An Interest In:
Web News this Week
- April 27, 2024
- April 26, 2024
- April 25, 2024
- April 24, 2024
- April 23, 2024
- April 22, 2024
- April 21, 2024
Create a Colorful Fantasy Digital Painting in Photoshop
In art, there are no wrong answers. That is especially true with digital art. There are a million techniques to produce the same piece of art. Some designers start out with a sketch, others create their artwork without a plan of any kind. In this tutorial, we will explain how to create a fantasy digital painting without a sketch. Let’s get started!
Preamble
This piece has been painted using a graphic tablet, a Wacom Intuos 4. The tutorial can be followed and accomplished without the use of a tablet as well, but painting with a mouse is not something I’d recommend. You have less precision (at least, with the common mice) and you have no opacity or flow jitter. With the mouse, it’s going to take you longer, be harder and it’s probably not going to look as precise and nice, which is why, if you want to get into digital painting (and you probably do, since you’re reading this), I seriously recommend that you to get a graphic tablet. For starters a Wacom Bamboo Fun is one of the best around and the price should be generally around $50.
Step 1 – Before starting
I’d like to start this tutorial by stating that this is not only going to be about THE actual painting. There is no point in explaining you just what I did without telling you why and how. Otherwise, you’d end up with a bad painting without having learned anything new. You’re reading this to learn something, so I’m going to teach you what you need to know in order to make a digital painting, based on my experience. I’ll explain my points of view, my thoughts during the process of creation, and some of my techniques. I can’t assure it will be the best way of doing it, because probably it’s not. But it is my way, which has been developed during years of practicing and it’s the one that currently works best for me.
I began this piece with no clue of what it will be like at the end. I almost never have a precise idea of what I want. I find it a boring way of making art. If you already know in your mind how it’s going to look like at the end, then there is no fun. You won’t be surprised of the result and you won’t enjoy experimenting at all! Instead, I like to let the mind and the hand flow free, waiting to have the right idea. You’ll understand better what I mean once you see the first steps of this painting.
Almost forgot: the only brush I used in this painting is the evergreen Hard Round Brush, which is the first brush you find in the Photoshop preset. There are people that when starts painting digitally, usually thinks that a lot revolves around the famous "custom brushes". They couldn’t be more wrong. With this tutorial I’ll show you that you can do anything with just the most common brush in Photoshop.
Step 2 – Let’s start!
Ok – here’s the first thing I do every time I start a new painting. I choose the background color. Why is this one pink? No real reason. It just inspired me in that particular moment.
We have a color. We’ve done a lot already. Really. I’m serious. If you decide a background color, then you automatically narrow the field of the kind of environments you can create. It’s pink, so we know that it won’t be a jungle, for example!
Ok, now we know a little bit more about the direction we’re going to take. We can do more, now: let’s add some colors.
You may wonder: "why these colors?" Orange is for fire, so I’m currently planning to have fire in the final image. It doesn’t mean there will 100% sure, but just that in that specific moment I wanted fire in it. That desaturated blue instead is there because it gives contrast to the warm colors there are in it now, and because I’m planning to paint rocks next and usually blue/grey are the kind of cold colors you find in rocks.