply used a standard round brush and set the spacing of the brush far enough apart so each dot touches the previous one, then I used a bevelling property for that layer....the effect you use to make lettering look 3D. It works wonders for jewelry, too. Notice the shadows. I actually duplicated the layer, removed the bevelling property, applied a color overlay of a dark flesh tone, made the layer tansparent (about 50%) then used the warp tool to move the shadow layer around so it looks like some of the beads are lifted up off the skin in some areas, but touching the skin in other areas. Where the shadow leaves the skin and floats in the air, I simply erased that. This duplicating saves you having to paint in every piece of shadow.
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Another nice trick to do with this bevelling technique is to design more complex shapes around the part of the body on which it'll be worn, lik the hand in this case.
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OK, now I've finished the catlike creature using the same principles I showed you above. You may notice it's a little different. If you want to create fur of a different color, try this.... Duplicate the laye with the animal on it, change the color of the animal using the hue settings or color balance settings, then erase everything but the areas you want to be that color. This is awesome for creating stripes and spots without having to worry about making sure they follow the shadows and highlights you so meticulouslly painted when you originally designed the creature. The shadows and highlights will still be there, just a different color. Using a soft-edged brush will make it look more natural. Better yet, set your brush also to semi-transparent, so you can create varying degrees of color change.
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The hair BTW, was created by creating my own brushes.
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These brushes applied to the smudge tool and set to around 98%-99% allows me to pull color from the skin of the animal out and away to resemble fir. Always start from the back and work your way to the front of the animal, and the hair you create will cover the hair you created before it. Just comb it out. If you want shorter hair, use a lower % setting, like 89%.
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I was playing around one morning with an idea I found on the web, how to create a planet, and I added my own twist to the ideas that were shown in that tutorial and came up with this planet....
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So I flipped it, added it to this painting and adjusted the layer properties to "screen" so the darks would disappear, cuz I liked it better.... the point being... you can take images from other digital paintings and apply them to new paintings.
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Add a tree, using the same principles as above....
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and a spaceship, each on it's own layer...
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Add a tank to her back, duplicate it to make two...
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Play with the background....
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Play some more...
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....then get REAL creative and change the composition...cuz I just realized I might want to use this as a sample to send to publishers, so I should show it in a format they can use. So I resize the canvas to 9" x 12", stretch the sky upwards, move the subjects around (good thing they're all on their own layers)...
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... and I have a composition suitable for book covers
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Yeah.....I'll def be putting together a very detailed lesson plan some day. Heck I could sell this stuff!
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