Digital Painting Study: Old Man

Time to bite the bullet and paint some skin and hair with this digital painting study of an old dude.

Old Man - Digital Painting Study

So, despite getting a bit of freelance work this week/month I still managed to cram in a painting study. The first portrait here on Stay in Wonderland.

Although I do have a few WIP pictures, this isn’t going to be a full blown tutorial as I never intended it to be anything other than a study, but it is also in the tutorials section because of the WIPs.

So what I’ve done instead is provde an animated gif step-by-step so you can see my progress:

Old Man - Digital Painting StudyIt’s kind of like painting anything else, you have to get your proportions right or it all falls apart. I had both the reference pic and my digital painting/document side by side in photoshop to get a good look at how things line up.

(Notice how awful it starts out. Never be discouraged in the beginning!)

Then you block in your basic light and shade, then the light and shade/form of the smaller detail like the skin folds. Again, watch the light direction, every skin fold will be obeying the light and if you forget the light direction when painting even small details, it just won’t feel right.

I left hair until last as I’m not particularly comfortable painting hair yet. I’m sure I will be relatively soon though 🙂

Here’s the reference pic:

Old Man - Digital Painting StudyI decided not to paint the scruffy old-man top he’s wearing as I wanted the finished piece to be kind of timeless. Like he could be anyone anywhere kinda thing.

Here’s the finished piece. Note that I added a contrast/exposure adjustment layer because I wanted it to look less pale/washed out.

Old Man - Digital Painting StudyEnjoy! Come back for more and follow me on Twitter for cool links a couple of times per day.

About Andy Walsh

Concept Artist in Seattle
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One Response to Digital Painting Study: Old Man

  1. Pingback: Digital Painting Tutorial: Zombie Portrait | Stay in Wonderland

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