February 15, 2018

Misty Forest Guardian | Step by Step Process +Commentary

Hello guys! How have you been?

As someone who loves seeing "behind the scenes" of digital painting's final result, I bring you another step by step process with commentary of my latest piece.
I haven't done a step by step process breakdown in a while and I've been thinking on making some sort of digital painting tutorial at least once a month. So if you like these type of posts, then please stick around! :) 

Now onto the step by step!

I: First step, of course, the sketch. For these last few months I've been making an effort to actually draw my concept instead of going straight to colour block on Photoshop and just figure out what I want to paint as I go. It keeps my mind a bit organized and with an initial vision to go on from.

II: Here I lay out the base colours I plan on using, to briefly test if they work well or not. The only colours I already had in mind were the ones for the corset and her dress, and the rest of the colours would be whichever would complement these later on.

III: Then I started to work on my base colours by adding some slight shading to create form. For the background I used Curves and came up with that green/blue/yellowish mix of colours that I really liked.

IV: With the Multiply brush mode I darkened the before slight shading, so now there is more contrast between colours. I added some folds to the dress and some details on the limits of the corset.

V: At this point, as things were relatively put together, I was able to turn off the sketch layer and step away from it a bit. As you can see, I made some changes to the face when it comes to the face shape and eyes as I noticed that these were a bit too big and high in the face. I also added the strings of the opening of her corset and placed some more shades to her hair.

VI: The face was once again altered by giving her an oval shaped jaw line and by closing her eyes in order to make her look dreamier. I rendered the fabric of the corset (reference helps a bunch!) and the dress. For the background I used the Overlay brush mode to intensify the colours.

VII: Here I blended her skin, highlighted the face and fixed her chest area, so it looks like it has volume. When it comes to her dress, I painted some details and with the Multiply brush mode, I intensified the shading of her clothes and skin. I also added the tree branch behind her just like in the sketch.

VIII: Looking back, it seems like a big jump from the previous step to this one, haha! But there really isn't; here I just used two adjustment layers, Brightness/Contrast and Colour Balance until I was happy with the overall feel and colours. With a Colour Dodge layer I added many highlights throughout the whole painting (on the hair, body, outfit) and I placed some butterflies on the background so I could fill the entire space.

IX: And here's the final result! I worked a bit on the ambient occlusion and used Brightness/Contrast once again. Also, with a Lighten layer I placed some colour on top of the tree branch so it looked a bit more mysterious and like it belongs to the painting's enviroment.


If you'd like, you can see the final result's full size of this digital painting here on my DevianArt page.

I usually record my process, but this painting was meant to practice and try out some new things. 

However, I frequently post many videos on Youtube showcasing the process of my other digital paintings which you can find here

I really hope you enjoyed this step by step! You can check out previous one I made some months ago here!

I will see you at the end of the week with a new digital painting! 

Have a good one! :)

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