Learn How to Paint the Face With Your Digital Tools!

Once you have the skull and the face muscles, it’s time to paint the face on top of what you have. You will be using the same picture file in you digital art program.

One thing you have noticed painting the face muscles is that you need to use a small digital brush to get in the muscle details.

However, when you start to paint the face, you will be switching to a larger brush to cover the areas of your skull and face muscles. Not only that, you will need to tune down the opacity of the brush so you can see underneath what you are painting.

Anyway, start up a new layer and let’s begin to paint the face!

1. Setting up the digital brush

If you can, use a brush with a sharp edge. That means you will have outlines to each stroke that you paint. Again, make sure to set the pressure sensitivity on low. Normally, less than 25% is enough. This will allow you to build up on the colors.

Now, for the next step, you need to choose your colors. I would recommend you pick a skin tone that is darker than what you plan on painting with.

For example, if my skin is a peachy color, I would choose a relatively dark and dull brown.

As you start to paint, don’t forget that you will probably need to switch in between colors. Ideally, the more you paint, you will be switching to lighter colors as you’re painting light.

2. Painting the first layer

As you begin to paint the face, always keep an open mind to the skull and the face muscles underneath.

You will find that, in order to paint the face correct, you will need to switch to different brushes and changing the opacity very often.

We will begin to start off easy by applying a dark layer of skin tone. All you need to do is choose a large brush with the pressure sensitivity set under 25%. From there, begin painting the outline of the face with regards to the skull structure.

The most important thing is to look at where the facial features are located in relationship to the skull.

3. Adding light and shadows

From here on, you will be switching brushes and colors on a regular basis. Like I said, it would be the best to move to a lighter color each time as you are going to paint the light source.

However, from time to time, you will need to switch back to a darker color and start to repaint the shadows.

This is normal as you won’t be able to understand everything in one try! Basically, to create depth, the shadows are located around the eye areas, beside and underneath the nose, underneath the chin, and around the jaw area.

This example is just showing how to create depth using shadows and light. Notice I have no regards for a light source. That is not needed for now as we are just making a 2d shape into a 3d painting.

4. Paint the face with more details

For the last part of the painting, you need to create even more details to highlight all the facial features.

Obviously, to accomplish the last part, you will need to reduce the size of your brush to paint the little details.

The most common ones you will look at are the pupils, the eyelashes, the eyebrows, and the reflection of light on the lips.

Basically, anything that sticks out will be hit by light. That means you will paint a lighter tone of that color to create a 3d feel to your face.

On top of using the digital brush, learn to use the dodge and burn tools to further enhance the shadows and the light.

Make sure each stroke flows with the feature. For example, you don’t paint vertical lines outlining the eyes. You paint long and curved horizontal lines.

Don’t worry about going into too many details. I will you how to bring up each individual facial feature. For now, all I want you to work on is just a general understanding of light and shadows on the face as well as how to paint the face itself.

For now, keep practicing while staying tuned for more learning opportunities!

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