8
Painting with opaques
I notice the that colours are looking a little transparent from using my soft brush, so now I alternate between my
favourite 125 brush and hard Round brush. I start painting over the figure using more opaque colours, trying to keep
the values brightest on her right side of the face where I’ve now decided the light will be strongest.10
Thumbnail readability
I realise my character isn’t popping out from the
background, so I work on boosting the brightness of her
face using another adjustment layer. I add an edge light on
the left side of her face and sharpen some edges around
her eyes and hair to create contrast in the edges. Zoom out
from your canvas regularly to check if your art reads well!9
Time for my favourite tool
I often use the Mixer brush in the later stages to soften edges and to generate
expressive, painterly strokes. I use the tool with the #125 brush on the Very Wet/
Heavy Mix to create these strokes. Experiment with the different dryness types on
the brush – it can give you some pleasing, unexpected results!
I usually use this setting
and this brushThe Mixer brush is located here
(the shortcut key is R)RESOURCES
PHOTOSHOP394 SOFT TEXTURED
BRUSH250 SOFT ROUND125 MIXER/TEXTURED
BRUSHThis brush enables me
to soften edges while
retaining texture.For the early sketch and
value block-in, all while
working in greyscale.I use this as a large brush
when I add colours over
my greyscale image.I use this for textured
strokes as well as for my
Mixer brush.CUSTOM BRUSHES:
45 OVAL BRUSHWorkshops