How to draw a digital portrait

Final Result:

What you will need

• Adobe Photoshop.
• A reference photograph.

A Few things first. . .

A note about using grids:

I really recommend using a grid for beginning artists. You’ll find that your work will improve dramatically, and that’s always encouraging :). I also encourage you to try drawing without a grid. I used the grid in the beginning (to check proportions, placement etc) and then later hid the grid while I was working with color.

You can read my tutorial: How to create a grid quickly and easily with Photoshop

A note about brushes:

Until the last part of the portrait I only used basic photoshop brushes with their hardness normally set to 0%. I tended to alternate between either 100% or 30% opacity.

Part One: Blocking out the shapes

Believe it or not the hardest part of drawing isn’t the details. It’s blocking out the shape. I can’t stress how important this step is, as it sets the foundation for your entire image. I don’t care how good your details are if your foundation isn’t solid your piece will suffer.

It’s important to stay loose while drawing so go ahead and scribble in shapes, keep an eye on the grid as you do this but don’t be overly concerned about getting it perfect, this will come later.

This is about 45 minutes of work, notice that I don’t have that many details, I was primarily concerned about the placement of forms. I used the basic brush with an opacity around 30%.

Then I started working on the face. In portraits the face and hands are CRUCIAL. This is what sells the piece. Keep that in mind as you are working. In order to achieve a believable likeness you must keep facial proportions in consideration.

Use facial proportions:

Even though every face is different, they all follow the same facial proportions. Don’t forget these.

Here are some of the most useful.

Looking at this picture face-on all these lines would be straight, I had to compensate for the slight angle.

Don’t obsess about them yet though, notice that the details aren’t perfect, I just put in some nose, mouth and eye shapes to get the general proportions right.

As I started to gain confidence in my strokes I started to zoom in and refine them. I also added more detail to the face.

Periodically flip the canvas

While drawing, it’s a good idea to constantly flip the canvas. It helps you get a fresh perspective. I frequently notice things that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

Take a minute and look the image below, are some details easier to see than others?

Don’t be concerned at this point if the portrait doesn’t look like the person. That comes next :).

Part Two: Adding depth through chiaroscuro (shading)

Lines can only give a piece so much depth so let’s add some shading to make it pop out.

Generally it’s a good idea to apply shading evenly across the picture but sometimes you can just get lost in a particular spot (especially if you’re working on a face.)

In the next step I continued to block out the tones. Getting my darkest darks and my lightest lights. I also hid the grid.

Part Three: Adding color

This was my first attempt at color. I made a new layer above my figure layer and set its blending style to Multiply. This preserves the black lines and lets you paint over it (like a coloring book). This technique is great for graphic novels but I wasn’t satisfied with it for this piece.

One thing that I want to point out is I rarely use the eraser tool. Instead I tend to favor the brush. If I have a black spot that I want to make white I don’t erase it, I replace it with white.

With that said, in the following instance I did remove the color and start over again. This time I played with the Curves panel. This actually changed the colors of my lines which was much more realistic.

At this point the base figure is done, now comes the fun part. . .

Part Three: Tweaking!

Art is 10% construction and 90% tweaking. (At least it is for me). The thing about tweaking though is that it won’t work if you don’t have a solid foundation. So make sure that you have the right proportions and balance otherwise it’s a lot more work to fix it afterward.

As you can see below I refined the face, breast region and arms. I also added a black dress layer.

Next I started to work on the background.

I felt that the skin wasn’t warm enough so I played with curves some more to give it a more soft golden color.

I also put in highlights on her dress and worked with the background more too.

The Result

Here is the final result, I used natural brushes in Photoshop to give the wood it’s texture.

Conclusion

The process in theory is very simple but it takes a long time. I spent close to 20 hours on this project and there is more I can do with it (such as fix her left eye and thumb).

I also asked fellow artists for critiques. (I don’t recommended asking friends and family because generally they only thing they will say is “it doesn’t look like her” or “it looks like her.”) A great place for advice is the forums at 3dTotal.com or cgSociety.org

I hope this was helpful, if you have any questions or suggestions feel free to contact me.

I’m accepting requests. If any of you have a question about Photoshop or PHP and would like to see a tutorial, send me an email here. Make sure that you put “request” in the subject.