Digitally Painted Self Portrait

Hi there,

I've created many portraits through the years, but most of them of other people or pets. I wanted to try something different, to digitally paint my own childhood portrait. I decided to use an old black and white photo as a reference.

At first I wanted to sketch the portrait with a pencil and to leave it like that, but I changed my mind and decided to use my Wacom graphic tablet and Photoshop's paint brush. I want to show you some screen captures of the digital painting, and talk about them a little bit.

1. The original photo and the rough sketch

Here is the first step. I took the original black and white photo and sketched it loosely. Usually when I'm starting to create a digitally painted portrait I use Vector Art in order to build the basic image, but in this painting I wanted to try a different approach. At this step the most important thing is to capture the general shape of the face, and the correct position of the eyes, nose & mouth. It's OK if it doesn't look exactly like the original, but I find it easier to work on a well drawn image. The great advantage here, is that you can change almost everything quickly and effectively, as you'll see further on. 

2. Starting to digitally paint the face

As you can see, the face looks a little bit more alive. I took my time and painted the eyes, and the lips. Actually,  the highlights and shadows are the most important thing here. They give us an illusion of 3D, and help the painting to look more "alive". To create the effect I use the burn/dodge brushes and use them in different exposures and range. In this portrait, the light comes from the front so we should paint the highlights in the middle of the face, and the shadows on the sides.

3. Painting the hair

I've painted the hair - nothing special, just simple brown color for now (no tones or other enhancements). I wanted to see the general appearance, later on I'll use the burn/dodge brushes on the hair too. If you'll look closely you'll notice that the face is a bit thinner. I found the face wider than the original photo and decided to trim them, luckily on Photoshop it's easy! And in a few seconds the result was more to my liking.

4. Hair, contrast, some tweaking... and we're done!

We solved the hair issue with some shadows and highlights, it was a pretty easy and quick. Next - I thought that the previous image was too "nice", which means not so exciting. I wanted  the shadows to pop up, to create a dirtier look, more special, so I adjusted the contrast and that did the trick. Some more tweaks : the right eye (our left) - I  balanced the angle a little, and the nose was resized a tiny bit.
I really liked the simple background and the sketchy shoulders, so I decided to leave them like that.

As I said before, sketching and painting with Photoshop (or any other program), gives us the opportunity to try new things, to experiment colors and styles and to correct mistakes fast. That's why I like to use this medium, especially with the graphic tablet.

If you have any question or comment, please write it down.  I'd be happy to read and respond :)

Have a nice day!