Tutorial: How to draw a realistic eye
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The best way to achieve photorealism is by using a model. If none are available, a mirror or a reference photo does the trick. There are plenty of good stock galleries to choose from, I recommend going to Deviantart.com’s stock section and searching for what you need (“eye” will give you about a million hits.) I used this beautiful stock image by Olechka01stock. (http://olechka01stock.deviant art.com/) |
I start with a quick sketch to establish the main shapes. Drawing on a skin coloured background will save you some trouble later. You don’t have to follow your reference picture completely, but it is good in order to get the right proportions. Use a large canvas and draw big if you want to be detailed!
On a separate layer underneath the sketch I add the basic shading on the skin around the eyes and give the “white” in the eye a blueish gray colour. The colours depend on the rest of the painting, but I generally use more reds in the shadows around the eye than in the rest if the skin. The eye is round and the skin wraps around it.
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I use a round hard brush with a little shape dynamics, which fades with tablet pressure. The opacity is set to 60- 100%. |
I delete the sketch layer and start smoothing out the skin by using the eyedropper tool and a soft round brush at about 30% opacity.
I pick a smaller hard brush with ‘other dynamics’ checked, and start to refine the eyelid fold and the corners of the eye.
For the iris, I first draw lines from the pupil and out in a darker colour for texture. Colour variation is what makes the eye interesting, so draw some dark purple lines around the iris. I use the burn tool for some interesting shadows around the pupil, and a small 3px dark yellow hard brush for the circular pattern in the eye. Finally I used a small soft purple and blue brush to soften the transition from the white to the iris.
Now I go over everything to make sure the transitions are soft and nothing looks off! I also added the shadow of the eyedrow.
Now it is time to zoom in and take care of the really nitpicky job. With a light blue (nearly white) colour I go over the skin with a small hard round brush set to a low opacity and add highlights that will shoe off the texture. How hard the light is, depends on the moistness of the skin, in this case I need loads of tiny highlights. I also add fine wrinkles and shadows where I think its needed.
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To speed things up I use some custom brushes for part of it. Low opacity is crucial, or it will not look natural! |
Eyelashes also cast shadows. On my main layer I draw in the shadows: blue for the “white” parts, and black for the iris. Then it is time to add some highlights to the eye. This is a reflection of the light source(s) and needs to correspond with the highlights in the skin. In this painting the main light source is the sun from a blue sky, so I draw that. It doesn’t have to just be white. Remember that the shadows from the lashes block the highlight.
Now its starting to look pretty goo, so I just go over everything once more to fix things that don’t look right, and voila!
James Preston May 25th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Cool I will upload my version when its ready, some really good tips here especially on the lighting side.
Bob Bello August 20th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Great tutorial, thanks a lot, that was amazingly eye-opening ;-) Godspeed!
Berenika September 5th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Great tutorial, thanks for shearing:)
Franklin Ayers October 4th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Nice tutorial. Beautiful job and much appreciated!
Veronika May 21st, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Amazing! Have to try this out :) Thank you.
Thedoart July 20th, 2010 at 6:20 am
REMARKABLE!!!