So you’ve decided to jump into the world of digital portraits? Good decision! Portraits can serve as a great exercise and a way to show your creativity whether it’s the bright smile of your best friend or the mysterious gaze of your hamster. Digital portraiture is fun and quite rewarding. The question is how do I begin?
Don’t worry; I’ve got everything you need in this easy, step-by-step guide-that by the end of the tutorial, you should feel confident enough to produce a portrait that looks polished and professional. Ready to get started? Then let’s get going!
Step 1: Collect Your Reference Image
This is the stage where we get down to brushes and layers but first need a reference image. It could be a photo of the person (animal, or maybe even alien) you want to draw from. When you’re just starting to do portraits, a reference can help you catch the proportions, angles, and little nuances that bring a face to life.
Pro Tip: Find a photo where the subject is brightly lit and facing the camera. It’s much easier to draw someone when their features are clear; unless you’re going for more of an abstract portraiture look, in which case, go for it!
Step 2: Prepare Your Canvas
Now that you have your reference, let’s open your digital art software (like Procreate, Photoshop, or Krita) and create a new canvas with portrait dimensions. Good rule of thumb being: around 2500 x 3500 pixels, but feel free to change it as you prefer. The bigger the canvas, the more playroom you’re going to have, giving you an image of yourself spreading out like a kid in a bouncy castle.
Tip for Newbies: If you plan on printing your portrait later, make sure you have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. So it won’t appear in a pixelated mess.
Step 3: Start with Basic Sketching
Grab your sketch brush (something soft, like a round pencil brush) and sketch down the basic structure of the face. Don’t worry about the details right now; big shapes: the outline of the head, the position of the eyes, the nose and mouth, and the jawlines. Try to focus more on getting the proportions right: usually the eyes are about halfway down the head. If that first sketch looks like some weird blob of shapes, don’t panic; every artist’s first sketch looks like a potato-it’s totally normal!
Pro Tip: If you’re really fervent about keeping some great proportions, be sure to use your guidelines (like a vertical line down the center and horizontal lines for eye level). This will pay off big time later on when future you doesn’t have the eyes miles apart or the nose somewhere in Neverland.
Step 4: Refine the Sketch
Refine your sketch once you are satisfied with the general layout. This is where the magic happens. Put more definition to the face shape, sketch the hairline, and detail the eyes, nose, and mouth. Consider general anatomy, which is probably the clearest as possible, very much focused on it. If the ears look like a pair of alien antennas-don’t worry, just adjust it!
Pro Tip: Reduce the opacity on your sketch layer, and create a new layer on top to add details. This keeps your lines clean and organized.
Step 5: Blocking in the Base Colors
And now for the fun- Coloring! On the new layer, block in the base colors that are meant for your portrait i.e. skin tone, hair, eyes, and lips. Don’t think too much about shading and detailing for now, just make sure that it’s on the right colors. Us
Should change appearance at this moment; this is the stage to use a hard round brush, as it can give you very solid and clean coverage. And to really lighten up the hair, don’t shy away from a much paler yellow or even gold for blonde hair, whereas browns and deep blacks can be used for darker shade.
Pro Tip: Use the eyedropper tool to suck colors from your reference photo. It feels a bit like stealing but also legal and so very cool.
Step 6: Add Shading and Depth
What really brings your portrait to life, however, is the shading. This step is where you get that depth and, honestly, a moving portrait-it’s that less flat quality by making shadow around in new layer-soft brush’s going beneath the chin, around-the-nose section, and along cheekbones.
Don’t even shy away from it being a little over-the-top; a portrait without contrast is like a pancake without syrup: just kind of bland. Shadows should follow the direction of your light source in your reference image.
Pro Tip: Use a soft-low opacity brush for smooth shading. You can build it up over time and adjust it when you need to. A lot more natural looks can be accomplished with super subtle layers of shading in bright lighting than with any one strike harsh stroke.
Step 7: Highlights and Details
Your secret weapon to making the portrait pop: highlights. Make sure to cover the areas where light hits: your forehead, nose, and cheekbones. Put in an even lighter color than that for your base skin tone, and diffuse to wash on highlights with that soft brush. You will want to have some extra tiny details such as eye glints, and some lip texture, and maybe add some fine hairs on the chin or eyebrows.
Pro Tip: Use layer blending modes to try out how your highlights will work with the rest of your image. Test with something like Soft Light and Overlay for an almost natural look.
Step 8: Polish and Refine
You are done shading, adding highlights, and having all those little details. However, that one little thing at the end of the process is needed to do all that magic to really set your subject apart.
Step 9: Final touches and background
Finally, “finish” the portrait by adding a soft background color, a textured layer to the hair, or a gradient to set it off from the subject. Do a final skim over the portrait: these little touch-ups can make a world of difference!
Pro Tip: If you’re feeling extra daring, throw in a bit of glow or texture to make the portrait feel more stylized. It is not overdone since it is a creation and not a neon sign; it’s a masterpiece.
Conclusion
Well done! You are done with your first digital portrait! ???? It might not look like a Renaissance painting yet (Rome wasn’t built in a day), but with practice and a little patience, you’ll see big improvements in your art.
So take out your stylus and start sketching; don’t worry, you will mess up. It is what you should do. Every time, you will do it, and you’ll do better and better with every picture. Who knows? Maybe the next great digital portrait master?
Happy painting! ????✨