Photoshop Tutorial: How to Paint a Gorgeous Digital Oil Portrait of a Girl

This tutorial will lead you through the steps, brushes, and techniques, to paint a digital oil portrait using Photoshop.

Learn how to render realistic skin, hair, and eyes using basic photoshop tools. The tutorial uses two brushes, the standard circular brush (hard-edged brush) and the standard "soft-edged" brush (located directly beneath the standard brush in the brush palette). Use the burn and highlight tools to deepen shadows and illuminate highlights.

Includes colors to use and detailed brush information (hard/soft edge, opacity).

Program used: Photoshop 7

Hope you enjoy!

End result:

Author:

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Practice tutorial

Tags:digitalpaintingportrait

Step 1

Open a new project 1800 x 1700 pixels at 300 pixels/inch resolution.

Step 2

Open a reference photograph. This will always help you get a better portrait. I got mine from Stockvault.net. Make sure you ask permission before using another photographer's work.

Step 3

Fill the background layer with a horizontal gradient (Gradient tool). Use colors #30ACF0 (middle, lighter blue) and #0F50E3 (darker, outer corner blue).

Step 4

Make a new layer, Outline .

Step 5

Outline the head, shoulders, hands, and features with color #472411 (opaque, pixel hard-edged brush).

Step 6

Make new layer, skin .

Step 7

Block in her skin with color #FCD6BF (opaque, 40 pixel hard-edged brush).

Step 8

Begin blocking in the shadows of her skin with color #BA7550 (20% opacity, 150 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 9

Using the same brush, darken the deepest shadows with color #985A38 .

Step 10

Continue with the same brush and add shadows with color #DF9685 .

Step 11

Finish adding shadows to the face with the same color and brush. Use this color to especially define the nose.

Step 12

Brush color #FFA18B (30% opacity, 150 pixel soft-edged brush) over her cheeks, forehead, hands, and shoulder.

Step 13

Highlight her face with color #FFF8E8 (13% opacity, 100 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 14

Darken the shadows using the burn tool (midtones mode, 20% exposure).

Step 15

Clean up the edges using the eraser tool (opaque, 40 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 16

Make a new layer, lips.

Step 17

Block in her lips with color #B71C18 (opaque, 30 pixel hard-edged brush).

Step 18

Soften the edges of the lips with the smudge tool (50% strength, 40 pixel soft-edged brush)

Step 19

Block in the middle of the lips with color #F47995 (30% opacity, 30 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 20

Highlight the lips using the dodge tool (20% exposure, 60 pixel soft-edged brush, midtones mode).

Step 21

Continue highlighting the lightest lights of the lips with color #FFECF0 (14% opacity, 20 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 22

Finish highlighting the lips with color #EE8BA5 (same brush).

Step 23

Define the middle of her lips with color #B8201C (same brush).

Step 24

Darken the skin under her lip with the burn tool ( Skin layer, 20% exposure, 40 pixel soft-edged brush, shadows mode).

Step 25

Make a new layer, Eyes 1 .

Step 26

Move the Outline layer above the lips layer.

Step 27

Erase the outline of her lips, nose, shoulders, and hands.

Step 28

Block in the waterline with color #BD7373 (opaque, 20 pixel hard-edged brush).

Step 29

Block in the whites of the eye with color #9B9DAA (same brush).

Step 30

Highlight the eyes with color #FFFFF2 (15% opacity, 30 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 31

Tone down the shine of her eyes with color #D9AEA1 (same brush).

Step 32

Darken whites again with color #755146 (same brush).

Step 33

Paint shadows on the waterline with color #8A5A52 (same brush).

Step 34

Brush color #C04733 onto the waterline using the same brush.

Step 35

Highlight the waterline using the dodge tool ( 13% opacity, midtones mode, 20 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 36

Using an 11 pixel soft-edged brush and color #1E0800 (20% opacity), draw thin eyelashes from the top lid of her eye and the outer edge of the waterline. Make the bases thicker, and their ends taper out to a thin point.

Step 37

Erase the outline around the outer edges of the eye.

Step 38

Define her upper eyelid crease with color #401A64 (25% opacity, 30 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 39

Erase the rest of the outline of the eyes.

Step 40

Define the crease with color #401A64 (same brush).

Step 41

Paint her pink eyeshadow with color #FFCCD2 (same brush).

Step 42

Highlight the pink using the dodge tool on its previous settings.

Step 43

Finish darkening the crease of the eye with color #170053 (20% opacity, 20 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 44

Make a new layer, Eyes 2 .

Step 45

Block in the iris of the eye with color #180800 (opaque, 20 pixel hard-edged brush).

Step 46

Fill the middle of the eyes with color #6F2F00 (30% opacity, 40 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 47

Highlight the outer bottoms of the iris using the dodge tool (30% exposure, midtones mode, 30 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 48

Further highlight the eyes with color #99E8BC (15% opacity, 20 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 49

Block in two pupils with black ( #000000 , opaque, 20 pixel hard-edged brush).

Step 50

Paint the reflections in the eyes with white ( #FFFFFF , 40% opacity, 15 pixel hard-edged brush).

Step 51

Darken the area where the eyebrows are outlined with color #79504A (30% opacity, 50 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 52

Erase the rest of the facial outline.

Step 53

Finish the eyebrows by indicating individual strands of hair with color #572C26 (40% opacity, 12 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 54

Make a new layer, Flower .

Step 55

Block in the flower in her hand with color #FD7961 (opaque, 150 pixel hard-edged brush).

Step 56

Using the same brush, block out the larges masses of petals with color #ED6A53 .

Step 57

Begin highlighting and distinguishing individual petals with color #FFC2B7 (36% opacity, 150 pixel hard-edged brush).

Step 58

Using the same brush, further continue to define individual petals with color #FFB7F6 .

Step 59

Begin to outline the petals with color #E884A5 (30% opacity, 100 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 60

Continue with the same color and brush.

Step 61

Continue with color #FF865C and the same brush.

Step 62

Highlight the edges of the petals with color #FFF6E3 (same brush).

Step 63

Begin dappling color #CC5E0E into the center of the flower.

Step 64

Highlight the pollen with color #FFEA00 (30% opacity, 40 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 65

Add shadows around the pollen with color #6A1D02 (same brush).

Step 66

Make a new layer, Hair .

Step 67

Block in the hair with color #1E0C07 (opaque, 50 pixel hard-edged brush).

Step 68

Begin to block in the major sections of the hair with color #0B0100 (opaque, 90 pixel soft-edged brush).

Start to define the shadows with color #000000 (70% opacity, 90 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 69

To make the hair black, go to Image → Adjustments → Hue/Saturation. Check the Colorize box, set the Hue to 5, Saturation to 9, and Lightness to -55.

Step 70

Highlight the strands with color #302B2F (15% opacity, 95 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 71

On a new layer Hair 2 , begin to paint individual strands with color #000000 (50% opacity, 11 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 72

Finish painting individual strands with color #3D373C (35% opacity, 9 pixel soft-edged brush) in the highlights.

Step 73

Using the same brush and color #000000 (Black), draw the loose strands around her face, shoulders, and neck. This will add another dimension of realism.

Step 74

Finish off the hair by brushing color #000000 (20% opacity, 40 pixel soft-edged brush) over the strands, especially close to where it flies away from the mass of hair.

Step 75

Add two horizontal shines across the top and bottom of the hair wising the dodge tool (13% exposure, 900 pixel soft-edged brush, shadows mode).

Step 76

Brighten the center of the shines with the dodge tool set to highlights mode (13% exposure, 400 pixel soft-edged brush).

Step 77

And you are done!