Basic Walkthrough

sockstealingnome asked for some painting tips so here are the basic steps of... well, whenever I actually paint something. lol

1) Starting out with a sketch and then draw some more tidy outlines on top of that on a new layer. Not going much into detail here but in short: I usually use a quick version of the Loomis method. A couple of years ago I read/studied his book "Drawing the Head and Hands" and it improved my drawing skills a whole lot. If you can get your hand on his book go read and do a ton of drawings - it's worth it!

2) Determining the light source (I usually don't actually make this little extra sketch - this is just for you here). If you're unsure where to put the shadows/highlights on the face I can only recommend again to do some studies. The Loomis book I mentioned has some nice pages on shadows etc. so you could look into that for some basic knowledge.

3) Made a new layer under the outlines for the basic colours. I used a normal hard round brush for this and then used a brush with softer edges and a lower opacity for the rest of it. If you have trouble picking out skin colours I can only recommend you looking at reference material (like, search a somewhat similar photo and guess/pick the colours, whatever works for you).

4) Continuing on a new layer above the outlines with blending colours and adding details. As you can see I'm covering up the outlines in the process and add some more shadows/highlights to make up for that.

5) And then I just keep refining the painting with some texture brush and add some nice details like hair stands. This is just a simple example so there isn't that much fancy stuff but I hope you get the idea.


So yeah, this is a really quick one - if you have more specific questions pls ask! :3