Expanding on How to Paint the Mouth!

The main difference here is that you will be using all the digital art tools you have learned thus far to paint the mouth. These tools will include the digital paintbrush, dodge and burn tool, and the smudge tool.

As well, you will be switching between brushes that have a hard edge and a soft edge. The hard edge will be used for the upper lip due to its crispness while the lower lip will rely on the soft edge.

Through the midst of all this, the smudge tool will be your best friend in this entire exercise.

1. Getting ready to paint the mouth

You will begin by creating a canvas with a nice skin tone. Just like the previous tutorials, this will be your main background color to paint light on.

Keep track of your digital art tools as much as possible as you will be switching between each individual tool often. As you begin, pick a brush that has a hard edge and begin to paint the planes of the mouth.

Notice the colors carefully. It’s best to set the brush on a low pressure setting so you don’t have deep colors. As well, when you paint with a lighter pressure, you can apply more strokes to the same area to create the plane differences better.

2. Refine the mouth with your tools

Remember, the planes are just background place holders and shapes for you to put more details into.

In this step, you will use the smudge tool over and over again. As well, what you do smudge, you need to repaint over with the basic digital paintbrush.

The goal here is to refine the shape of the mouth even more and to decide where the general light source will be. For me, I decided that the light source will be on (my) right side of the picture.

As such, I have already drawn light around the lips in the skin area. Of course, you may choose to skip this step to focus on how to paint the mouth.

The key here is the bright crisp distinction I have painted that separated the upper lip with the section underneath the nose.

3. Adding light to the mouth

Light itself will only hit the upper lip near the crisp seam as the upper lip will slowly angle itself into the mouth. However, the lower lip is exposed because it rounds itself out rather than angle out.

Hence, you will be putting most of the light on the lower lip. To paint the mouth and the lower lips with the proper light, switch between the soft and hard edge paintbrushes.

You may want to incorporate the eyedropper tool to pick out the right colors.

It’s imperative that you use the smudge tool more often on the lower lip than the upper lip due the said curvature of the lower lip. This will create a smooth blend in the lower lip to the rest of the skin color.

4. Paint the mouth with the other tool

The last final step is to use the other tools available. In other words, all that is left is practice and experimentation!

For example, the first thing that comes to mind is the doge and burn tools. Why? Well, when everything is said and done, you may want to further enhance the details.

Use the dodge tool to bring out more light and the burn tool to darken the shadows if necessary.

Or, if you want, use the de-saturation options to dull the overall colors of the mouth. There are endless possibilities that can be done in 2d digital art as you continue to paint the mouth.

As long as you stay true to the fundamental foundations of painting light and finding basic shapes, it should help you out with whatever you are painting in your digital canvas.

Please continue to stay motivated and to practice what you have learned!

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