Friday, October 28, 2016
Paint this gorgeous disco inspired portrait
Paint this gorgeous disco inspired portrait
You’d be very world-weary indeed if your first reaction when looking at this portrait wasn’t ‘wow’. Knockout digital portraiture at this level takes skill, craft and patience – and here, Neville d’Souza guides you step by step through the painstaking process of creating this gorgeous portrait from scratch in Photoshop.
You’ll learn how to plan and pull off truly stunning digital paintings, covering everything from choosing your colour palette to the intricate layering and detailed brush work that make this portrait such a many-faceted, hyperrealistic treat.
You’ll also learn tips for painting faces – in particular, for creating those incredible eyes and lips from scratch, using only reference photos.
So be patient, and be detailed – and remember, it’s far easier to undo or put right any errors you might make than it is when using traditional art supplies – so be a little bold too.
First, pick your colour palette: select the base colours, and then separate the colour palette for each element. This way you can pick a sample and play with its light and dark values.
We need a custom brush for the hair. Draw a round shape (not a perfect circle) and select Edit > Define Brush Preset. In the Brushes Presets palette, go to the Brush Shape menu and set the spacing to 25%. In the Scattering menu, tick Both Axes and set this to 585%. Tick Smoothing and in Other Dynamics, set the Flow Jitter to 47%.
Open a new document and give it a background colour, then use your custom brush to block out the hair’s basic shape, varying the size, colour and transparency of the rings slightly. Use the Burn tool to darken some areas more, then add a layer mask as shown.
Next, duplicate the hair layer, set the blending mode to Multiply, and add a new layer mask, this time as a radial gradient.
Duplicate the first hair layer again and move this to the top of the layer stack, adding a layer mask as shown: this gives us a soft highlight. Duplicate this layer, move it under the other three hair layers, set the blending mode to Multiply and the Fill to 82%. Later we’ll be putting the face between these hair layers.
Then copy the left side of the hair, paste it onto a new layer, set its blending mode to Multiply and shift it halfway to the right. Do the same for the right-hand side of the hair, shifting it to the left.
Darken some of the areas of the back of the hair using the Burn tool, set to Midtones and exposure of 50%. Group together the layers of the back of the hair, and the front of the hair, then set a gradient layer mask for the back of the hair. Finally, blend the hair slightly so that the individual ringlets aren’t as visible.
Draw the outline of the face and shoulders (you might find it easier to draw half and then reflect it), then move it to between the front hair and back hair groups.
Darken the neck area, add some soft pink reflections around the edges of her face, and some golden light bounce on her shoulders. This is looking a bit full-on; we’ll need to tone it down a bit.
Blend the yellow tone into her skin a little more, and add some gentle shading for the collarbone. Then add some yellow lighting on her shoulder tip – but don’t go all the way to her jawline, or even her neck, as this could be distracting. Add some rim lighting on the jawline toward her chin – but not too much. Darken the area towards her ears, mainly for the subtle hair shadow and to add depth. Treat the eye socket and lower lip areas the same way.
Block out the lips in a rich, deep shade, then add a nice pink tone with a good amount of saturation. Paint in a black shape for the mouth opening, and start adding in highlights, varying the opacity of your painting.
Paint pastel highlights on the lower lip, and darken the area closer to the mouth opening. Continue to build up the highlights, adding them on the top lip: getting the teeny bits of reflection and shine is a challenge. I used a small hard brush in plain white and had to play around a lot so the shapes didn’t look like cutouts. Add a generous amount of yellow, to show bounce and reflection.
Now for the nose. Start off with a soft peach tone for the opening – once we add a dark red tone over it we can easily fade it off with the eraser and let it blend in with the underlying colour. Round off the nose shape with a pink shadow and faint outlining – the Smudge tool at a low setting (about 55%) is your friend here.
Define the area with sharper lines, more smudging and orange shadows – experimenting with coloured shadows works wonders! Shape out the nose tip and paint in the shadows between the nose and upper lip area, then add a very subtle yellow tone for bounce.
Be prepared to spend a lot of time and effort on the eyes. The trick is to build them up gradually. Start with a few simple pastel outlines, and work up the skin folds and the upper and lower eyelid sections.
Still working around the upper eyelid and with the inner eye section, gradually introduce a good amount of bluish-purple and navy blue tones over the upper eyelid and lower eyelid. Then move on to a few highlight streaks to define the shape even more.
Now let’s tackle the eyeball: start by blocking it in, then gradually build up the iris, adding in the different shades of brown, green and muddy yellow, with a hint of dark blue. Define the fleshy section more with blobs of white and pink. Try playing with the softness value of the brush, flicking backwards and forward between hard and softer brushes. Then add the pupil.
Give the pupil a light reflection, then let’s get to work on the eyelashes – again, pay very close attention to your reference photos to make these look as realistic as possible. Use the Pen tool for the basic shape, then use a hard brush for the inner line work and some highlights. Once complete, add shadows and a dark purple lining for the upper and lower eyelids.
Now for the eyebrows. Create a basic shape using the Pen tool, then use the Smudge tool – alternating between 70% and 90% – and work your way in and out of the brow area. Set the layer’s blending mode to Overlay with a 50% fill and create a layer mask as shown here. Duplicate the layer.
Paint another eyebrow using the same technique, adding darker streaks. Set this layer’s blending mode to Linear Burn with 25% fill. Duplicate this layer, set the blending mode to Linear Dodge with 100% fill. Copy and flip to form the other eye, making some tiny adjustments to the eyelashes so the eyes aren’t completely symmetrical.
Now for some makeup. Block in an orange shape and then change the layer’s blending mode to Overlay. For the reflection on her nose, use a soft brush and smudge it carefully.
Add highlights to her forehead, chin and upper lip area, then move and do the same to the shoulders, collar bone, neck and cleavage.
Add the teeth, creating the shapes with the Pen tool. It’s important not to get them either too white or too dark – experiment. Add in tiny specks of white to form the reflections. The aim is to create a subtle element that blends in with the rest of the image, without attracting attention.
Now for some colour markings: here, I roughly painted a shape across her cheek, then set the layer blending mode to Linear Burn with a 50% fill. Add some washes of creamy yellow across her chest and shoulders, again setting the blending mode to Linear Burn, with a 35% fill.
The final stage is really up to you: Photoshop’s adjustment layers feature is a powerful tool – you can keep experimenting for hours and keep getting awesome and very different results. For a classically early-1980s blur, try using a Shape Blur filter with a radius of 20 pixels and a circular frame of the blur. Here, I’ve made the whole image less pink with a Curves Adjustment layer.
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