Digital painting walkthrough: Trelise
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1. I scanned in a pen sketch from my moleskine & took my inspiration from there. I was really fond of the original sketch, but I wanted a more dynamic pose. Sketches were done straight in SAI with my tablet. I always tend to try out random poses before I settle on something concrete. This is to get the flow of the figure/personality of the character. Decided to stick with the sketch on the far right.
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2. Laying it out on the canvas. Playing with composition. |
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3. Roughly putting in the values in b&w. This helps me add depth to my piece. I’ve gotten so used to starting in grayscale that I’d probably do a shit job otherwise. |
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4. New layer, blend mode set to “overlay”. Adding colours to my lines/highlighting various areas (like her eyes, cheeks, etc). |
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5. New layer again, blend mode set to “multiply”. This is where I liberally swoosh in swathes of colour to play around with the background. Decided on this slightly crazy mix of psychedelic colours. Add a few random colours to her hair/skirt. Colours from the “overlay” layer start to come through as I paint over them. Both of these steps are integral because it’s where I add most of my colours. |
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6. New layer again (last one). This is a normal/standard layer. This is where I start the painting process. While occasionally choosing new colours, I use the eyedropper/colour select tool RELIGIOUSLY. This is because I want to pick up as many colours as I can from what I’ve already laid down quite roughly. |
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7. Continuing to paint, while picking up colours from all over the place (especially the background): adding violet to her hair, blue to her chest, pink across her cheeks, etc. |
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8. Doing a bit of her hair/shoulders. Zoning in on her face. (I move around a lot when I paint, lol.) |
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9. Really cleaning up the face. Making sure to bring out the eyes & to emphasise on the make-up. Bringing out her cheekbones as well. Continually mixing other colours from the bg/piece to her eyes, cheeks, nose, forehead, etc. |
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10. Doing a bit of the hair — blotting in blobs to make it more solid. |
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11. More hair work. Added warmer colours to her neck/back (she was too grey). Defined collarbone & arm. Starting to work on the skirt, going with the large dots first. |
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12. More skirt work. Getting into the pleats around her torso, making sure mix in lots of different colours as I really want to emphasise the eclectic nature of this piece. |
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13. I dunno. Thought this looked cool. |
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14. Finished with the skirt! It was crazy fun mixing in all those colours. Tried to make the material/colours look a bit more surreal, rather than having clear outlines for the dots. |
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15. Zoning back into the hair, making sure to smooth it across her scalp, while maintaining crazy volume on the sides. Adding more oranges, yellows, reds & purples to the mix (to give it more interest/depth). Doing a rush job on her necklace at the same time. |
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16. Adding the finishing touches to her hair. This is my favourite part: the flyaway strands! I love, love doing this. Not only is it incredibly quick & easy (I just random go over the whole head with different colours), but it instantly adds life & a touch of realism to the hair. Chose to keep it more matte rather than super silky shiny (otherwise it wouldn’t really suit her). |
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17. Stylistic decisions now. Blended the furthest parts (perspective-wise) with the background — like the back half of her skirt, and her legs. Logic kinda went out the window here, and I went with instinct. Was going to add blobs into the air but felt it was overdoing it. |
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18. Done with the painting. :D |
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19. Now opening it up in Photoshop. Played a little with the colour values to bring in more contrast & more blues. |
20. Added in some texture & atmosphere. Did my signature/name/website deets, making them all colourful and.. stuff. And yeah! Done! :D I’ve included a few extreme close-up shots at the end (at 100% zoom). You can see that my strokes are quite soft and messy, rather than very clean & defined.
Tagged as digital art, digital painting, photoshop, tablet, tutorial, Tutorials, walkthrough+ Categorized as Tutorials
Alister Gray May 4th, 2010 at 10:01 am
Thankyou for that - I loved the first part espeically! laying down rough colour using different layer blend methods - excellent - any chance of some specifics about the types and sizes of the brush you are using eg airbrush, acrylic from step 6 onwards. Love the painting
Cheers
Allystar from New Zealand
Emelie May 7th, 2010 at 12:58 am
Oh I love this tutorial, thank you so much! :) It gave me lots of inspiration!
Viet-My Bui May 15th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Thanks so much for posting this!
Emelie: Glad it could help.
Alister: I used the same brush (just the default round brush in Paint Tool SAI) for the entire thing.
Thedoart July 20th, 2010 at 6:17 am
OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH my GOD!!!!!!!!!!!
this is astonishing!!!
Asharl August 6th, 2010 at 7:21 am
THis piece is stunning, it really gives inspiration <3
danai August 24th, 2010 at 2:35 am
what program are you using….???
kirk August 27th, 2010 at 7:05 am
She uses Paint Tool SAI ;)