The Professional Photoshop Book - Volume 7 2015

LEARN HOW TO PAINT SKIN, HAIR, JEWELLERY AND OTHER

BEAUTIFUL DETAILS IN A CHARACTER PORTRAIT

PAINT A

REALISTIC PORTRAIT

A

lways start a painting with the questions

“Who is this?” “Where do they live?” and

“What time do you want to show in the

painting?” This will help you to decide what

you want to show and how you want to show it. In

this tutorial we will learn how to paint realistic skin,

hair, jewellery and many other things. You can

choose to paint anyone’s portrait or replicate this one

while painting along with this tutorial. Painting

portraits is not as tough as you may think. We just

need to first sketch it properly and think about where

the light is coming from. Photoshop is an amazing

SET THE BASIC LAYOUT

START FROM A SKETCH TO BLOCK IN THE BASIC COLOURS

painting tool if you love to paint. We can make our

own brush presets, actions, assign personal

favourite shortcuts and can do much more with

these amazing tools.

To start the painting you can draw directly in

Photoshop or sketch your base on paper with a

pencil, then bring it into Photoshop and refine it. You

will need to use a graphics tablet to give you the level

of control over line and painting that you need to

achieve a professional effect. So just open any

version of Photoshop, load the supplied brushes from

FileSilo, and start painting this awesome painting.

01

THE SKETCH

Always start a painting with a sketch.

Press Cmd/Ctrl+N to open a new document and

make it 240mm wide x 310mm high at 300dpi. You

can make it any other size if you want to, this size

will come out as A4 with extra bleed. Start with

sketching on a separate layer because later we

need to lower its opacity to paint under it.

02

THE FLESH MESH

This step is really helpful for painting

portraits. It gives your 2D sketch a three dimensional

look. So draw the mesh-like line above your sketch

in a different layer. Try to think about the basic

structure of the face, like eyeball socket, the bridge of

the nose, the curve of the lips, cheekbones and so

on, and how they come forward or recede back. Use

reference materials or look in a mirror to help you.

03

ST ART ON THE BACKGROUND

Always try to start the painting with the

background; it makes the painting process easy

because it lets us focus on our main subject. Select

the brush named Background and choose a dark

colour to paint. The background of a portrait

shouldn’t distract from the main focal point, which is

why portraits usually have simple backgrounds like

walls, curtains or simply a dark or plain colour.

FROM LINE SKETCH TO

POLISHED, DETAILED PAINTING

WORK IN

PROGRESS

Progress 1: Sketch the portrait

Progress 2: Blend the colours

Progress 3: Use High Pass filter

ABEER MALIK

http://www.facebook.com/

abeersartwork

OUR EXPERT

Abeer Malik is a self taught artist

from India. She’s a freelance concept

artist/illustrator and loves to paint

realistic portraits.

SOURCE FILES

You will able to follow this tutorial

step-by-step from start to finish

using the resources on FileSilo. You

will also get the full brush set used

in this tutorial, along with two .png

files of feathers.

Paint a realistic portrait

The Professional Photoshop Book 111

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