Hey guys, welcome to another episode of
RossDraws and today I'll be teaching you guys my top essential tips for
painting portraits! This is NIMAVERSE month on my Patreon,
so I revealed my brand new character Lyris from my upcoming book NIMA, we made
a landscape for her, and today we'll make a dedicated portrait. Let's get into it! This is the portrait that we have today, I did
a quick portrait sketch of Lyris. Some of these tips may seem subjective at times,
but these tips are my personal favorites from over the years that I use to make my
portraits look awesome. So tip number one is: Grouping your shapes makes the painting process so much easier when
painting portraits and I'm gonna show you what I mean. So the way I sketched
this, I thought about grouping my shapes and I kept that in mind. So that's shape number one that's shape number two That's shape number three That's shape number four. You see here, by simplifying and grouping my shapes I've simplified
the painting process. Let me show you some real-life examples of portraits
being broken down. For this one right here we have the sweater, we have her
face, and then we have the hair. And if you want to paint this you can easily
dissect each area. For this one, we have this long shape here, we have the head,
and then the components. For this one it's a little more complex but the
shapes are still there: we have her head, her super curly hair, this jacket, and this
blouse. We have the head, we have the earring, we have the sliver of texture,
and the coat. So I'm gonna show you what I just did for NIMA. Yay! My OC NIMA- We have her skin, we have her coat, we have her hair, and then we have this shape. And then when you have your basic shapes, you go deeper into the shadow
shapes. But before we get to that, I'm going to tell you tip number two, which
is: I'm gonna do a classic portrait lighting, like a top 3/4 and that will dictate my shadow shapes. I've identified my light source, and this
is just like a math problem. I'm trying to figure out where the shadows lay on
the form. It's looking pretty good! Something to think
about is to imagine your character and think about what type of lighting
sources can bring out the life of your character, 'cause different lighting
scenarios will have a different impact on this. I'm gonna give her a more
mysterious look and do like a back rim lighting. So I'm gonna color dodge a
little bit Ooohoohoo- We have a really good foundation here, and so I'm going to
refine it a bit and I'll check back in with the next tip. Hey guys, welcome back and here's the
progress of our piece so far. And this is the perfect time to bring out the third
essential tip: Yeah, this is a personal favorite tip of mine that I
love using and I learned this from observing fashion makeup. I noticed when
I add a nice blush to my character it brings out a really natural beautiful
glow and so we rinse right here- Ooohoohoo! Look at that! Some blush here, and then some blush
tones under the eyes- Nice! Look at that I just use the blush tone and blended some of
these edges. It's a perfect segue into the fourth tip: This is something I learned at the beginning of my art journey, and by exaggerating
edges you make it more interesting and it stimulates the brain. Yeah, so I'm gonna lasso this right here- Ooo~ I'm gonna try this one up here, on this nose bit- So this
is before, and after. It's basically making the shadow and light sharper and
softer. I picked this up from some of the best digital portrait painters, they
really love exaggerating that sharpness and the softness. And the fifth and final
tip for painting portrait is: Yes! This will
instantly make your portrait pop. Right here- Oooohoohoo~ nice blue right here- yeah, placing this where the highlights
are; trying to get that nice little shine- Before and after. You can tell that it
brings it to life, it's instantly gratifying, and then we're gonna do the
reverse which are with deep shadows. Nice! I'm just kind of punching it out
with the instant gratification shadows and highlights to bring out the nice
feature of the portrait. To recap our five essential tips on painting
portraits: You know what, I'm gonna add one more nice
highlight. Ooohohooho~ I think the piece is looking really cool, I'm gonna finish it and I'll
check back in with the final. Hey guys! Welcome back and I hope you enjoyed the
episode. I personally love painting portraits and those are my personal
favorites that I've picked up from over the years. This video parallels my big
Patreon revamp, I'm redoing my entire patreon to focus more on world building
and all my Patrons this month will receive one of these four mystery
character pins! If you want to win a book or a print this video's question is: What is the tip that really stuck with you and helped
your art? For me I really loved warm light and cool shadows. I feel like that
solves a lot of my art problems, so let me know your favorite tip in the
comments below and we'll choose a lucky subscriber. Next week is the final week
of NIMAVERSE month! I'm bringing on a very good friend of mine and we're gonna
draw some character expressions. My book NIMA is coming out really really soon, I
can't wait. So hang tight, don't forget to subscribe, and remember: every day is a
color dodge day!
